John Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, invents Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola is named by Frank Robinson, John Pemberton's bookkeeper.
Atlanta businessman Asa Griggs Candler secured rights to the business for a total of about $2,300. Candler would become the Company's first president, and the first to bring real vision to the business and the brand.
Candler found brilliant and innovative ways to introduce them to this exciting new refreshment. He gave away coupons for complimentary first tastes of Coca-Cola, and outfitted distributing pharmacists with clocks, urns, calendars and apothecary scales bearing the Coca-Cola brand.
Mississippi businessman, Joseph Biedenharn became the first to put Coca-Cola in bottles.
Candler had built syrup plants in Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles.
Chattanooga lawyers, Benjamin F. Thomas and Joseph B. Whitehead, secured exclusive rights from Candler to bottle and sell the beverage -- for the sum of only one dollar.
Kola nuts act as a flavoring and the source of caffeine in Coca-Cola instead of coca leaves.
The Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, won a contest to design a bottle that could be recognized in the dark.
Manufacturing the famous contour bottle begins.
Ernest Woodruff purchased the Company from Asa Candler.
1,000 Coca-Cola bottlers in the United States, Canada, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, France, and other countries and U.S. territories
Robert Woodruff becomes the company president and spends more than 60 years as the company leader.
Coca Cola is introduced to the Olymipc games for the first time when Coca-Cola traveled with the U.S. team to the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.
Coca-Cola is certified kosher by Rabbi Tobias Geffen, after the company made minor changes in the sourcing of some ingredients.
In 1941, America entered World War II. Thousands of men and women were sent overseas. The country, and Coca-Cola, rallied behind them. Woodruff ordered that "every man in uniform gets a bottle of Coca-Cola for 5 cents, wherever he is, and whatever it costs the Company."
The name Coke is used for the first time in magazine ads to help establish it as a trademark.
General Dwight D. Eisenhower sent an urgent cablegram to Coca-Cola, requesting shipment of materials for 10 bottling plants.
Coca-Cola is the first product to ever appear on the cover of Time Magazine.
King size and family-size bottles of Coke are introduced.
The twelve ounce can of Coca-Cola is introduced.
Sprite is introduced.
TaB, the very first diet soda, is introduced.