Business & Industry

Industrialists, entrepreneurs, and moguls who built empires and transformed economies.

Andrew Carnegie

Andrew Carnegie

1835–1919 · Steel magnate, philanthropist

John D. Rockefeller

John D. Rockefeller

1839–1937 · Oil tycoon, richest American ever

1863–1947 · Assembly line, Model T automobile

1883–1971 · Fashion icon, Chanel No. 5

1955–2011 · Co-founded Apple, changed technology

1964–present · Founded Amazon, space entrepreneur

1971–present · Tesla, SpaceX, tech entrepreneur

Key Events in Business & Industry

1602 Dutch East India Company founded; first public stock

1694 Bank of England established

1760 Industrial Revolution begins in Britain

1776 Adam Smith publishes The Wealth of Nations

1825 First passenger railway opens (Stockton-Darlington)

1837 Panic of 1837; first major US financial crisis

1870 Standard Oil founded by John D. Rockefeller

1876 Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone

1886 Karl Benz patents the automobile

1903 Ford Motor Company founded

1913 Ford introduces the moving assembly line

1929 Wall Street Crash triggers the Great Depression

1936 Keynes publishes The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

1944 Bretton Woods Conference establishes IMF and World Bank

1971 Nixon ends gold convertibility; Bretton Woods system collapses

1975 Microsoft founded by Bill Gates and Paul Allen

1976 Apple Computer founded

1994 Amazon founded by Jeff Bezos

1998 Google founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin

2008 Global financial crisis; Lehman Brothers collapses