Though tacos gained popularity as a Mexican street snack in the late 1800s (and wrapping food in tortillas traces back to the Aztecs), this is the year of their first known mention in a U.S. newspaper. Brought across the border by migrant workers, tacos were typically sold out of pushcarts in border cities like San Antonio and L.A.

At Mitla Cafe in San Bernardino, CA, the Rodriguez family’s fried tacos dorados—literally “golden tacos”—hit the scene. Three decades later a dude named Glen Bell would take notice, infiltrate the kitchen, and use them as the model for the standardized hard-shell tacos at his own restaurant, a little place called Taco Bell. Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

Tacos get the official American food treatment of the day when a company named Ashley Foods of El Paso (a precursor to Old El Paso) markets the first taco dinner kit nationally. It introduces the concept of tacos as “Mexican sandwiches.” Oof. The kit includes Ashley brand canned tortillas (…no comment), beans, taco sauce, and…a tortilla fryer.

Second-generation Lebanese immigrants in Mexico City adapt the shawarma rotisserie technique into the trompo—a vertical slow-cooked pork spit, marinated with pineapple and sliced onto a tortilla—which became what we know today as tacos al pastor. It would take another generation, however, before they became a standard in taquerias across the U.S.

Mexico City traffic cop turned Los Angeles dishwasher turned entrepreneur Raul Martinez converts an ice cream truck into the world’s first taco truck. He parks it outside a bar in Cypress Park, selling meaty soft-shell tacos topped with his signature homemade salsa. It’s so successful that he opens a brick-and-mortar within six months, which today has expanded into the multimillion-dollar restaurant chain King Taco.

Rubio’s—a chain specializing in deep-fried breaded fish tacos referred to as Baja style—opens in San Diego. Though popular among surfer bros in Southern California in the 1960s, fish tacos were eaten in Mexican seaside communities across the Pacific and Gulf Coasts long before any of the Beach Boys were even born.

Fast-food chain Taco John’s trademarks Taco Tuesday® nationally (except in New Jersey, where Gregory’s Hotel, of all places, holds the trademark and dares to also serve tacos on Thursdays). Both companies have held tight to their trademarks, much to the chagrin of LeBron James, who tried and failed to get his own in 2019.

The Mexican peso crisis—a sudden devaluation of the peso against the dollar—leads to mass migration across the border and beyond to places like Kentucky and New York. Regional tacos such as al pastor, placeros, and birria come too, expanding America’s taco horizons for good.

Welcome to the world, taco emoji! After years of griping from taco-hungry typers around the world, an official Taco Bell petition, and multiple rounds of tacoless additions (including four types of mailboxes and 25 clocks), the Unicode Consortium adds to the official emoji keyboard a tiny taco, cementing its status as pop culture icon. Except…it’s a hard shell. The battle continues.