---
title: "Which came first, Fanta or television?"
description: "Fanta vs television: television came first, by 15 years — 1925 against 1940. What happened in each case, and why the dates are often given differently."
url: https://atoneplace.net/which-came-first/fanta-vs-television/
site: "At One Place"
---

# Which came first, Fanta or television?

**Which came first, Fanta or television?: television**

1925 — 15 years before Fanta

television came first, by 15 years. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

## Side by side

|  | Fanta | television |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Year | 1940 | 1925 |
| Date | — | 1925-10-02 |
| Category | food | invention |
| What happened | Coca-Cola's German bottler invented it when syrup imports stopped. | Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image. |

## Fanta

When the war cut Coca-Cola GmbH off from American syrup, its head Max Keith made a drink from what was available in Germany — whey left over from cheese making and apple pomace left over from cider pressing. The name came from a brainstorming session where staff were told to use their imagination, Fantasie. Sprite arrived 21 years later in 1961, developed from a German lemon drink Coca-Cola had launched in 1959, so Fanta comfortably predates it.

## television

John Logie Baird transmitted a recognisable moving image of a ventriloquist's dummy in October 1925 using a mechanical spinning-disc system. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated fully electronic television in 1927, and it was that approach, not Baird's, that every subsequent television used. Regular public broadcasting began in 1936, which means television is younger than the talking film and older than the ballpoint pen.

## Common questions

### Which came first, Fanta or television?

television, by 15 years — 1925 against 1940.

### When did Fanta start?

1940. Coca-Cola's German bottler invented it when syrup imports stopped.

### When did television start?

1925. Baird transmitted the first moving greyscale image.

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## Sources

- Wikidata — Wikimedia Foundation (https://www.wikidata.org/) [CC0 1.0]
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History — Smithsonian Institution (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/)