Talk about equality

Fictional Jack Armstrong was the first to appear on a Wheaties box. It was 1934.

A fictional character, a baseball player and a female pilot were the first three faces on aWheatiesbox.

In 1934,Wheatiesfeatured New York Yankee first baseman Lou Gehrig. He was the first living person featured. Fictional Jack Armstrong had already made an appearance on the box earlier that year, a first forWheaties. Later in '34, daring aviator Elinor Smith became the first woman to appear on the box.

Gehrig and Smith were on the package back—although Gehrig forged a path. It wasn't long before the brand and baseball cemented a relationship. By 1939, 46 of the 51 players selected for Major League Baseball's All-Star Game endorsed the product.

直到1958年someone appeared on the package front. That was Olympic pole vaulter Bob Richards, who became the brand's first spokesperson.

By 2016,Wheatieshad featured seven official spokespersons: Richards and fellow Olympians Bruce Jenner and Mary Lou Retton; football's Walter Payton; tennis player Chris Evert; basketball's Michael Jordan; and golfer Tiger Woods.

Find out more atwheaties.com.

Breakfast of Champions

Mr. Basketball and Ike

The Wheaties Sports Federation was created in 1958 as a response to a call to action by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, who publicized the effort with NBA star George Mikan, Working with Eisenhower's Council of Youth Fitness, General Mills created the federation in part to educate kids about nutrition and exercise.

That Reagan fellow

In 1937, Ronald Reagan—later to become president of the U.S.—was voted the most popular radio announcer on baseball broadcasts sponsored byWheaties. In those days, broadcasters didn't see the game. They recreated it from game accounts transmitted to them after the action happened.

'Breakfast of Champions'

That phrase first appeared at Nicollet Park in Minneapolis in 1933. The slogan was part of the $10,000 deal thatWheatiesstruck for the rights to broadcast Minneapolis Millers' baseball games on WCCO. The Minneapolis radio station was started by the Washburn Crosby Co., ancestor of General Mills.

'Spark up,' you young 'uns

In the 1940s and '50s, future Hall of Fame baseball player Stan Musial was featured on more than just the box ofWheaties. Musial's cartoon likeness appeared in full-color panels in comic strips, in which he would tell kids to "Spark up withWheaties."

Look, up in the sky

In 1940, General Mills manufactured 6.4 million airplanes. Model airplanes, that is. The airplane-making sprint was all part of aWheatiespromotion. If people bought two boxes ofWheaties, they could take home a Jack Armstrong Sky Ranger and make it fly.