--- title: "Which came first, the aeroplane or Coca-Cola?" description: "the aeroplane vs Coca-Cola: Coca-Cola came first, by 17 years — 1886 against 1903. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently." url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-coca-cola/ site: "At One Place" --- # Which came first, the aeroplane or Coca-Cola? **Which came first, the aeroplane or Coca-Cola?: Coca-Cola** 1886 — 17 years before the aeroplane Coca-Cola came first, by 17 years. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. ## Side by side | | the aeroplane | Coca-Cola | | --- | --- | --- | | Year | 1903 | 1886 | | Date | 1903-12-17 | 1886-05-08 | | Category | invention | company | | What happened | The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. | John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. | ## the aeroplane The first flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 metres — less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747. The Wrights' real contribution was not the engine but three-axis control, which they worked out with a wind tunnel of their own design after finding the published lift tables wrong. Sixty-six years separate that flight from the Moon landing, well within a single lifetime. ## Coca-Cola Coca-Cola went on sale in May 1886 as a patent medicine, selling about nine glasses a day in its first year. Pemberton sold the rights for a few thousand dollars and died in 1888 without seeing any of it. Pepsi followed in 1893 under the name Brad's Drink, renamed Pepsi-Cola in 1898 — so Coke is seven years older, and both are older than the Ford Motor Company. ## Common questions ### Which came first, the aeroplane or Coca-Cola? Coca-Cola, by 17 years — 1886 against 1903. ### When did the aeroplane start? 1903. The Wright Flyer made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. ### When did Coca-Cola start? 1886. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. ## Related pages - [the car or Coca-Cola?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/car-vs-coca-cola/) - [the aeroplane or the Statue of Liberty?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-statue-of-liberty/) - [the aeroplane or the Eiffel Tower?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-eiffel-tower/) - [the aeroplane or the hamburger?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-hamburger/) - [the aeroplane or the bicycle?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-bicycle/) - [the aeroplane or photography?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-photograph/) - [the aeroplane or the fax machine?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-fax-machine/) - [the aeroplane or the telephone?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-telephone/) - [the aeroplane or the lightbulb?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-lightbulb/) - [the aeroplane or the car?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-car/) - [the aeroplane or television?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-television/) - [the aeroplane or Nintendo?](https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/aeroplane-vs-nintendo/) ## Sources - Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/) - Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]