Events in History Relating to Business
October 11, 1614
Adriaen Block and 12 Amsterdam merchants petition the States General for exclusive trading rights in the New Netherland colony.
September 29, 1650
Henry Robinson opens his Office of Addresses and Encounters – the first historically documented dating service – in Threadneedle Street, London.
January 11, 1759
In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.
September 8, 1810
The Tonquin sets sail from New York Harbor with 33 employees of John Jacob Astor's newly created Pacific Fur Company on board. After a six-month journey around the tip of South America, the ship arrives at the mouth of the Columbia River and Astor's men establish the fur-trading town of Astoria, Oregon.
October 1, 1847
German inventor and industrialist Werner von Siemens founds Siemens AG & Halske.
March 18, 1850
American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo.
October 1, 1854
The watch company founded in 1850 in Roxbury by Aaron Lufkin Dennison relocates to Waltham, Massachusetts, to become the Waltham Watch Company, a pioneer in the American System of Watch Manufacturing.
March 3, 1865
Opening of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, the founding member of the HSBC Group.
February 22, 1879
In Utica, New York, Frank Woolworth opens the first of many of 5 and 10-cent Woolworth stores.
September 30, 1882
The world's first commercial hydroelectric power plant (later known as Appleton Edison Light Company) begins operation on the Fox River in Appleton, Wisconsin, United States.
May 29, 1886
Chemist John Pemberton places his first advertisement for Coca-Cola, the ad appearing in the Atlanta Journal.
September 23, 1889
Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) is founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda.
May 26, 1896
Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
April 13, 1902
James C. Penney opens his first store in Kemmerer, Wyoming.
June 15, 1911
Tabulating Computing Recording Corporation (IBM) is incorporated.
January 5, 1914
The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and a minimum wage of $5 for a day's labor.
May 2, 1918
General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
October 7, 1919
KLM of the Netherlands is founded. It is the oldest airline still operating under its original name.
April 5, 1923
Firestone Tire and Rubber Company begins production of balloon-tires.
October 16, 1923
The Walt Disney Company is founded by Walt Disney and his brother, Roy Disney.
April 30, 1925
Automaker Dodge Brothers, Inc is sold to Dillon, Read & Company for $146 million plus $50 million for charity.
June 6, 1925
The Chrysler Corporation is founded by Walter Percy Chrysler.
April 6, 1926
Walter Varney Airlines makes its first commercial flight (Varney is the root company of United Airlines).
May 27, 1927
The Ford Motor Company ceases manufacture of the Ford Model T and begins to retool plants to make the Ford Model A.
May 31, 1927
The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles.
June 24, 1928
With declining business, the Great Gorge and International Railway begins using one-person crews on trolley operations in Canada.
October 11, 1929
JC Penney opens store #1252 in Milford, Delaware, making it a nationwide company with stores in all 48 U.S. states.
October 24, 1929
"Black Thursday" stock market crash on the New York Stock Exchange.
October 28, 1929
Black Monday, a day in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, which also saw major stock market upheaval.
October 29, 1929
The New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of '29 or "Black Tuesday", ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.
July 1, 1931
United Airlines begins service (as Boeing Air Transport).
October 15, 1932
Tata Airlines (later to become Air India) makes its first flight.
November 6, 1934
Memphis, Tennessee becomes the first major city to join the Tennessee Valley Authority.
November 8, 1935
A dozen labor leaders come together to announce the creation of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), an organization charged with advancing industrial unionism.
November 18, 1938
Trade union members elect John L. Lewis as the first president of the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
October 16, 1945
The Food and Agriculture Organization is founded in Quebec City, Canada.
December 27, 1945
The World Bank was created with the signing of an agreement by 28 nations.
May 7, 1946
Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering (later renamed Sony) is founded with around 20 employees.
October 30, 1947
The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is the foundation of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), is founded.
March 31, 1951
Remington Rand delivers the first UNIVAC I computer to the United States Census Bureau.
January 14, 1954
The Hudson Motor Car Company merges with Nash-Kelvinator Corporation forming the American Motors Corporation.
August 7, 1955
Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering, the precursor to Sony, begins selling its first transistor radios in Japan.
December 31, 1955
The General Motors Corporation becomes the first U.S. corporation to make over $1 billion USD in a year.
January 3, 1957
The Hamilton Watch Company introduces the first electric watch.
March 4, 1957
The S&P 500 stock market index is introduced, replacing the S&P 90.
November 19, 1959
The Ford Motor Company announces the discontinuation of the unpopular Edsel.
November 9, 1960
Robert McNamara is named president of Ford Motor Co., the first non-Ford to serve in that post. A month later, he quit to join the newly-elected John F. Kennedy administration.
September 1, 1964
Indian Oil Corporation formed after merging Indian Oil Refineries and Indian Oil Company.
May 16, 1965
The Campbell Soup Company introduces SpaghettiOs under its Franco-American brand.
March 16, 1968
General Motors produces its 100 millionth automobile, the Oldsmobile Toronado.
April 7, 1969
The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.
October 17, 1973
OPEC starts an oil embargo against a number of western countries, considered to have helped Israel in its war against Syria.
October 8, 1974
Franklin National Bank collapses due to fraud and mismanagement; at the time it is the largest bank failure in the history of the United States.
November 20, 1974
The United States Department of Justice files its final anti-trust suit against AT&T. This suit later leads to the break up of AT&T and its Bell System.
April 4, 1975
Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen.
June 7, 1975
Sony introduces the Betamax videocassette recorder for sale to the public.
January 21, 1976
Commercial service of Concorde begins with London-Bahrain and Paris-Rio routes.
June 5, 1977
The Apple II, the first practical personal computer, goes on sale.
June 16, 1977
Oracle Corporation is incorporated in Redwood Shores, California, as Software Development Laboratories (SDL) by Larry Ellison, Bob Miner and Ed Oates.
January 7, 1980
President Jimmy Carter authorizes legislation giving $1.5 billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.
May 22, 1980
Namco releases the highly influential video game Pacman.
June 25, 1981
Microsoft is restructured to become an incorporated business in its home state of Washington.
January 8, 1982
The break up of AT&T: AT&T agrees to divest itself of twenty-two subdivisions.
November 1, 1982
Honda becomes the first Asian automobile company to produce cars in the United States with the opening of their factory in Marysville, Ohio. The Honda Accord is the first car produced there.
December 16, 1982
The Federal Reserve announces that the operating capacity of factories has gone down to 67.8%.
January 1, 1984
The original American Telephone & Telegraph Company is broken up into twenty-two independent units as a result of the settlement of the 1974 United States Department of Justice antitrust suit against AT&T .
April 23, 1985
Coca-Cola changes its formula and releases New Coke. The response is overwhelmingly negative, and the original formula is back on the market in less than 3 months.
November 19, 1985
Pennzoil wins a $10.53 billion USD verdict against Texaco, in the largest civil verdict in the history of the United States, stemming from Texaco executing a contract to buy Getty Oil after Pennzoil had entered into an unsigned, yet still binding, buyout contract with Getty.
October 19, 1987
(Black Monday) Dow Jones Industrial Average falls by 22%, 508 points. This is considered a Stock Market Crash.
November 15, 1988
The first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, is launched in the Netherlands.
November 30, 1988
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. buys RJR Nabisco for $25.07 billion USD.
March 1, 1990
Steve Jackson Games is raided by the United States Secret Service, prompting the later formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
May 22, 1990
Microsoft releases the Windows 3.0 operating system.
July 30, 1990
The first Saturn automobile rolls off the assembly line.
January 18, 1991
Eastern Air Lines goes out of business after 62 years, citing financial problems.
September 16, 1992
Black Wednesday: the Pound Sterling is forced out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism by currency speculators and is forced to devalue against the Deutschmark.
January 19, 1993
IBM announces a $4.97 billion loss for 1992, the largest single-year corporate loss in United States history.
March 22, 1993
The Intel Corporation ships the first Pentium chips (80586), featuring a 60 MHz clock speed, 100+ MIPS, and a 64 bit data path.
March 14, 1994
Timeline of Linux development: Linux kernel version 1.0.0 is released.
April 4, 1994
Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark found Netscape Communications Corporation under the name "Mosaic Communications Corporation".
June 26, 1994
Microsoft no longer supports MS-DOS and the development of FreeDOS begins.
July 17, 1995
The Nasdaq Composite index closed above the 1,000 mark for the first time.
May 10, 1996
Excel Communications, Inc. becomes the youngest company ever to join the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), trading under the symbol (ECI).
November 23, 1996
The Republic of Angola officially joins the World Trade Organization.
July 17, 1997
The F.W. Woolworth Company closes after 117 years in business.
November 10, 1997
WorldCom and MCI Communications announce a $37 billion merger (the largest merger in US history at the time).
April 6, 1998
Travelers Group announced an agreement to undertake the $76 billion merger between Travelers and Citicorp, and the merger is completed on October 8, of that year, forming Citibank.
June 11, 1998
Compaq Computer pays $9 billion for Digital Equipment Corporation in the largest high-tech acquisition.
September 14, 1998
Telecommunications companies MCI Communications and WorldCom complete their $37 billion merger to form MCI WorldCom.
September 15, 1998
With the landmark merger of WorldCom and MCI Communications completed the day prior, the new MCI WorldCom opens its doors for business.
November 9, 1998
Brokerage houses are ordered to pay 1.03 billion USD to cheated NASDAQ investors to compensate for their price-fixing. This is the largest civil settlement in United States history.
November 12, 1998
Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler.
December 1, 1998
Exxon announces a $73.7 billion USD deal to buy Mobil, thus creating Exxon-Mobil, the world's largest company.
March 11, 1999
Infosys becomes the first Indian company listed on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
March 29, 1999
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closes above the 10,000 mark (10,006.78) for the first time ever, during the height of the internet boom.
November 30, 1999
In Seattle, Washington, United States, protests against the WTO meeting by anti-globalization protesters catch police unprepared and force the cancellation of opening ceremonies.
November 30, 1999
British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merge to form BAE Systems, Europe's largest defense contractor and the fourth largest aerospace firm in the world.
March 10, 2000
The NASDAQ Composite stock market index peaks at 5132.52, signaling the beginning of the end of the dot-com boom.
April 3, 2000
United States v. Microsoft: Microsoft is ruled to have violated United States antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors.
September 26, 2000
Anti-globalization protests in Prague (some 20,000 protesters) turn violent during the IMF and World Bank summits.
December 28, 2000
U.S. retail giant Montgomery Ward announces it is going out of business after 128 years.
September 12, 2001
Ansett Australia, Australia's first commercial interstate airline, collapses due to increased strain on the international airline industry leaving 10000 people unemployed.
October 11, 2001
The Polaroid Corporation files for federal bankruptcy protection.
November 13, 2001
Doha Round: The World Trade Organization ends a four-day ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar.
January 22, 2002
Kmart Corp becomes the largest retailer in United States history to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
October 31, 2002
A federal grand jury in Houston, Texas formally indicts former Enron Corp. chief financial officer Andrew Fastow on 78 counts of wire fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and obstruction of justice related to the collapse of his ex-employer.
October 31, 2003
A bankruptcy court approves MCI's reorganization plans, essentially clearing the telecommunications company to exit bankruptcy.
March 3, 2004
Belgian brewer Interbrew and Brazilian rival AmBev agree to merge in a $11.2 billion deal that forms InBev, the world's largest brewer.
April 29, 2004
Oldsmobile builds its final car ending 107 years of production.
November 17, 2004
Kmart Corp. announces it is buying Sears, Roebuck and Co. for $11 billion USD and naming the newly merged company Sears Holdings Corporation.
June 27, 2005
AMD files broad antitrust complaints against Intel Corporation in U.S. Federal District Court, alleging abuse of monopoly powers and antitrust violations.
October 8, 2005
Martha Stewart begins her prison sentence after being convicted of securities fraud, obstruction of justice, and conspiracy in the ImClone stock trading case.
January 27, 2006
Western Union discontinues its Telegram and Commercial Messaging services.
February 27, 2007
The Chinese Correction: the Shanghai Stock Exchange falls 9%, the largest drop in 10 years.
August 9, 2007
Emergence of the Financial crisis of 2007-2008 when a liquidity crisis resulted from the Subprime mortgage crisis
September 17, 2007
AOL, once the largest ISP in the U.S., officially announces plans to refocus the company as an advertising business and to relocate its corporate headquarters from Dulles, Virginia to New York, New York.
October 11, 2007
The record high of the Dow Jones Industrial Average occurs at 14,198.10 points.
January 21, 2008
Black Monday in worldwide stock markets. FTSE 100 had its biggest ever one-day points fall, European stocks closed with their worst result since 11 September 2001, and Asian stocks drop as much as 15%.
March 13, 2008
Gold prices on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit $1,000 per ounce for the first time.
March 31, 2008
Aloha Airlines, a bankrupt airline, permanently ends passenger service
April 3, 2008
ATA Airlines, once one of the 10 largest U.S. passenger airlines and largest charter airline, files for bankruptcy for the second time in 5 years and ceases all operations.
September 7, 2008
The US Government takes control of the two largest largest mortgage financing companies in the US, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
September 14, 2008
Lehman Files for Bankruptcy; Merrill Lynch Is Sold; a gloomy confirmation of unfolding global credit crisis
September 15, 2008
Lehman Brothers file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. History.
September 21, 2008
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the two last remaining independent investment banks on Wall Street, become bank holding companies as a result of the subprime mortgage crisis.
October 10, 2008
Fear grips global stock markets as the Dow Jones average ends the week down 18.2%, the largest weekly percentage drop in the Dow's history.
October 24, 2008
"Bloody Friday" saw many of the world's stock exchanges experienced the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices.
October 29, 2008
Delta Air Lines merges with Northwest Airlines, creating the world's largest airline and reducing the number of US legacy carriers to 5.
November 20, 2008
After critical failures in the US financial system began to build up after mid-September, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches its lowest level since 1997. A closing value of 7552.29 was 46.7% lower than its closing price on October 9th, a year earlier. When the Consumer Price Index is factored in, the S&P500 value was not seen since May 2nd, 1995, with the market down by 61% relative to the CPI adjusted price peak on March 23rd, 2000.
April 30, 2009
Chrysler automobile company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
June 1, 2009
General Motors files for chapter 11 bankruptcy. It is the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history.
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