Ray Kroc: The Creator Of McWorld

In 1954, a milk-shake-mixer salesman from Chicago took the red-eye to Southern California to call on two brothers whose little hamburger joint had become his best customer and the last hope for his faltering business. Raymond A. Kroc knew his five-and-dime and corner-drugstore customers were dying; what he couldn't figure out was why this upstart was ordering so many machines. Before he returned home, Kroc had a deal that not only would give his distributorship a new lease on life but would also change the American landscape and, for better or worse, diets in much of the world. Kroc, 52, became the national franchising agent for McDonald's.

Within a year, Kroc would open his first outlet in suburban Chicago, a red-and-white tiled box in Des Plaines, Ill., with a neon-yellow arch on either side and a simple menu of french fries, soft drinks, milk shakes (made in blenders sold exclusively by Kroc), and a 15 cents hamburger. By 1965 -- 10 years after McDonald's Corp. (MCD ) was incorporated and four years after Kroc bought out the founding brothers -- McDonald's would boast more than 700 sites. America was well on its way to becoming a fast-food nation. Kroc didn't stop there. He and his successors invaded one country after another, introducing McCapitalism to Russia in 1990 and to China two years later. By 2003, McDonald's had 31,100 outlets in 119 countries, fed 47 million people every day, and had sales of $17.1 billion.