Christmas cracker tradition of wearing festive hats is believed to date back to Roman times and the Saturnalia celebrations, which also involved decorative headgear. Christmas crackers are also associated with Knut's parties, held in Sweden at the end of the Christmas season. The "Oxford English Dictionary" records the use of "cracker bonbons" and the pulling of "crackers" from 1847. Tradition tells of how Tom Smith of London invented crackers in 1847. He created the crackers as a development of his bon-bon sweets, which he sold in a twist of paper (the origins of the traditional sweet-wrapper). As sales of bon-bons slumped, Smith
Tom Baker (professor) Tom Baker (professor) Tom Baker (born 1959) is professor of law and a scholar of insurance law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Tom Baker holds both a BA (1982) and a JD (1986) from Harvard University. Baker clerked for Judge Juan R. Torruella of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. He then practiced with the firm of Covington and Burling in Washington, DC. He served as an Associate Counsel for the Independent Counsel investigating the Iran-Contra affair. Before joining Penn Law in 2008, he was Connecticut Mutual Professor of Law and director of the