Every July Fourth, announcers retell the same origin story before Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest: In 1916, four immigrants on Coney Island settled an argument over who was the most patriotic American by seeing who could eat the most hot dogs in 12 minutes. James Mullen, an Irish immigrant, won with 13.
It never happened.
‘A hot dog is like a pop idol. Hot dogs are cute.’
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The story was invented in the early 1970s by two Nathan’s press agents, Max Rosey and Mortimer Matz, who needed a brand-new publicity stunt to make the contest look like a decades-old American tradition.
In 2010, Matz admitted to the New York Times: “In Coney Island pitchman style, we made it up.” A Nathan’s spokesman later confirmed the company “had no
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