These 12 Fortune 500 companies have survived wars, crashes, and over 200 years of U.S. history

As America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, a handful of its largest companies are marking a different kind of milestone: histories that stretch back nearly to the nation’s founding—or even before it existed. Among the recently-released 2026 Fortune 500—a ranking of the largest U.S. corporations based annual revenue—several firms trace their roots to the 18th century. The Bank of New York (BNY) traces its roots to 1784, while Cigna Group and State Street Corporation followed in 1792, as the newly formed republic was beginning to build its financial and corporate systems. And one company in the Fortune 500 reaches even further back to a time before the United States declared independence. Molson Coors Beverage Company, the brewer behind brands including Coors, Miller, and Blue Moon, traces its origins to 1774, when William Worthington began brewing in Burton upon Trent, England. More than a decade later, in 1786, English immigrant John Molson established what would become Canada’s oldest brewery on the banks of the St. Lawrence River in Montreal. “My beer has been universally well-liked beyond my most sanguine expectations,” Molson once wrote of his early success. What began as a small colonial-era brewing operation has since evolved through mergers, expansions, and seven generations of family legacy into a global beverage company. Now headquartered in Chicago, Molson Coors ranks No. 390 on the Fortune 500, with $11.14 billion in revenue and more than 16,000 employees. So how does a company survive for centuries when nearly half of businesses fail within five years? According to Richard Sylla, professor emeritus at NYU Stern School of Business, the answer boils down to a surprisingly simple formula. “You’ve got to pick the right industry to be in,” Sylla told Fortune. “And then you have to have leadership that avoids the troubles.” Sylla, coauthor of the report “Scale and Scope in Early American Business History: The ‘Fortune 500’ of 1812”, noted many