10 Things You Didn't Know About Snickers

There's a lot you may not know about America's favorite candy bar.

Frank Mars, founder of Mars, Inc. (originally called Mar-O-Bar Co.), invented the Snickers bar in 1930.

The candy bar is named after one of Frank Mars' favorite horses, Snickers. But until 1990, the bar was sold under the name "Marathon" in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and Ireland.

Snickers are sold in more than 70 countries and annual global sales total more than $2 billion, making it the best-selling candy bar in the world.

When it was first sold in 1930, a Snickers bar was only five cents. Today, it costs about a dollar or two.

A Snickers bar wasn't always a single bar. For a short time between 1933 and 1935, it was sold as a two-piece bar and called "Double Snickers."

Peanuts are one of the star ingredients in a Snickers bar, and each bar contains about 16 peanuts. About 100 tons of peanuts go into making the 15 million Snickers bars that are produced every day.

The pattern that forms on the bottom of every Snickers bar comes from the conveyer belt on which bars cool at the Mars factory.

When the movie Shrek the Third was released in theaters in 2007, Mars, Inc. introduced a limited-edition Snickers bar that had a green-colored nougat layer.

Snickers was the official snack-food sponsor of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

During the first Gulf War in 1991, every U.S. soldier was sent a frozen Snickers bar as a Thanksgiving treat.