Uber muckraking journalist Upton Sinclair died 40 years ago today. Those worried about the current state of food production may turn to new industry bibles Fast Food Nation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma. But long before Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan rifled, or could rifle for that matter, through the country’s proverbial pantries and kitchens, Sinclair wrote The Jungle, a 1906 expose of the meat packing industry so grim and incendiary as to cause the U.S. to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act. It’s thanks to him that The Naked Gun scene where they find the finger in their hot dogs at the baseball games is funny because it’s absurd…and not real.

Also today…

1867: Alfred Nobel commits to his…explosive… idea by patenting dynamite.

1947: The Red Scare intensifies as the House Un-American Activities Committee blacklists the “Hollywood Ten.”

1963: President John F. Kennedy reaches a final resting place at Arlington Cemetery.

1986: Iran Contra Affair.

1992: Czechoslovakia becomes the Czech Republic and Slovakia.