We can owe the entire bundt cake phenomenon to one single recipe: the Tunnel of Fudge cake.
Following World War II, a man named H. David Dahlquist returned home to Minneapolis after serving in the Navy. With a degree in chemical engineering, he founded a small bake-ware company called Nordic Ware. In 1950, members of the women’s Zionist group Hadassah approached Dahlquist and asked him to create a modern pan to make the classic European pastry kugelhopf – a tall, brioche cake baked in ceramic molds. The company developed a round, aluminum tube pan and trademarked the name “bundt.” Read more about it's history at http://www.americantable.org/2016/01/recipe-tunnel-of-fudge-cake-1966/