Cheesecake's History
776 B.C.
Cheesecakes, called libum, were served to athletes during the first Olympic games on the Isle of Delos¹.
200 B.C.
Marcus Porcius Cato, a Roman politican, wrote a De re Rustica and included a recipe for a cake similar to cheesecakes².
1000 A.D.
Cheesecake was brought to Great Britain and Western Europe by Roman armies¹.
1872
William Lawrence tried to reproduce a French cheese called Neufchatel, but instead he created what we know today as cream cheese. He distributed it in foil wrappers and soon named it Philadelphia Cream Cheese².
1903
The Pheonix Cheese Company of New York bought Lawrence's business and the Philadelphia trademark².
1912
James L. Kraft invented pasteurized cheese, which lead to the development of pasteurized Philadelphia Brand cream cheese, which was bought by Kraft Cheese Company in 1928².
1929
Arnold Reuben, owner of the Turf restaurant, claimed that he developed the first cake made of cream cheese, which was developed from a cheese pie recipe³.
¹ What's Cooking America-History ofCheesecake
²About.com Inventors- The History of Cheesecake and Cream Cheese