The times they are a changin'. In the 30 years we've been compiling the Franchise 500®, we've seen not only the times change, but also the world as we know it. Through it all, franchising has seen its own changes: It has matured from a viable business system into an economic powerhouse. Here's a look at the past 30 years, viewed from the top of the ranking . . . and in the context of American life.

Illustrations by Gary Sawyer/agoodson.com

• McDonald's has 4,173 franchised locations.
• Of the 9.1 million small businesses in the country, more than 500,000 are franchise operations.
• Millions of viewers tune in to Dallas to find out who shot J.R. Ewing. 
• CNN launches.

• Dan Hanna Auto Wash would later be the only No. 1 franchise that no longer exists. 
• MTV launches. 
• Sandra Day O'Connor becomes the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court.

• McDonald's new slogan: "We cook it all for you at McDonald's."
• All but one of the top 10 franchises have to do with food or cars.
• Michael Jackson releases Thriller, the bestselling album of all time.

• McDonald's includes Mattel's Hot Wheels toy cars in Happy Meals. 
• Franchised waitering schools gain popularity. 
• The Disney Channel launches. 
• Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space.
• Microsoft Word is released.

• A new McDonald's location opens somewhere in the world every 17 hours. 
• Eight out of the top 10 franchises are related to food or hospitality.
• The first Apple Macintosh is sold.
• Alex Trebek hosts Jeopardy! for the first time.
• Band-Aid releases "Do They Know It's Christmas?"

• KFC has 6,300 franchised locations and opens the $23 million Colonel Harland Sanders Technical Centre in Louisville, Kentucky.
• John Hendricks launches the Discovery Channel.

• Domino's Pizza opens its 3,000th outlet, which is also the first unit in Hong Kong, and the company sells 160 million pizzas this year alone.
• The first federal Martin Luther King Jr. Day is observed on January 20.
• About 7 million people form a human chain from New York City to Long Beach, California, in the Hands Across America event to raise money to fight hunger and homelessness.

• Domino's Pizza reduces average delivery time to 24 minutes.
• Jazzercise is considered the top new franchise as well as the top low-investment franchise.
• Prozac makes its debut in the U.S.

• This is the first time Subway is ranked No. 1 in the Franchise 500®. 
• Subway's first Australian location opens in Perth, and it adds 1,100 locations this year alone.
• The Wonder Years premieres.
• The Winter Olympics are held in Calgary, Alberta.

• Subway's minimum startup cost is $27.4K. (Today's minimum startup cost is $80K.)
• The Exxon Valdez spills about 11 million gallons of oil in Alaska's Prince William Sound.
• Batman is released and becomes the year's top-grossing film.

• Fred DeLuca, co-founder of Subway, reaches his goal of opening 5,000 stores--four years earlier than expected. 
• Franchises generate nearly $600 billion in sales and account for one-third of all consumer purchases in the U.S. 
• Nelson Mandela is released from prison in South Africa after 27 years.
• The first World Wide Web page is created.
• Germany is reunified.

• DeLuca says he wants to match McDonald's store for store. 
• Subway accounts for more than 60 percent of all sub sandwich locations in the U.S. 
• Nirvana's hit single "Smells Like Teen Spirit" tops the Billboard charts.
• The Rodney King beating, captured on video by an amateur photographer, is broadcast around the world. 
• The Soviet Union collapses.

• McDonald's serves an estimated 20 million customers each day in more than 12,000 restaurants worldwide. 
• The Los Angeles riots result in more than 50 deaths and $1 billion in property damage.

• Subway is opening about 100 new stores a month, and its closure rate is less than 2 percent annually. 
• Janet Reno becomes the first woman U.S. attorney general. 
• Oprah Winfrey hosts a 90-minute primetime interview with Michael Jackson, which becomes one of the most watched interviews in TV history.

• This is Subway's best year ever in terms of average store sales (up 5 percent from the previous year).
• According to management consulting firm Francorp Inc., only 11 percent of franchises are sold to minorities.
• Friends premieres on NBC.
• The "Chunnel" linking Britain with mainland Europe officially opens.

• About 450 Subway shops reside in convenience stores and truck stops, many of which are in towns of only a few thousand people, and Subway posts about $2.5 billion in sales. 
• The murder trial of O.J. Simpson is broadcast live on national TV.
• Al Green, Janis Joplin, Neil Young and Led Zeppelin are inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

• Subway adds more than 1,300 units worldwide and reaches $3 billion in sales. The franchise can be found in 27 countries across the globe.
• Entrepreneur picks bagels, specialized staffing and home health care as some of the hottest franchises of the year. 
• Dolly the sheep, the first mammal to be cloned from an adult cell, is born.

• McDonald's has nearly 20,000 stores worldwide, and 33 million customers a day and counting.  
• Madeleine Albright becomes the first female U.S. secretary of state.
• Princess Diana dies at the age of 36 in a Paris car crash. 
• Titanic opens in theaters and grosses more than $1 billion globally.

• The franchise fee for a McDonald's is $45,000, and the startup cost is $363,600 to $602,000.
• Three of the top 10 franchises are in the frozen desserts category. 
• President Bill Clinton admits that he had an "improper physical relationship" with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He's impeached by the House of Representatives.

• Yogen Fruz is the world's largest franchisor of frozen dessert outlets, with 4,799 locations in 82 countries.
• Herbal products, coffee, children's education and senior care are among the hottest franchise trends.
• The world population surpasses  6 billion.
• Napster launches.

• McDonald's has more than 25,000 restaurants in 117 countries.
• AOL buys Time Warner for $162 billion, the largest-ever corporate merger. 
• Survivor spurs the reality TV trend.
• George W. Bush wins a close presidential race after more than a month of determining disputed vote counts.

• Subway becomes a $3.6 billion company, with more than 14,500 franchises in 76 countries.
• Capitalizing on its successful Jared Fogle ads, Subway adds more than 600 new franchises and sees store sales increase 16 percent.
• Terrorists attack the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11.
• Apple Inc. debuts the first iPod.

• Subway becomes the national sponsor of the American Heart Association's Start! Heart Walk.
• The Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is kidnapped and later killed by a militant group in Pakistan.
• President Bush signs the Homeland Security Act into law.

• Subway grows to more than 17,000 locations in 75 countries.
• Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during re-entry over Texas, killing all seven crew members.
• The U.S. invades Iraq, seizing control of Baghdad and ending Saddam Hussein's regime.

• Subway receives about 130,000 requests for franchise information, with 25 percent of those applying for a franchise
• Franchise 500® companies generate $206.6 billion in their most recent fiscal years.
• Martha Stewart receives a five-month prison sentence for lying about insider trading.

• Subway aims to reach 7,500 international stores by 2010. 
• 391,139 franchises are sold in 2005--up 11 percent from 351,459 in 2004. 
• YouTube launches.
• Pope John Paul II dies at age 84. Millions of mourners attend his funeral in Vatican City.

• Thousands register to receive inspirational phone messages from Subway weight-loss icon Jared Fogle.
• Warren Buffett donates more than $30 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
• Google acquires YouTube for $1.65 billion.

• Subway has 26,197 locations worldwide. 
• Apple introduces the iPhone at the 2007 MacWorld Conference & Expo.
• A Virginia Tech student kills 32 people before committing suicide in the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in modern U.S. history.
• The Writers Guild of America begins a three-month strike.

• After 16 times in the top 10, 7-Eleven takes the No. 1 spot for the first time. 
• Franchises jump on trends such as green business and fighting obesity.
• Barack Obama is elected 44th president of the United States, making him the first black man to hold this office.