Today is...Pi Day

Today is Pi Day: a day to celebrate pi—the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter (3:14). What is your favorite pie?

Pie first appeared around 9500 BC in the Egyptian Neolithic period. They started out as freeform, flat, pastry wrapped around honey, called a gallette.

The first reference to "pyes" appeared in the 12th century in England.

King Henry VI had Peacock pie at his coronation in 1429.

Though apple pie became a symbol of American prosperity and national pride in the 19th and 20th centuries, it has its history in England, the Netherlands, and Sweden.

Some pies are pies in name only, like the Boston cream pie, which is actually a cake.

Through pie at someone can be either a slapstick act or a political statement, depending on the target and intention.

The first "pie to the face" gag was in the silent film Mr. Flip, starring Ben Turpin in 1909, where a pie was pushed into his face for taking liberties with a woman.

The first political pieing was in 1970 when the founder of High Times magazine, Thomas King Forcade pied Otto N. Larsen, the Chairman of the President's Commission on Obscenity and Pornography.