McDonald's launched its first national breakfast menu in the United States in 1977.
The national breakfast rollout built on regional tests and on the popularity of breakfast items such as the Egg McMuffin. By adding a dedicated morning menu, McDonald's extended its brand beyond the traditional lunch and dinner occasions associated with hamburgers and fries.
The Egg McMuffin had been created by Herb Peterson and introduced earlier, in 1972. Its success helped demonstrate that McDonald's could offer a portable breakfast while preserving the company's emphasis on speed and consistency.
People sometimes use the Egg McMuffin's introduction as the date for the national breakfast program. Those are different milestones: the sandwich appeared in 1972, while the first national United States breakfast menu launched in 1977.