Spam was launched in 1937 in the US but was known as Hormel spiced ham until a contest to find "a name as distinctive as the taste".
The Spam museum was opened in Austin, Minnesota, in 2001.
Baroness Thatcher considered it a "wartime delicacy".
By 2002, Spam had sold six billion cans.
Residents of Hawaii eat an average of four cans per person per year, more than anywhere else.
Nikita Kruschev credited Spam with the survival of the Russian army during the Second World War.
In America 3.8 cans are consumed every second.
Spam became a term for junk e-mails because they drown normal discourse on the internet like the Monty Python Vikings drowned out conversation by chanting "Spam!"
