Although its name derives from the terms “Spiced Ham,” Spam looks little like the food ham. It is a canned and precooked meat product that has been the topic of pop culture jokes in Monty Python and other sketches.

It was on this day, July 5th, in 1937, Hormel Foods Corporation introduced Spam to consumers for the first time.

Despite the jokes about the product, Spam is still consumed in large quantities throughout the United States. On average, about 3.8 cans of Spam are consumed every second throughout the country. The seven billionth can of Spam was sold in the year 2007, forty years after its first production.