Today, June 3, is National Doughnut Day. If pressed, one can get a free sweet treat at your nearest Dunkin Donut or Krispy Kreme. Or, better yet, you can get a free donut at Dynamo Donuts, the city's finest purveyors of circular treats, which you can find at 2760 24th Street, between Hampshire and York.

How did National Doughnut Day start, exactly? Good question. Your answer: National Doughnut Day was created in 1938 by the Salvation Army "to honor the women who served donuts to soldiers during World War I" and those affected by the Great Depression. Wikipedia has more:

Soon after the US entrance into World War I in 1917, the Salvation Army sent a fact-finding mission to France. The mission concluded that "huts" that could serve baked goods, provide writing supplies and stamps, and provide a clothes-mending service, would serve the needs of US enlisted men. Six staff members per hut should include four female volunteers who could "mother" the boys. (The canteens/social centres that were established by the Salvation Army in the United States near army training centers were called "huts".)

About 250 Salvation Army volunteers went to France. Because of the difficulties of providing freshly baked goods from huts established in abandoned buildings near to the front lines, two Salvation Army volunteers (Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance) came up with the idea of providing doughnuts. These are reported to have been an "instant hit", and "soon many soldiers were visiting Salvation Army huts". Margaret Sheldon wrote of one busy day "Today I made 22 pies, 300 doughnuts, 700 cups of coffee."