---
title: "Which came first, Coca-Cola or the lightbulb?"
description: "Coca-Cola vs the lightbulb: the lightbulb came first, by 7 years — 1879 against 1886. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/coca-cola-vs-lightbulb/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Coca-Cola or the lightbulb?

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

1879 — 7 years before Coca-Cola

the lightbulb came first, by 7 years. Edison's carbon filament lamp burned for over 13 hours.

## Side by side

|  | Coca-Cola | the lightbulb |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1886 | 1879 |
| Date | 1886-05-08 | 1879-10-22 |
| Category | company | invention |
| What happened | John Pemberton first sold his syrup at a pharmacy in Atlanta. | Edison's carbon filament lamp burned for over 13 hours. |

## 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 lightbulb

Edison did not invent the electric light. Humphry Davy demonstrated an arc lamp in 1802, and at least twenty inventors produced incandescent bulbs before him; Joseph Swan demonstrated one in Newcastle in 1878 and was granted a British patent, which is why Edison eventually had to merge with him as Ediswan. What Edison produced in October 1879 was a bulb that lasted long enough and cost little enough to sell, together with the generating and wiring system to make it useful.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Coca-Cola or the lightbulb?

the lightbulb, by 7 years — 1879 against 1886.

### When did Coca-Cola start?

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

### When did the lightbulb start?

1879. Edison's carbon filament lamp burned for over 13 hours.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Typical range compiled from manufacturer specifications — At One Place (/about/)