10 things that are older than the United States of America

• While that might seem like a long time, there are plenty of things still in use that predate the US.

It gets its name from the Latin word for “star,” as the brewery originally developed it as a Christmas gift for locals.

Centuries later, it was officially introduced to the US market in 1999, during owner Interbrew’s global expansion.

The pressure cooker

Of course, the modern pressure cooker today is a bit different than the one invented by French physicist Denis Papin in 1679, but an Instant Pot owes its basic design to Papin’s “steam digester.”

Both rely on the same principle of trapping steam and raising pressure inside the cooker to achieve a higher boiling point, cooking food faster.

A domestic version was popularized in the US in 1939, after Presto introduced its model at the New York World’s Fair.

The Greenland shark

The Greenland shark is estimated to live at least 250 years, and could live for as long as 500 years, per NOAA.

This suggests there are some Greenland sharks in the depths of the North Atlantic that may be older than the US.

It has a reputation as the longest-lived vertebrate and can measure up to 23 feet long, although most don’t exceed 13 feet, according to Britannica.

Twinings tea

Twinings has been serving the tea-lovers of London (and later, the world) since Thomas Twining opened Tom’s Coffee House in 1706.

Tea’s popularity continued to skyrocket in the Western world after that, as did Twinings. In fact, when the Boston Tea Party happened in 1773, a local writer noted that “it was not Twinings tea the Boston rebels tossed into the sea.”