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This Wednesday marks
40 years since
the death in Louiseville of
Harland David Sanders,
the famous colonel who founded
KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken)
.
The news then shocked his followers, both in the United States and abroad.
However, its trajectory and legacy continue in the minds of fried chicken lovers, who continue to fill their premises.
In fact, according to Restaurant Business, KFC's profits soared this year and in May the company
broke its own sales record.
An achievement Sanders could have been proud of ... However, the American did not
care
too much
for the company he founded.
Colonel Sanders was born in September 1890, in a town called Henryville, and despite the fact that he grew up
in a consolidated family,
he was forced to make a living from an early age.
His father passed away
when he was five years old and his loved ones needed him to work to help the family finances.
Thus, the young man
decided to leave school
when he was only 12 years old and started working on a farm.
But four years later, he made an even more radical decision: to
join the military,
even though he wasn't old enough to do so.
According to History, Sanders
forged his birth certificate
to enter the military.
And he succeeded ... He even managed to do military service in
Cuba
, where he spent several months.
Despite this, the future businessman chose not to continue with his military career and moved to
Alabama
, where he worked in different jobs.
Among them:
lawyer, midwife, railroad firefighter and insurance salesman.
However, in 1930 he took a path that would soon change his life:
partnering with Shell
and taking over a gas station in Corbin, Kentucky.
Sanders had
learned to cook from a young age,
and to make extra money at his gas station, he decided to
offer his food to
passing
carriers
.
And what was your star dish?
The fried chicken.
A chicken so crispy that within months
it became popular in Kentucky
and sparked the envy of its competition.
According to Josh Ozersky in his book
Colonel Sanders and the American Dream
, Sanders had a constant feud with a businessman named Matt Swart, another gas station worker.
In the beginning,
their rivalry was rather peaceful.
But everything changed when Stewart damaged - for the second time - one of Sanders' billboards and he wanted to fight.
But the argument
got out of hand
and Stewart fatally shot one of the Shell executives, so Sanders also decided to open fire and hit his opponent in the shoulder.
Despite the shocking event, in 1935 Sanders became immensely popular and received the honorary title of Colonel from the Governor of Kentucky.
A recognition that made him even more famous and motivated him to expand his service station, with a
dining room for 150 people.
A couple of years later, Sanders' restaurant was
featured in a food guide
, and thanks to that, he made the decision to dive into hospitality entirely.
On the other hand, he also wanted to
improve his chicken recipe.
And after numerous experiments, he came to the conclusion that the perfect chicken needed
11 herbs and spices
and that by selling his preparation he could make more money.
In this way, Sanders convinced his friend Pete Harman and he set up
a chicken franchise
in Salt Lake City, which he named Kentucky Fried Chicken.
A name that attracted attention and that made the colonel's dishes gain a lot of fame.
But the former military man was not satisfied with just one restaurant, which made him take his 1946 Ford to travel throughout the United States and try to sell franchises.
In 12 years, the colonel managed to make a small fortune and
decided to sell KFC,
in 1964. Even so, he continued to be the face of the company.
However, things got complicated between Sanders and his former company four years later, when he said he found
the food they sold so disgusting
that he was going to open a restaurant to
compete
with them.
But KFC was unwilling to compete with anyone, so the executives chose to block the founder's plans.
Something that Sanders responded with with
a lawsuit for $ 120,000,000.
According to some of his biographies, Colonel Sanders was a hothead, who liked to constantly curse.
He was also known to be
a great womanizer and even very unfaithful.
For example, Sanders cheated on his first wife, the mother of
his three children,
and later
married his lover,
whom he also betrayed.
On the other hand, Sanders had a reputation as a macho and stalker.
He had
a low opinion of overweight people
and, according to one of his biographers, some women were afraid of him because he
"touched them excessively."
That's why, in 1980, when Sanders
passed away from acute leukemia,
not many publicly mourned his death.
Except for the fans of fried chicken, who always remain loyal to the colonel with the white mustaches and friendly smile.
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