Colonel Harland David Sanders was an American businessman, best known for founding fast food chicken restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken and later acting as the company's brand ambassador and symbol.
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Harland Sanders began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in North Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression.
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Harland Sanders was the oldest of three children born to Wilbur David and Margaret Ann Sanders.
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Harland Sanders's father was a mild and affectionate man who worked his 80-acre farm, until he broke his leg in a fall.
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Harland Sanders then worked as a butcher in Henryville for two years.
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Harland Sanders's mother got work in a tomato cannery, and the young Harland was left to look after and cook for his siblings.
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In 1906, with his mother's approval, Harland Sanders left the area to live with his uncle in New Albany, Indiana.
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Harland Sanders's uncle worked for the streetcar company, and secured Sanders a job as a conductor.
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Harland Sanders falsified his date of birth and enlisted in the United States Army in October 1906, completing his service commitment as a wagoner in Cuba being awarded the Cuban Pacification Medal.
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Harland Sanders worked the job for nearly three years until he was fired for "insubordination" after he got sick.
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Harland Sanders found laboring work with the Norfolk and Western Railway from 1909.
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Harland Sanders then found work as a fireman on the Illinois Central Railroad, and he and his family moved to Jackson, Tennessee.
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Harland Sanders lost his job at Illinois after brawling with a colleague.
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In 1916, the family moved to Jeffersonville, where Harland Sanders got a job selling life insurance for the Prudential Life Insurance Company.
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Harland Sanders moved to Louisville and got a sales job with Mutual Benefit Life of New Jersey.
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In 1920, Harland Sanders established a ferry boat company, which operated a boat on the Ohio River between Jeffersonville and Louisville.
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Harland Sanders canvassed for funding, becoming a minority shareholder himself, and was appointed secretary of the company.
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Harland Sanders admitted that he was not very good at the job, and resigned after less than a year.
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Harland Sanders cashed in his ferry boat company shares for $22,000 and used the money to establish a company manufacturing acetylene lamps.
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Harland Sanders moved to Winchester, Kentucky, to work as a salesman for the Michelin Tire Company.
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Harland Sanders lost his job in 1924 when Michelin closed its New Jersey manufacturing plant.
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Harland Sanders began to serve chicken dishes and other meals such as country ham and steaks.
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Stewart killed a Shell employee who was with Harland Sanders and was convicted of murder, eliminating Harland Sanders' competition.
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Harland Sanders was commissioned as a Kentucky colonel in 1935 by Kentucky governor Ruby Laffoon.
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Harland Sanders went to work as a supervisor in Seattle until the latter part of 1942.
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Harland Sanders left his mistress, Claudia Ledington-Price, as manager of the North Corbin restaurant and motel.
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Harland Sanders was "re-commissioned" as a Kentucky colonel in 1950 by his friend, Governor Lawrence Wetherby.
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Harland Sanders believed that his North Corbin restaurant would remain successful indefinitely, but at age 65 sold it after the new Interstate 75 reduced customer traffic.
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Harland Sanders ran the company while Claudia mixed and shipped the spices to restaurants.
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Harland Sanders obtained a patent protecting his method of pressure frying chicken in 1962, and trademarked the phrase "It's Finger Lickin' Good" in 1963.
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In 1965, Harland Sanders moved to Mississauga, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto, to oversee his Canadian franchises and continued to collect franchise and appearance fees both in Canada and in the US.
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Harland Sanders bought and lived in a bungalow at 1337 Melton Drive in the Lakeview area of Mississauga from 1965 until his death in 1980.
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Harland Sanders remained the company's symbol after selling it, traveling 200,000 miles a year on the company's behalf and filming many TV commercials and appearances.
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Harland Sanders retained much influence over executives and franchisees, who respected his culinary expertise and feared what The New Yorker described as "the force and variety of his swearing" when a restaurant or the company varied from what executives described as "the Colonel's chicken".
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One change the company made was to the gravy, which Harland Sanders had bragged was so good that "it'll make you throw away the durn chicken and just eat the gravy" but which the company simplified to reduce time and cost.
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In 1973, Harland Sanders sued Heublein Inc —the then parent company of Kentucky Fried Chicken—over the alleged misuse of his image in promoting products he had not helped develop.
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Harland Sanders's associates went along with the title change, "jokingly at first and then in earnest", according to biographer Josh Ozersky.
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Harland Sanders never wore anything else in public during the last 20 years of his life, using a heavy wool suit in the winter and a light cotton suit in the summer.
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Harland Sanders had remained active until the month before his death, appearing in his white suit to crowds.
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Harland Sanders's body lay in state in the rotunda of the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort after a funeral service at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary Chapel, which was attended by more than 1,000 people.
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Harland Sanders was buried in his characteristic white suit and black western string tie in Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville.
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Fictionalized Colonel Harland Sanders has repeatedly appeared as a mascot in KFC's advertising and branding.
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Harland Sanders has been voiced by impressionists in radio ads, and from 1998 to 2001 an animated version of him voiced by Randy Quaid appeared in television commercials.
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In December 2020, a fictionalized Colonel Harland Sanders was portrayed by Mario Lopez in the 2020 short film A Recipe for Seduction.
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In 2011, a manuscript of a book on cooking that Harland Sanders apparently wrote in the mid-1960s was found in KFC archives.
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Harland Sanders' foundation has made sizeable donations to other Canadian children's hospitals including the McMaster Children's Hospital, IWK Health Centre, and Stollery Children's Hospital.
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