The ENTIRE History of McDonald's in 17 Minutes

In 1961, two brothers sold the company they invented to a milkshake machine salesman, and lost the right to use their own name. Today, more than 45,000 restaurants carry it. Not one of them belongs to a McDonald. This is the entire history of McDonald's: a kitchen designed in chalk on a tennis court, a pineapple burger that lost a bet to a fish sandwich, soldiers who weren't allowed to leave their cars, 30,000 people queuing in the Moscow snow, a 79-year-old woman the whole world laughed at, and a widow who gave away more than a billion dollars of hamburger money. How did the brothers who invented fast food lose their own name? How does the biggest burger chain on Earth make most of its money from something that isn't a burger? And why is the McDonald's ice cream machine always broken? Chapters: 0:00 Two Brothers Lose Their Own Name 0:42 The Burger Empire That Shouldn't Exist 1:54 Hollywood Dreams and a Drive-In 2:42 1948: The Crazy Gamble 3:12 A Kitchen Drawn on a Tennis Court 3:44 The Golden Arches 4:24 Enter Ray Kroc 5:06 Des Plaines and the Perfect Fry 5:58 The Real Estate Secret 6:38 The Brothers Are Pushed Out 7:25 Ruthless Ray and Hamburger University 8:16 Filet-O-Fish vs the Hula Burger 8:56 Big Mac, Happy Meal and the Drive-Thru 9:37 Ronald McDonald and Going Global 9:55 Moscow 1990 and the Big Mac Index 10:29 Joan Kroc's Billion-Dollar Gift 10:57 McLibel 11:19 The Hot Coffee Case 12:21 Fast Food Nation and Super Size Me 13:05 The Founder 13:23 Russia, E. coli and the Value War 14:02 McDonald's Today: Big Arch, AI and Ozempic 14:55 Why the Ice Cream Machine Is Always Broken 15:39 A Landlord Disguised as a Restaurant 16:12 The Tennis Court, One Last Time Sources and further reading: John F. Love, "McDonald's: Behind the Arches"; Ray Kroc, "Grinding It Out"; Lisa Napoli, "Ray & Joan"; Eric Schlosser, "Fast Food Nation"; reporting by Bloomberg and others. Which company should we cover next? Tell us in the comments. #McDonalds #History #BusinessHistory #RayKroc #FastFood #Documentary