Business history from the year you were born

Racist violence in Tulsa, Oklahoma, left a wealthy African American community destroyed in 1921. The white community, aided by the National Guard, killed up to 300 people and left many more injured and thousands homeless. The area had been known as Black Wall Street because it had a range of successful Black-owned businesses and a well-educated community.

[Pictured: A group of National Guard Troops, carrying rifles with bayonets attached, escort unarmed African American men to the detention center at Convention Hall, after the Tulsa Race Massacre, Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 1921.]

Henry Luce and Briton Hadden formed Time Inc. in 1922. The company would grow to become one of the largest media businesses in the U.S., eventually being sold to Meredith Corporation for $2.8 billion in 2017.

[Pictured: US journalist Henry Robinson Luce.]

Walt Disney and his brother, Roy, created the business that became The Walt Disney Company in 1923. It is considered one of the "World's Most Admired Companies" and has mass brand recognition.

A group of hardware store owners in Chicago united their businesses into "Ace Stores" in 1924. Now known as Ace Hardware, the company is the largest hardware retail cooperative in the world, with locations in 60 countries.

In a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors on Jan. 17, 1925, President Calvin Coolidge said, "The chief business of the American people is business." It is often misquoted as, "The business of America is business." The quote referred to the role of the press in educating the people about business.

The U.S. Highway System established the famous Route 66 on Nov. 11, 1926. Businesses along the highway, which initially ran from Chicago to Santa Monica, California, prospered from the increased tourist traffic.

The last Model T came off the Ford assembly line in May 1927. The country's first truly affordable vehicle, it demonstrated the ability for efficient assembly line production to lower prices, and made car travel accessible to the middle class. Some 15 million Model T cars were sold.

As part of his presidential campaign, Herbert Hoover promised to increase tariffs on agricultural goods in an effort to help farming businesses in the U.S. in 1928. His promise would eventually lead to the Tariff Act of 1930.

Stock prices collapsed starting on Oct. 24, 1929, pushing the country into the Great Depression. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 24.8% by Oct. 29, 1929. Businesses were destroyed and people saw their life savings vanish.

Toyota created the concept of "just-in-time" manufacturing and automation in 1930. The concepts would help increase efficiency at auto plants. Later known as "lean manufacturing," it would become adopted on a wider basis in the 1990s.

A series of bank runs in 1930 and 1931 took a toll on American businesses, further plunging the country into the Great Depression. Businesses had a very difficult time accessing credit, and deflation forced banks and other financial businesses to go belly up.

Howard Deering Johnson, owner of Howard Johnson's restaurant in Quincy, Massachusetts, developed the modern-day franchise model in 1932. That year, he began to accept payment from independent operators in exchange for letting them use his restaurant's name, logo, supplies, building plans, and food.

Congress passed the Federal Securities Act in 1933. The first regulation on the stock market from the federal government, the act aimed to eliminate fraud in the sale of securities by requiring companies to submit accurate financial information about their businesses to the Securities and Exchange Commission before going public.

[Pictured: The newly created National Securities Exchange Commission.]

The passage of the First New Deal helped boost industrial production by 45% between March 1933 and March 1934. Millions of Americans regained employment through make-work projects.

[Pictured: Civil Works Administration workers on their way to fill a gully with wheelbarrows of earth during the construction of the Lake Merced Parkway Boulevard, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, San Francisco, California, 1934.]

President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act on July 5, 1935. The act would require that businesses engage in collective bargaining with unions.

Congress passed the Robinson-Patman Act in 1936. Intended to protect small retail businesses from powerful chain stores, the law prohibited suppliers and wholesalers from selling products to "preferred customers" at discounted prices.

By 1937, IBM technology allowed organizations and companies to process data at unprecedented volumes. The company won a contract from the federal government to maintain Social Security data, which, in turn, opened up another potential market of some 20,000 other businesses that would also need a way to process the data, according to a book on the company from author and former IBM employee James W. Cortada.

[Pictured: These are just a few of the 1,900 employees at work establishing individual social security accounts for millions of workers at the wage records office.]

Congress increased business regulations with the passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938. The law would establish minimum wage requirements, overtime pay mandates, and rules against child labor.

[Pictured: Workers from the de Havilland aircraft works, Hatfield, listening to speakers at their factory, whilst on strike for fair wages.]

DuPont started commercial production at the first nylon plant, located in Seaford, Delaware, in 1939. Within a year, the company would sell 64 million pairs of nylon stockings, ABC News reported.

Sherb Noble opened the first Dairy Queen in Joliet, Illinois on June 22, 1940. It would make soft-serve ice cream a favorite among Americans. The chain would see rapid expansion over the next 15 years.

A plan to convert Detroit's automobile plants into manufacturing hubs for war planes and tanks was implemented in 1941, shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, despite initial resistance among company executives. The goal was to help the U.S. produce 500 planes per day.

Military contracts for K-rations in World War II helped some major food manufacturers, like The Cracker Jack Company, Kellogg's, and H.J. Heinz, prosper. The individual food rations for troops came into use in 1942.

War production made a significant contribution to the gross national product in the mid 1940s. In 1943, it made up 40% of total GNP.

World War II created labor shortages in many U.S. industries. As a result, businesses began focusing their recruitment efforts on women in the 1940s. By 1944, 35.4% of the civilian labor force was composed of women.

Every other big industrial nation was left devastated by World War II, except America, in 1945. That allowed American corporations to grow practically unchallenged in the coming decades, Investopedia wrote.

[Pictured: Gasoline plant near San Francisco built by the Defense Plant Corporation and operated by Standard Oil of California will turn out enough 100 octane gas to fuel a "substantial force" of B-29 superforts daily.]

The great strike wave of 1946 brought a series of labor strikes across industries in the U.S. Some 5 million workers participated in strikes between 1945-1946, including meatpackers, electric workers, coal miners, and railroad engineers.

[Pictured: Members of the United Packing House Workers of America, who went out on strike, are shown tying up four major packing concerns, as they hold a meeting at 44th Street and 1st Avenue.]

After two years of strikes, Congress passed the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947. The act would offer businesses some protection by banning unions from certain types of strikes and other "unfair labor practices."

Richard and Maurice opened the first McDonald's restaurant in San Bernardino, California in 1948. The self-service restaurant was designed with an assembly line-style kitchen to maximize efficiency.

Henry Taub launched Automatic Payrolls Inc. in 1949. Now known as ADP, the company offers payroll and HR services to nearly 700,000 businesses.

The first modern credit card became available in 1950. Created by Diners Club founders Ralph Schneider and Frank McNamara, the charge card expanded the purchasing power of the middle class, offering new opportunities for businesses.

In the early 1950s, advertisers shortened TV commercials to just 30 seconds. It would help TV rake in $41 million in ad revenue in 1951. Two years later, it would earn $336 million in ad revenue, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Companies in the U.S. began experimenting with automation in the 1950s. General Electric started making engineering calculations on an IBM 701 at a jet-engine plant in Ohio in 1952.

Congress established the Small Business Administration in 1953. The independent agency is responsible for providing aid and assistance to small businesses, in an effort to ultimately strengthen the economy.

General Electric started conducting regular data processing on an electronic computer in 1954, making it the first company in U.S. history to do so. It used a UNIVAC I for accounting and manufacturing control at its appliance division.

Disneyland opened in Anaheim, California, in 1955. It would bring Disney staggering profits. The theme park would also "pioneer dynamic pricing strategies to lure more customers," MarketWatch reported.

The Federal Aid HIghway Act of 1956 authorized construction of the Interstate Highway System. As highways developed, franchise chains began booming, as many were fast food restaurants at roadway rest stops.

Toyota Motor Sales launched its first headquarters in the U.S. in Hollywood, California on Oct. 31, 1957. In less than 20 years, it would become the country's best-selling import brand, according to Purdue University.

Bank of America established BankAmericard, now known as Visa, in 1958. It was the first card to offer "revolving credit" and was the earliest consumer credit card aimed specifically at middle-class customers and small- to medium-size businesses in the country.

Mattel began selling the first Barbie doll in 1959. It would become one of the best-selling toys in U.S. history.

A new style of shopping was created in response to the rise of the suburb in the 1950s. The early 1960s saw many indoor shopping malls open up across the country, giving customers an easy way to shop at many businesses on a single trip.

The "Rolling Adjustment" Recession occurred between April 1960 and February 1961. During that time, gross national product and demand for goods fell. It also marked a major shift in the automotive industry, with American drivers buying up more foreign-made cars, according to Investopedia.

Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962. He wanted to build on the success of his previous store, Walton's 5&10, in Bentonville.

The government amended the Fair Labor Standards Act, including a new law on equal pay in 1963. The Equal Pay Act would aim to end wage disparity based on gender.

President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. The act would make it illegal for businesses to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, or religion.

Many American businesses ditched their conservative ads from the 1950s in an effort to woo customers who were part of the counterculture movement of the mid-to-late 1960s. In 1965, Dodge released ads in Life magazine that urged people to "Join the Dodge Rebellion."

The government began requiring businesses with at least 100 employees to file a report on the demographics of their workforces annually, starting in 1966. They were required to disclose information about their employees' genders, race and ethnicity, and job categories.

The Age Discrimination and Employment Act was signed into law in 1967. It would prevent businesses from using age as a reason to discriminate against potential workers at least 40 years old.

Labor strikes and capacity bottlenecks caused a strain in production at U.S. businesses in 1968. On the flip side, consumer spending continued to grow, despite a surtax on higher incomes that was passed by Congress in the middle of that year.

President Richard Nixon established the Office of Minority Business Enterprise on March 5, 1969. The federal agency, which is now known as the Minority Business Development Agency, focused exclusively on the success of minority-owned businesses.

Corporations that seemed to represent American capitalist imperialism were targeted by anti-war protestors in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1970, protesters in Santa Barbara, California, torched a Bank of America branch.

Congress established the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) in 1971. The regulatory agency would create mandates for businesses to follow to offer employees safe, healthful working conditions.

Katharine Graham took on the role of CEO at The Washington Post Company in 1972. It was the first time in history that a Fortune 500 company had a woman CEO.

FedEx began operations in 1973 out of a hub in Memphis. The company would increase the availability of overnight shipping and pioneer real-time package tracking capabilities that businesses and customers expect today.

An embargo on oil exports from OPEC members to the U.S. caused oil prices to more than quadruple between 1973 and 1974. It is considered the reason behind the 1973-1975 recession, in which many businesses faced uncertainty, per The Balance.

May 1, 1975, marked the end of fixed commissions on the stock market. Moving forward, brokerages could offer discounted commission rates, thus allowing more retail investors to start trading and investing in companies.

College dropouts Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs formed Apple Computers on April 1, 1976. The company would go public in 1980 and revolutionize the computer industry.

U.S. companies ramped up production by 16% toward the end of 1977. It would lift the country out of the oil recession and provide millions of new jobs.

Congress and President Carter passed a law that would allow airlines to establish their own ticket prices and routes in 1978. It was the first time in the country's history that the government deregulated an industry.

Employment in the U.S. manufacturing industry peaked in June 1979, providing jobs to nearly 20% of American workers. The industry would go on a mostly-downward trajectory from that point on.

President Carter signed the Motor Carrier Act into law on July 1, 1980. It would deregulate the trucking industry, giving businesses more control over rates and removing some barriers to entry for new trucking firms.

Tight monetary policy plunged the U.S. into a recession starting in July of 1981. Businesses in the auto, construction, and manufacturing industries suffered and were forced to lay off wide swaths of their workforces.

Businessman and publisher Johnson H. Johnson was the first African American to make the Forbes 400 list in 1982. He founded Johnson Publishing Company and created the magazines Ebony and Jet.

The first Costco warehouse opened in Seattle in 1983. It would open up the wholesale business to regular retail customers, allowing them to buy products in bulk at a discount.

Michael Dell launched the company that would become Dell Computer corporation in 1984. The business specialized in building custom computers, allowing businesses and customers to get machines designed to do very specific jobs.

Companies in the media industry had a ton of takeovers in 1985. That year, ABC was bought by Capital Cities Communications, Rupert Murdoch acquired half of 20th Century Fox, and Fox snapped up six TV stations, the Christian Science Monitor reported.

[Pictured: Rupert Murdoch.]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its data on employee costs for employee compensation for the first time in 1986. It would provide organizations and businesses insight about the costs of having employees annually.

Chrysler absorbed American Motors in 1987. The deal would cost Chrysler $1.5 billion. American Motors was a relatively small company in the auto industry and had trouble standing up against the competition from larger manufacturers.

[Pictured: Chrysler Corp.'s chairman Lee Lacocca.]

In an effort to help women entrepreneurs succeed, Congress passed the Women's Business Ownership Act in 1988. The law would make it easier for women to get business loans without a male co-signer and pave the way for new policies and programs for women-owned businesses.

Gary Burrell and Min Kao founded Garmin in Lenexa, Kansas, in 1989. It started out selling GPS technology to the military. Eventually, it would take over a huge share of the consumer GPS market.

Microsoft launched Windows 3.0 in 1990. It was the first version of the product that would see both critical and commercial success.

Pan American World Airways, or Pan Am, filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 8, 1991. Delta Air Lines picked up the remaining profitable assets of what was once the country's unofficial flag carrier.

Leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico submitted an agreement for free trade in their countries in December 1992. Now known as NAFTA, the agreement eliminated trade and investment barriers between the three nations.

The National Black Chamber of Commerce was established in May 1993. Census Bureau data at the time showed that there were more than 300,000 Black-owned businesses nationwide, responsible for $33 billion in sales annually.

Jeff Bezos founded Cadabra, Inc. on July 5, 1994. Within months, he renamed his company Amazon.com and began selling books online.

Martin Marietta and Lockheed Corporation merged in a $10 billion deal in 1995. The combined company, renamed Lockheed Martin Corporation, would become the largest military contractor in the U.S., The New York Times reported.

[Pictured: Lockheed Martin President Norman Augustine (L) shakes hands with Chairman and CEO Daniel Tellep after a press conference in Chicago 15 March announcing stockholder approval of the merger of Lockheed and Martin Marietta.]

Congress passed the Communications Decency Act in 1996. The law would deem that internet companies were not liable for information or content posted by users on their sites. It would help social media sites and other online businesses flourish, The New York Times wrote.

[Pictured: Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., at news conference on the Supreme Court decision on the Communications Decency Act.]

Toyota began selling the Prius in select countries, including Japan, in 1997. It is considered the first mass-produced hybrid vehicle. Toyota would sell 1 million Prius vehicles by mid-2008.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched Google while pursuing their PhDs at Stanford University in 1998. Google.com would become the most-visited site in the world, and the company would go on to make many other products used by businesses and consumers alike.

Huge numbers of people began using the internet in the 1990s, sparking a boom in online businesses in 1999. That year, shares of many internet businesses experienced exponential growth.

AOL and Time Warner merged in 2010. The deal was valued at a staggering $350 billion, making it the largest merger in the history of American business at the time.

The Dotcom bubble began to burst in 2001. Over the next year, many internet companies went bust, per Investopedia. Strong digital brands, like Amazon and eBay, managed to stay in business.

A number of financial scandals at major U.S. companies in 2002 made people realize that the bull market of the late '90s was rife with fraud, according to CNN Money. That year, former chief financial officers at WorldCom and Enron were arrested and later indicted amid fraudulent accounting allegations.

The government and consumers began taking notice of more companies outsourcing labor and importing cheap foreign goods in 2003. Walmart, for example, imported tons of low-cost merchandise from China, undermining domestic-made products and calling into question just how good the world's largest retailer was for low-income Americans, NBC wrote.

Congress established a repatriation tax holiday in 2004 to give companies a break on profits earned overseas, per CNBC. It would bring $312 billion back to the U.S.

Y Combinator launched in Silicon Valley in 2005. It operated under the mission of cultivating startup founders, rather than forcing them to give up control over their companies in exchange for funding, per Fast Company. It now runs a program that helps guide promising founders through "a rigorous grooming program" and pitch their businesses to investors.

A group of entrepreneurs established B Lab in 2006. The organization offers companies who meet certain corporate social responsibility standards and environmental practices "B Corporation" status.

Apple launched the iPhone in 2007. It led to the creation of many new business opportunities, such as apps and phone accessories, and it also expanded the way people kept in touch.

The global financial crisis of 2008 made a huge impact on businesses in the U.S. Between late 2008 and 2010, some 1.8 million small businesses were forced to close, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Once an intern at Xerox, Ursula Burns ascended to the highest position at the company in 2009. She was the first Black woman to become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.

President Barack Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act on Sept. 27, 2010. It established the Small Business Lending Fund Program, which helped boost credit opportunities for small businesses.

Occupy Wall Street protests impacted major business hubs in the U.S. in 2011. Their "anti-market rhetoric" may have slowed down the country's economic recovery, research from the University of Maryland showed. They brought inequality, and the concept of "the 1%," into the mainstream.

After the Great Recession, companies that incorporated social good into their mission began to take off in 2012. That year, several states (including California and New York) passed new laws that gave mission-based businesses the opportunity to get reclassified as benefit corporations and "protect themselves from shareholders who might not prioritize values such as employee wellness or eco-friendliness," Fast Company reported.

Facebook's chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg published "Lean In" in 2013. The popular book offers guidance to help women succeed in business.

GM had a tough year in 2014, when it announced an unprecedented 79 recalls, CBS News noted. The company's earnings fell 80% in the second quarter, and it was expected to lose billions of dollars from the recalls.

[Pictured: General Motors CEO Mary Barra is sworn in before the House Energy and Commerce Committee for a hearing on the GM ignition switch recall on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.]

The year 2015 marked a series of mergers and acquisitions among major companies. That year, Anheuser-Busch InBev (producer of Budweiser) and SABMiller (which makes Miller Genuine Draft) made a $106 million merger deal. Mergers also occurred between Dow Chemical and DuPont, as well as Pfizer and Allergan. Walgreens bought Rite Aid for $9.4 million, CBS News reported.

[Pictured: (L-R) CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev Carlos Brito, CEO of the Brewers Association Bob Pease, president and CEO of the National Beer Wholesalers Association Craig Purser, minister of Iowa Beer for the Iowa Brewers Guild J. Wilson, president of the American Antitrust Institute in Boulder, Colo., Diana Moss, president and CEO of Molson Coors Mark Hunter are sworn in during a hearing before the Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights Subcommittee of Senate Judiciary Committee on "Ensuring Competition Remains on Tap: The AB InBev/SABMiller merger and the State of Competition in the Beer Industry."]

In 2016, pharmaceutical company Mylan received harsh criticism from customers and Congress for increasing the price of EpiPens by more than 400%. It would spark increasing attention to rising drug prices and concerns about pharmaceutical businesses taking advantage of the market, per U.S. News & World Report.

The #MeToo movement started in 2006 when Tarana Burke coined the phrase, and gathered steam in October 2017, when actress Alyssa Milano encouraged people to come forward if they had been sexually harassed or assaulted. Consumers took notice as to how businesses reacted to the movement. As a result, 55% of companies changed their procedures for handling sexual harassment, or planned to do so soon, according to a 2019 report from HR Acuity.

President Donald Trump established new trade barriers and tariffs on goods from China in 2018. Many businesses and agricultural firms came out against the trade war, saying that it would harm the economy.

Once estimated to be worth $48 billion, WeWork saw its valuation slashed to $10 billion in 2019. That year, the company made a failed attempt at launching an IPO. In October 2019, it was taken over by Softbank.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced businesses around the country to close. In an effort to help companies hang on, Congress passed the $2.2 trillion CARES Act, which created special forgivable loans for companies.