The brands we know and love today started off small. Each has their own story that ultimately shaped them as a company. It also means there are some quirky facts hiding in their history. The following are 10 things you may not have known about your favorite big brands.

Royal Fast Food

There’s a McDonald’s about 80 miles from Buckingham Palace that the Queen of England owns. An article written by Anna Lewis for delish.com explains by saying, “So how does this work exactly? Well, this particular branch of McDonald’s is on land that forms part of the Crown Estate, which is property owned by the Sovereign. Therefore, that is very much the Queen’s McDonald’s.”

Unfortunate Name

Google started out under a different, unfortunate name. The company was originally called BackRub. Luckily, in 1997 they changed it to Google which is a reference to a mathematical term.

Tweet Tweet

Did you know the bird in the Twitter logo has a name? This little critter is called Larry.

Blue Jeans

Levi Strauss was actually a wealthy aristocrat. He created blue jeans for the working class. Strauss never even wore his own creation because he considered himself above the garment.

Golden Arches

It’s no secret that McDonald’s is an incredibly popular fast food chain. Let’s put that into perspective. McDonald’s feeds roughly 68 million people every single day. This number is more than the entire population of the UK.

Endless Content

As crazy as it sounds, roughly 300 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. There will definitely never be shortage of new content!

Lady Luck

The early days of FedEx were a struggle. In fact, in order to save the company, the founder took its last $5k to a casino in Vegas. He ended up turning that money into $32k which ultimately helped turn the business around as well.

Longevity

If you needed further proof of how great Rolls Royce vehicles are, here it is. 75% of RR vehicles are still on the road today. Given that this company was founded in the early 1900’s, this is an incredibly impressive feat.

Product Change

Samsung, a company known for their electronics, didn’t originally sell this type of merchandise. In fact, when they started out, they were known as the preferred place to go for dried fish and other groceries.

Another Direction

Ben & Jerry’s, one of the world’s most popular ice cream brands, almost started their business with an entirely different product. The founders originally thought about selling bagels. While there’s a good chance those bagels would have been delicious, it’s hard to imagine a world where Ben & Jerry’s ice cream doesn’t exist.

The Right Jeans

Women are known to spend a pretty penny on the right pair of jeans. However, Gucci set a Guinness World Record when they created and sold the world’s most expensive pair. They cost a whopping $3,134.