Zara, 1975
After 12 years of making textiles, Amancio Ortega, founder of Inditex, opens the business’ first store in A Coruña, in Spain, in 1975.
Initially, Ortega wanted to name the store Zorba. But when he found out there was a bar by that name just two blocks away, he rearranged all the letters (plus a few extras) he had received for the sign of his store to make Zara.
The very first Zara store had low-priced lookalike products of much more popular, higher-end, and fashionable clothes.
Zara started its world conquest in 1988 by going international. It's first leap abroad was to Porto in Portugal. Just a year later, it already entered the United States' market, then France in 1990. Since then, it expanded internationally with each passing year.
That's correct.
It also became a soft drink by accident. One day someone walked into Jacobs Pharmacy with a headache and needed a bottle. It was originally intended to be mixed with water before drinking. He didn't want to wait to get home and asked for it to be mixed at the soda fountain there in the drugstore. The tap was down at the other end of the counter, so the man behind the counter just mixed it with soda water. The result is what we know today.
More trivia: In Chinese, "Coca cola" translates to "Bite the wax tadpole."
That's correct.
It also became a soft drink by accident. One day someone walked into Jacobs Pharmacy with a headache and needed a bottle. It was originally intended to be mixed with water before drinking. He didn't want to wait to get home and asked for it to be mixed at the soda fountain there in the drugstore. The tap was down at the other end of the counter, so the man behind the counter just mixed it with soda water. The result is what we know today.
More trivia: In Chinese, "Coca cola" translates to "Bite the wax tadpole."