Yesterday marked the 60th anniversary of the opening of a small hamburger restaurant in Des Plaines, Illinois — the first of what would become one of the world’s best-recognized brand names — McDonald’s. The franchise shop belonged Ray Kroc, whose main interest at the time was selling the machines that mixed milkshakes. The name came from two McDonald brothers who ran a hamburger shop in California. The first day’s revenue at the Illinois outlet was $366 and 12 cents. That shop is now a museum housing artifacts from the growth of the chain, which has famously served billions of hamburgers around the world. In the U.S. today, there are nearly a quarter-million fast-food outlets serving hamburgers and other comestibles, with earnings of $185 billion per year. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.