the year 2015

Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs hosts an annual hot dog eating contest at the site of their first restaurant at the corner of Surf and Stillwell avenues in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York. There are other hot dog contests but none are as famous or claim to have a long a history as the Nathan's hot dog eating contest.

According to oral history, in 1916, four immigrants had a Nathan's hot dog eating contest at the site of the first Nathan's Famous stand to settle an argument about who was the most patriotic, though it may have been a publicity stunt. After 12 minutes, Irish-born Jim Mullen had eaten 13 hot dogs and the other three contestants could not go on.

Ever since, a 12 minute contest has been held every year on July 4, Independence Day, usually at noon (except for years 1939, 1940, and 1941 as a protest to World War II and 1971 as a protest to civil unrest). In 1993 There was a one time one-on-one contest under the Brooklyn Bridge between Mike "The Scholar" DeVito and Orio Ito.