KFC was founded by Harland Sanders, an entrepreneur who began selling fried chicken from his roadside restaurant in Corbin, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Sanders identified the potential of the restaurant franchising concept, and the first "Kentucky Fried Chicken" franchise opened in Utah in 1952. KFC popularized chicken in the fast food industry, diversifying the market by challenging the established dominance of the hamburger. By branding himself as "Colonel Sanders", Harland became a prominent figure of American cultural history, and his image remains widely used in KFC advertising. However, the company's rapid expansion saw it grow too large for Sanders to manage, and in 1964 he sold the company to a group of investors led by John Y. Brown, Jr. and Jack C. Massey.
KFC was one of the first fast food chains to expand internationally, opening outlets in England, Mexico and Jamaica by the mid-1960s. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, KFC experienced mixed fortunes domestically, as it went through a series of changes in corporate ownership with little or no experience in the restaurant business. In the early 1970s, KFC was sold to the spirits distributor Heublein, who were taken over by the R.J. Reynolds food and tobacco conglomerate, who sold the chain to PepsiCo. The chain continued to expand overseas, and in 1987 KFC became the first Western restaurant chain to open in China.
In 1997, PepsiCo spun off its restaurants division as Tricon Global Restaurants, which changed its name to Yum! Brands in 2002. Yum has proved a more focused owner than Pepsi, and although KFC's fortunes have waned in the US, the company has continued to grow in Asia, South America and Africa. The chain has expanded to 18,000 outlets across 120 countries and territories, with 4,400 outlets in China, which is now the company's most profitable market.