Late in World War II, after the Yalta conference in 1945, the Japanese were involved in a land battle with Russia. A tank crew hankering for fresh baked bread, but worried that a fire would give away their location, attached their tank’s battery to a hunk of dough and electrocuted it. They found that this made the leftover crumbs light and fluffy — and, over an unspecified period of time, the process was honed to created panko breadcrumbs.