Brothers Dick and Mac McDonald introduced to the world "Speedy Service System" in 1948 and, thus, established the general principles of fast-food business. However, they founded the first restaurant on May, 15 1940 in San Bernardino, California. In 1954, Ray Kroc proposed to open new McDonald's restaurants, and became its first franchisee.
The company was renamed several times- "McDonald's Corporation" (1960) and "The Big M" (1961) - before the McDonalds sold the business rights for $2.7 million to Kroc. Since then, they have kept their original restaurant, but failed to retain rights to its name.
Kroc decided to market hamburgers to families and children. Later, Willard Scott starts playing in a children's show, called Bozo's Circus, in Los Angeles. This was the first advertising campaign sponsored by Washington, D.C., that led to the later "Ronald McDonald" television advertisements.
Since 1967, the chain of stand-alone restaurants, with mansard roof and indoor seating, including ones outside the USA, has opened. McDonald's restaurants became popular in such countries as Australia, Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Malaysia, Italy and Russia. Furthermore, Budapest, Hungary, Belgrade and Yugoslavia were the first communist countries, which made a deal with one of the American companies.
The Big Mac and Hot Apple Pie were introduced to the menu and became synonymous to the Mc Donald's fast food. However, later the menu list underwent changes several times. For instance, Hulaburger was flopped after having been test-marketed in 1969. It was a Ray Kroc invention - a hamburger with a slice of pineapple instead of meat. Later an attempt to produce a "luxury" hamburger Arch Deluxe also failed in 1996.
The first Happy Meal for children was introduced in the U.S. in 1979. It was supplied with a promotional toy and consisted of a Hamburger, Cheeseburger, or four-piece Nuggets, fries and a drink.
In 1975, The Drive-Thru service, known as "McDrive", was introduced in some countries. They often have separate stations for placing, paying and picking up orders.
McDonald's has also introduced especially themed restaurants, such as Rock-and-Roll McDonald's 50s. The company possesses large number of McDonald's Play Grounds, which were primarily created in the 1970s and 1980s in the USA, and later became famous worldwide.
Today, after 50 years of Company's work, McDonald's restaurants' net may be represented on the McDonald's map, where the northern restaurant is located on the Arctic Circle, the southern- in Invercargill, New Zealand, the eastern in Gisborne (New Zealand), the western - in Western Samoa. Moreover, McDonald's lowest point on earth (-396 meters) is located in Israel.
All this just proves that "the sun never sets on the Golden Arches".