Which came first?
435 comparisons drawn from 89 dated things. The interesting ones are where the obvious answer is wrong — the fax machine predates the telephone by thirty years, and Nintendo is older than the Ford Motor Company.
The ones that surprise people
- Nintendo (1889) is older than the Ford Motor Company (1903). It began making playing cards.
- The fax machine was patented in 1843, more than thirty years before the telephone in 1876.
- Oxford was teaching by about 1096, well before the Aztec Empire was founded in 1428.
- Sharks predate trees. Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the building of the Great Pyramid.
Everything, oldest first
| Year | What | Category |
|---|---|---|
| 450 million years ago | sharks | nature |
| 385 million years ago | trees | nature |
| 68 million years ago | Tyrannosaurus rex | nature |
| 300,000 BCE | Homo sapiens | nature |
| 12,400 BCE | bread | food |
| 7,000 BCE | beer | food |
| 6,000 BCE | wine | food |
| 3,000 BCE | Stonehenge | landmark |
| 2,560 BCE | the Great Pyramid of Giza | landmark |
| 1,900 BCE | chocolate | food |
| 1,650 BCE | the last woolly mammoths | nature |
| 221 BCE | the Great Wall of China | landmark |
| 59 BCE | tea | food |
| 80 | the Colosseum | landmark |
| 600 | chess | media |
| 1096 | Oxford University | institution |
| 1428 | the Aztec Empire | country |
| 1440 | the printing press | invention |
| 1450 | coffee | food |
| 1653 | the Taj Mahal | landmark |
| 1707 | the United Kingdom | country |
| 1712 | the steam engine | invention |
| 1762 | the sandwich | food |
| 1776 | the United States | country |
| 1780 | pizza | food |
| 1804 | the railway locomotive | invention |
| 1817 | the bicycle | invention |
| 1826 | photography | invention |
| 1843 | the fax machine | invention |
| 1859 | Big Ben | landmark |
| 1861 | Italy | country |
| 1867 | Canada | country |
| 1871 | Germany | country |
| 1876 | the telephone | invention |
| 1879 | the lightbulb | invention |
| 1882 | electricity as a public supply | invention |
| 1886 | Coca-Cola | company |
| 1886 | the car | invention |
| 1886 | the Statue of Liberty | landmark |
| 1889 | Nintendo | company |
| 1889 | the Eiffel Tower | landmark |
| 1896 | the modern Olympic Games | institution |
| 1900 | the hamburger | food |
| 1903 | the aeroplane | invention |
| 1903 | the Ford Motor Company | company |
| 1904 | Monopoly | media |
| 1911 | IBM | company |
| 1925 | television | invention |
| 1928 | Mickey Mouse | media |
| 1931 | the Empire State Building | landmark |
| 1932 | LEGO | company |
| 1938 | Samsung | company |
| 1940 | Fanta | food |
| 1940 | McDonald's | company |
| 1946 | Sony | company |
| 1947 | India | country |
| 1947 | Pakistan | country |
| 1961 | Sprite | food |
| 1966 | Star Trek | media |
| 1969 | the internet (ARPANET) | technology |
| 1969 | Unix | technology |
| 1971 | technology | |
| 1972 | C | technology |
| 1975 | Microsoft | company |
| 1976 | Apple | company |
| 1977 | Star Wars | media |
| 1981 | Mario | media |
| 1984 | Tetris | media |
| 1984 | the Macintosh | technology |
| 1985 | Windows | technology |
| 1989 | the World Wide Web | technology |
| 1991 | Linux | technology |
| 1991 | Python | technology |
| 1994 | Amazon | technology |
| 1995 | eBay | technology |
| 1995 | Java | technology |
| 1995 | JavaScript | technology |
| 1997 | Harry Potter | media |
| 1997 | Netflix | technology |
| 1998 | technology | |
| 2001 | Wikipedia | technology |
| 2004 | technology | |
| 2005 | YouTube | technology |
| 2006 | Spotify | technology |
| 2006 | technology | |
| 2007 | the iPhone | technology |
| 2008 | Android | technology |
| 2010 | technology | |
| 2016 | TikTok | technology |
Popular comparisons
- sharks or Tyrannosaurus rex? sharks
- sharks or the United States? sharks
- Tyrannosaurus rex or the United States? Tyrannosaurus rex
- the Great Pyramid of Giza or sharks? sharks
- the Great Pyramid of Giza or Tyrannosaurus rex? Tyrannosaurus rex
- the Great Pyramid of Giza or the United States? the Great Pyramid of Giza
- the Great Pyramid of Giza or pizza? the Great Pyramid of Giza
- the Great Pyramid of Giza or Nintendo? the Great Pyramid of Giza
- the Great Pyramid of Giza or the iPhone? the Great Pyramid of Giza
- Big Ben or the Statue of Liberty? Big Ben
- Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower? Big Ben
- Big Ben or Germany? Big Ben
- Big Ben or the fax machine? the fax machine
- Big Ben or the telephone? Big Ben
- Big Ben or the lightbulb? Big Ben
- the Statue of Liberty or the telephone? the telephone
- the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty? the Statue of Liberty
- the Eiffel Tower or Germany? Germany
- the Eiffel Tower or the hamburger? the Eiffel Tower
- the Eiffel Tower or the telephone? the telephone
- the Eiffel Tower or the lightbulb? the lightbulb
- the Eiffel Tower or Nintendo? the Eiffel Tower
- the Eiffel Tower or the Ford Motor Company? the Eiffel Tower
- the Eiffel Tower or Monopoly? the Eiffel Tower
- Germany or the Statue of Liberty? Germany
- Germany or the United States? the United States
- Germany or Pakistan? Germany
- Germany or India? Germany
- Germany or the telephone? Germany
- Germany or the lightbulb? Germany
- Germany or Nintendo? Germany
- Pakistan or the United States? the United States
- Pakistan or television? television
- Pakistan or Samsung? Samsung
- India or the United States? the United States
- India or Pakistan? India
- India or television? television
- India or LEGO? LEGO
- India or Samsung? Samsung
- India or McDonald's? McDonald's
Common questions
- Which came first, Google or Facebook?
- Google, by six years — incorporated 1998 against Facebook in 2004.
- Why do founding dates differ between sources?
- Because companies have several candidate dates — incorporation, first product, public launch — and different sources pick different ones. Where a date is genuinely contested, the page says which reading it uses and what the alternatives are.