National Fig Newton Day

National Fig Newton Day, observed January 16th, celebrates the soft, fig-filled cookie that has been a lunchbox staple since the late 19th century. The cookie was named after Newton, Massachusetts, a town near where the Kennedy Biscuit Company, a predecessor of Nabisco, was based when it began mass-producing the treat in 1891 using a newly invented machine that could simultaneously form the dough and inject the fig filling, a major manufacturing innovation for its time. Fig-filled pastries themselves have a much older history, with fig rolls documented in various forms across Mediterranean and European baking traditions for centuries before the American cookie standardized the format. Nabisco eventually rebranded the product simply as "Newtons" in 2012, in part to broaden the line beyond fig to flavors like strawberry and blueberry, though many people still refer to the classic version as a Fig Newton. On National Fig Newton Day, people celebrate by snacking on the classic cookie, baking a homemade version with fig filling, or reflecting on the cookie's surprisingly industrial origin story.