To put it simply, Sweetest Day every October 19, is a day to be sweet by sharing a kind thought, a small gift or a gesture of kindness. It’s a day to give someone you appreciate a card with a sweet message. People also share little gifts of candy and other sweets.
- 1913 – Hallmark starts offering Valentine’s Cards, leading to an average expenditure of $140 by most Americans.
- 1916 – The National Confectioners’ Association founded Candy Day, which became National Sweetest Day.
- 1921 – A committee of 12 confectioners in Cleveland staged the world’s first Sweetest Day by distributing 20,000 boxes of candy
- 1922 – Efforts to spread the Sweetest Day phenomenon beyond the Midwest met a lukewarm reception
- 1927 – The New York Times decreed that there would be a Sweetest Week. A decade later, the same newspaper announced that industry representatives were trying to get National Sweetest Day to rank alongside other significant calendar events, such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.
- 1930s – Movie stars such as Ann Pennington and Theda Bara celebrated the day by giving out sweets and boxes of candy to hospital patients, newspaper boys, theatergoers, and more.
- 1937 – Efforts by the candy industry to kickstart “sweetest week” also fall flat
- 1960s – Before this, the celebration was a grassroots movement in the Midwestern United States, but as Hallmark began making cards, the day expanded
- 1987 – U2’s song “Sweetest Thing” is released. Originally released on the B side of “Where the Streets Have No Name”, the song “Sweetest Thing” is a number-one hit in Ireland and Canada
- 2002 – The Sweetest Thing film is released. Starring Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, and Thomas Jane, this rom-com ranks highly in Ebert & Roper’s Big Stars in Big Bombs, but Cameron Diaz’s career doesn’t seem to suffer for it.
- 2019 – The Candy Club reported a three-way tie for the sweetest candies in the world, based on sugar content by weight. The winners? Nerds, Pixie Sticks and Fun-Dip.
- 80% – The percentage of Sweetest Day cards that are romantically inclined.
- 17 – The number of states that celebrate the holiday, which is mainly observed in the Midwest.
- Ohio is the number one celebrator of Sweetest Day
- Candy Corn and Pixy Stix are tied for the sweetest candies, with 94% sugar.
- Nerds Candy follows closely, with 93% sugar.
- Spangler Assorted Circus Peanuts contain 92% sugar.
- Charms Fluffy Stuff Cotton Candy is nearly pure sugar, making it one of the sweetest.
- Skittles, with over 70% sugar by weight, are the sweetest fruit candy option.
- The sweetest compound in the world is a protein known as Thaumatin, which was first found in the katemfe fruits in West Africa and can be 2000 times sweeter than sucrose
- According to Guinness World Records, thaumatin is 3,250 times sweeter than sugar.
- Traditionally, Sweetest Day is for women to show the men in their lives how much they appreciate them.
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