Canning novelty. Early methods of manufacture employed poisonous lead solder for sealing the cans. Studies in the 1980s attributed the lead from the cans as a factor in the disastrous outcome of the 1845 Franklin expedition to chart and navigate the Northwest Passage. Later studies found this to be false. Increasing mechanization of the canning process, coupled with a huge increase in urban populations across Europe, resulted in a rising demand for canned food. A number of inventions and improvements followed, and by the 1860s smaller machine-made steel cans were possible, and the time to cook food in sealed cans had
Capital Area Food Bank Light Foundation. On Inauguration Day, 1993, more than thirty-five thousand cans, including one from Tipper Gore, were collected for the Capital Area Food Bank. In 1999, President Bill Clinton visited the food bank to volunteer and George W. Bush duplicated that act in 2002. Likewise, less than two weeks before Super Bowl XXXVIII in 2004, U.S. First Lady Laura Bush visited the Capital Area Food Bank to encourage Americans to participate in charitable activities. Other politicians have shown their support for the food bank by donating or otherwise promoting the cause of the Capital Area Food Bank. In 2005, for