Buon giorno! (That's "good day" or "hello" in Italian.) The Italians invented pizza as we know it today, in southern Italy, in a city called Naples. Pizza in the 1700s, though, probably tasted a little different. It was made with just a few ingredients: bread topped with garlic, butter and salt. (That's not exactly the Meatzza we know and love today!)

Most pizza was sold on the streets as a cheap meal for the poor. No one knows for sure when tomatoes were added. One legend says fishermen would eat pizza for breakfast. That's why tomato sauce is called marinara sauce -- marinara means "seafaring" in Italian. The more expensive pizzas included cheese and basil. (Now, that sounds more like it!) Come buono! (How good!)

The pie officially arrived in the United States when a man named Gennaro Lombardi opened a pizza shop in New York City in 1905. But pizza didn't catch on until the late 1940s, when Italian immigrant workers, unable to afford a whole pie, would buy a slice from Lombardi for lunch. Workers paid what they could afford, and Lombardi would cut a big or small slice based on how much they gave him. (Lombardi's Pizza still exists in New York City today, but in a different location.)

April 5 is National Deep Dish Pizza Day. Deep-dish pizza has a thicker crust and is different from Lombardi's "New York Style" pizza. Pizzeria Uno is credited for inventing the first deep-dish pizza in Chicago in 1943. The idea was to make pizza more of a meal than a snack.

According to Packaged Facts, a company that does research on what Americans eat and drink, every man, woman and child in America eats 46 slices of pizza a year on average. That may not seem like a whole lot, but with the U.S. population at more than 300 million people, that means Americans eat more than 13.8 billion pieces of pizza each year.

Deep-dish pizza is considered "American pizza," but you might have your own idea of what American pizza is. Maybe yours includes goat cheese, peppers and broccoli. Whatever your favorite pizza, one thing is for sure: Pizza has come a long way!

-- Moira E. McLaughlin