The Basics of Business History: Top 100 Events in Chronological Order
TSC Staff
05/19/99 - 10:01 AM EDT
Do you remember where you were when ADM became the world's largest linseed-oil maker? Figure it out here with our top 100 U.S. business events of the century listed by date, from 1901 to 1996. 1900s
1901: Morgan consolidates U.S. Steel (58)
1906: The Jungle is published (42)
1907: U.S. immigration peaks (44)
1909: Bakelite is introduced (17)
1910s
1910: Frederick Taylor's 'scientific management' theory gains legitimacy (94)
Jan. 10, 1910: Hallmark gets its start (100)
May 15, 1911: The Supreme Court orders the breakup of Standard Oil (36)
1913: The Federal Reserve is formed (3)
1913: Ford introduces the assembly line (6)
1914: Thomas Watson becomes president of IBM's predecessor (88)
Aug. 15, 1914: The Panama Canal opens (86)
1915: Carrier Engineering is founded, beginning the commercialization of air conditioning (10)
1920s
1922: New York's WEAF broadcasts the first radio ad (35)
1923: ADM becomes the world's largest linseed -oil maker (55)
1923: Alfred Sloan becomes president of General Motors (66)
1928-29: The explosion of RCA's stock epitomizes market mania (75)
March 31, 1929: Bernays lights the 'Torches of Liberty' (76)
Oct. 24-29, 1929: The Great Crash of 1929 (4)
1930s
Aug. 4, 1930: The first U.S. supermarket, King Kullen, opens (81)
1932-34: The Depression-era securities laws (19)
May 12, 1933: The Agricultural Adjustment Act is signed (50)
1934: Benjamin Graham's
Security Analysis is published (62)
June 1934: FDR signs the act creating the Federal Housing Administration (73)
1935: The Public Utility Holding Company Act is enacted (85)
Dec. 17, 1935: The first DC-3 flight (27)
1936: Keynes publishes
The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (12)
1936-37: The United Auto Workers stage their first sit-down strikes (14)
March 1, 1936: Hoover Dam is completed (61)
1939: Hewlett and Packard put Silicon in the Valley (16)
April 20, 1939: The first commercial television broadcast (23)
1940s
1940: Charles Merrill re-creates Merrill Lynch (52)
World War II: Coca-Cola becomes a global brand (41)
1941-45: Rosie the Riveter and FEPC: Women and minorities contribute to the war effort (72)
1942: Kaiser's World War II shipyards surpass all expectations of production (7)
September 1943: A Merck scientist synthesizes streptomycin (25)
1944: The Bretton Woods agreement (29)
June 22, 1944: FDR signs the GI Bill of Rights (43)
1946: The baby boom begins (51)
1947: Kennan's 'X' letter gives birth to the peacetime military-industrial complex (13)
1947: Three Bell Labs scientists invent the transistor (28)
June 5, 1947: The Marshall Plan (39)
October 1947: Levittown opens (49)
1950s
July 17, 1955: Disneyland opens (98)
June 29, 1956: Eisenhower creates the interstates (1)
1957: The first Japanese car, a Toyota, is sold in the U.S. (26)
July 29, 1958: Eisenhower signs the act creating NASA (56)
September 1958: Bank of America launches the first credit card (22)
1960s
1960s: President Johnson's Texas-sized spending spurs domestic inflation (68)
July 1960: Maiman unveils the first working laser (79)
1961: Kroc buys McDonald's (15)
1961: Frances Kelsey blocks the U.S. approval of thalidomide (63)
1962: The first Wal-Mart opens (8)
June 1962: The New Yorker serializes
Silent Spring (53)
1963: Valium is introduced (87)
June 10, 1963: Equal pay for equal work (5)
1964: The Civil Rights Act (31)
Jan. 11, 1964: The surgeon general reports that smoking causes lung cancer in men (83)
June 28, 1965: Intelsat 1 goes into service (80)
July 30, 1965: President Johnson signs Medicare into law (20)
August 1965: Watts explodes in race riots (54)
1968: Hospital Corp. of America is founded (48)
1970s
1970s: Wage stagnation starts (37)
1970: Xerox founds its Palo Alto Research Center (32)
1971: Intel invents the single-chip microprocessor (2)
1971: MCI is authorized to compete with AT&T (77)
1971: Michael Milken starts Drexel's junk-bond trading operation (82)
June 18, 1971: Southwest Airlines begins flying (91)
1973: Cohen and Boyer pioneer recombinant DNA techniques (67)
April 1973: Federal Express begins operations (70)
May/June 1973: Black and Scholes introduce their options pricing model in the
Journal of Political Economy (71)
1973-74: The OPEC oil shock (40)
Sept. 2, 1974: President Ford signs ERISA into law (34)
May 1, 1975: Wall Street's fixed commissions end (59)
June 20, 1975: Jaws ushers in the blockbuster era in Hollywood (95)
September 1975: HBO via satellite accelerates the fragmentation of the TV marketplace (84)
August 1976: Bogle launches the First Index Investment Trust (89)
1978: Toys R Us revives employee stock options (30)
1978: The University of Phoenix, a for-profit university, is accredited (96)
October 1978: The California asbestos lawsuits (60)
March 29, 1979: The Three Mile Island disaster (99)
August 1979: Volcker becomes Fed chairman (24)
1980s
1980: Reagan is elected (11)
1980: The Supreme Court allows gene patenting (33)
1980: The CCITT Group 3 recommendation for facsimile machines is adopted (65)
Jan. 7, 1980: The government bails out Chrysler (69)
1981: Microsoft is tapped to provide the IBM operating system (21)
August 1981: Reagan fires federal air traffic controllers (45)
October 1981: Harley-Davidson adopts Japanese management techniques (92)
August 1982: The current bull market begins (9)
1984: Calpers promotes shareholder activism (57)
Jan. 1, 1984: AT&T is dismantled (46)
Dec. 6, 1984: Nasdaq gets its first blue-sky exemption (64)
1987: Nike's Revolution ads commodify dissent (97)
Oct. 19, 1987: The Black Monday crash (78)
1988: The savings-and-loan crisis peaks (47)
1989: The Berlin Wall falls, heralding the triumph of market capitalism (38)
1990s
April 1993 to present: Lou Gerstner turns IBM around (90)
Aug. 9, 1995: Netscape goes public (18)
Oct. 29, 1996: AOL goes to flat-rate pricing (74)
