Long ago and many bakeries before Wonder was born

9000-8000 BC: Wheat domesticated in the foothills of the Fertile Crescent. First bread is probably an accident -- porridge falls on a hot hearthstone and stiffens.

4000 BC: Risen bread invented in Egypt. Oven develops from a temporary cover set over the hearthstone to retain its heat.

2000 BC: Professional bakers working in Egypt; eventually more than 70 varieties of bread are known there.

1500 BC: The Israelites’ hurried exodus from Egypt, without time to make leavened bread, ever since commemorated in the eating of unleavened bread at Passover.

33 AD: At the Last Supper, Christ breaks bread with his disciples in the original meal reenacted in the Eucharist.

110: Juvenal satirizes the Romans for contenting themselves with “bread and circuses.” Romans have picked up the trick using beer yeast, rather than sour dough, from conquered Celts and Germans.

626: First year of Muslim calendar. According to tradition, Muhammad once said, “All honor to bakers.”

1266: Assize of Bread and Ale decrees prices and weights of breads in England. To avoid severe punishments for underweight bread, bakers start giving customers little extras; the “baker’s dozen.”

17th century: English and Dutch start baking their bread in loaf pans, paving the way for invention of the sandwich.

1834: Development of the roller mill, which brings refined flour within the budget of ordinary people.

1837: “A Treatise on Bread and Bread Making,” which denounces refined flour, provokes a mob of Boston bakers to attack author Sylvester Graham.

1928: Otto Rohwedder introduces the bread-slicing machine. Expression “greatest thing since sliced bread” enters the language.

1950s: Dietitians dubious about bread (“empty calories”).

1980s: Dietitians embrace bread (“complex carbohydrates”).

1990s: Dietitians dubious about bread again (Zone, Atkins diets).

2001: L.A.-based La Brea Bakery, specializing in traditionally leavened breads, sold for $55 million.

2003: Humanitarian relief in Iraq includes flour and yeast.