---
title: "Which came first, Coca-Cola or the Eiffel Tower?"
description: "Coca-Cola vs the Eiffel Tower: Coca-Cola came first, by 3 years — 1886 against 1889. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/coca-cola-vs-eiffel-tower/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Coca-Cola or the Eiffel Tower?

**Which came first, Coca-Cola or the Eiffel Tower?: Coca-Cola**

1886 — 3 years before the Eiffel Tower

Coca-Cola came first, by 3 years. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

## Side by side

|  | Coca-Cola | the Eiffel Tower |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1889 |
| Date | 1886-05-08 | 1889-03-31 |
| Category | company | landmark |
| What happened | John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. | The tower opened for the Paris Exposition Universelle. |

## 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.

## the Eiffel Tower

Built for the 1889 World's Fair and intended to be dismantled after twenty years, the Eiffel Tower survived because it turned out to be useful as a radio antenna. It was the tallest structure in the world until the Chrysler Building in 1930. It opened in the same year Nintendo was founded, and two and a half years after the Statue of Liberty it is often assumed to predate.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Coca-Cola or the Eiffel Tower?

Coca-Cola, by 3 years — 1886 against 1889.

### When did Coca-Cola start?

1886. John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta.

### When did the Eiffel Tower start?

1889. The tower opened for the Paris Exposition Universelle.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]