Which came first, Apple or McDonald's?

McDonald's came first, by 36 years. Richard and Maurice McDonald opened a restaurant in San Bernardino.

Side by side

Apple

Apple was founded on 1 April 1976, a year and a day after Microsoft. Ronald Wayne, the third founder, sold his 10% stake back for $800 twelve days later. The Apple I was a bare circuit board sold for $666.66; the Apple II of 1977 was the machine that made the company.

McDonald's

The brothers opened in 1940 as a barbecue drive-in and reinvented it in 1948 with the Speedee Service System — a tiny menu, no waiters, food assembled on a production line. The company itself dates its founding to 15 April 1955, when Ray Kroc opened his franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois. Both dates are defensible and the corporate one is not the restaurant one.