Events, Verisoph

23 September 1889 Founding of Nintendo 0 cit. Fusajiro Yamauchi founds Nintendo in Kyoto to make hanafuda playing cards. Nearly a century later it reinvents itself as a video game company and revives the industry with the Famicom and Mario. culture / economy / technology ●●●

6 May 1889 Exposition Universelle of 1889 0 cit. Held to mark the centennial of the French Revolution, this fair introduced the Eiffel Tower, built by Gustave Eiffel's firm as the fair's entrance arch and a public demonstration of French engineering. Originally meant as a temporary structure, the tower was kept afterward and became the enduring symbol of Paris. The fair also displayed reconstructed colonial villages with people from France's colonies performing daily life for visitors, a practice historians now describe as a human zoo. culture / technology ●●●

c. 1890 Krupp expands into warships and armour plate 0 cit. Under Friedrich Alfred Krupp the firm moved into naval armour and shipbuilding in the 1890s, acquiring the Germaniawerft shipyard. It became central to the German naval buildup before the First World War. technology / war ●●●

c. 1890 Rubber boom drives forced extraction 0 cit. Surging world demand for rubber, spurred by the pneumatic tyre and other industries, turned the Congo's wild rubber vines into a source of immense profit. Leopold's administration imposed harsh collection quotas on villagers, backed by armed agents and concession companies. The rubber system generated fortunes in Europe while devastating Congolese communities. economy / technology ●●●

15 May 1891 Founding of Philips 0 cit. Gerard Philips and his father found a light bulb factory in Eindhoven. Philips grows into one of the world's biggest electronics firms and co-develops the compact cassette and the CD; its chip unit spawns ASML and NXP. economy / technology ●●●

c. 1891 to c. 1916 Building of the Trans-Siberian Railway 0 cit. Russia built a rail line stretching thousands of kilometers to link European Russia with the Pacific coast. The railway boosted settlement, trade, and military reach across Siberia. economy / technology ●●●

1891 to 1904 Russia builds the Trans-Siberian Railway 0 cit. Russia built a railway across Siberia to link its vast territory and open the east. The line was part of a late, state-led drive to industrialize under finance minister Sergei Witte. economy / technology ●●●

15 April 1892 Founding of General Electric 0 cit. Edison General Electric and Thomson-Houston merge to form General Electric. The company dominates American electrical industry for a century and is a founding member of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. economy / technology ●●●●

1892 Founding of Eastman Kodak 0 cit. George Eastman incorporates Eastman Kodak, four years after launching the Kodak camera with the slogan 'You press the button, we do the rest.' Kodak makes photography a mass consumer activity. culture / economy / technology ●●●

1892 Formation of General Electric 0 cit. In 1892 Morgan financed the merger of Edison General Electric with the Thomson-Houston Electric Company to create General Electric. It became one of the largest industrial firms in the world. economy / technology ●●●

1895 Radio 0 cit. Guglielmo Marconi built the first practical system for sending messages by radio waves without wires, followed by a transatlantic signal in 1901. Radio enabled wireless communication and later broadcasting to millions. technology ●●●●

28 December 1895 The Lumière brothers hold the first film screening 0 cit. The Lumière brothers charged an audience to watch short films projected on a screen in a Paris cafe. This public screening is often marked as the birth of cinema. culture / technology ●●●●●

1896 to 1901 The Uganda Railway and railways of extraction 0 cit. Britain built the Uganda Railway from the coast to Lake Victoria using imported Indian labour at great human cost. Like colonial railways elsewhere, it was laid to move troops and export crops and minerals, not to serve local needs. economy / technology ●●

c. 1896 Railway police for the Uganda Railway 0 cit. As construction of the Uganda Railway pushed inland from Mombasa from 1896, armed guards and railway police were raised to protect the line, its depots, and its largely Indian labour force. This security force was one of the earliest organised policing bodies in the protectorate and tied the origins of the police closely to protecting colonial infrastructure. politics / technology ●

20 July 1897 Founding of Marconi's wireless company 0 cit. Guglielmo Marconi registers the Wireless Telegraph and Signal Company in London to commercialize radio. Its transatlantic transmissions and ship-to-shore wireless launch the radio communications industry. economy / science / technology ●●●

1898 The Anglo-German naval arms race 0 cit. Germany's Naval Laws of 1898 and 1900, driven by Admiral Tirpitz, set out to build a battle fleet capable of challenging Britain at sea. Britain answered with its own building program, and the two nations raced to out-produce each other in warships. The rivalry strained budgets and helped poison relations before the First World War. politics / technology / war ●●●

1899 Robert Williams founds Tanganyika Concessions 0 cit. Scottish mining engineer Robert Williams, an associate of Cecil Rhodes, formed Tanganyika Concessions Limited to prospect for minerals in Central Africa. His teams confirmed the vast copper deposits of Katanga in the south of the Congo. British capital and expertise, routed through this company, would become a founding partner in the exploitation of the Congo's copper belt. economy / technology ●●

c. 1900 Goodyear's winged foot comes from the god Mercury 0 cit. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, founded in Ohio in 1898, adopted a winged-foot logo around 1900. It is based on the winged sandals of Mercury, the Roman messenger god also known to the Greeks as Hermes. economy / religion / technology ●●

14 April 1900 Exposition Universelle of 1900 0 cit. This fair introduced the Paris Métro's first line and a Palace of Electricity that displayed the new technology to nearly 50 million visitors, making it one of the best-attended fairs of the era. It also featured a reconstructed "negro village" exhibit displaying colonial subjects for visitors, part of the same documented human zoo tradition seen at earlier French and international expositions. culture / technology ●●

c. 1900 Most of Africa colonized within about twenty years 0 cit. In 1870 Europeans controlled only a small fraction of Africa, mostly coastal footholds. By around 1900 nearly the whole continent had been claimed, with only Ethiopia and Liberia remaining independent. The speed came from steamships, quinine against malaria, the telegraph, and above all a huge gap in firepower. politics / technology / war ●●●

3 March 1901 National Bureau of Standards, Origin of NIST 0 cit. Congress creates a national measurement laboratory to keep the country's physical standards and support industry and science. Renamed the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 1988, it remains the keeper of American weights, measures, and technical standards. science / technology ●●

12 December 1901 Marconi transmits first transatlantic radio signal 0 cit. Guglielmo Marconi reported receiving a wireless signal sent across the Atlantic on 12 December 1901. The demonstration showed radio could carry information without wires over long distances. science / technology ●●●

2 March 1901 Formation of U.S. Steel 0 cit. On 2 March 1901 Morgan merged Carnegie Steel with other firms to create United States Steel. Capitalised at about 1.4 billion dollars, it was the world's first billion-dollar corporation. economy / technology ●●●●●

10 January 1901 Spindletop gusher opens the Texas oil age 0 cit. The Lucas gusher at Spindletop blows out at an unheard-of rate, flooding Texas with crude and new companies like Gulf and Texaco. Cheap, abundant oil now made fuel, not just lamp kerosene, the industry's future. economy / technology ●●●

c. 1902 Minerva cars used the Roman goddess of wisdom as their emblem 0 cit. The Belgian carmaker Minerva, which began building automobiles around 1902, used the helmeted head of Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom, as its emblem. economy / religion / technology ●

16 June 1903 Founding of Ford Motor Company 0 cit. Henry Ford incorporates the Ford Motor Company in Detroit. Its Model T of 1908 becomes the first car cheap enough for ordinary families, putting America and then the world on wheels. economy / technology ●●●●

17 December 1903 First powered flight 0 cit. Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first controlled, powered airplane flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Within decades aviation shrinks the planet, transforms war, and creates a global transport network. exploration / technology ●●●●

17 December 1903 Powered flight 0 cit. The Wright brothers made the first sustained, controlled flight of a powered heavier than air machine. Aviation shrank the world and grew into global air travel and freight. technology ●●●●●

c. 1903 Tsiolkovsky publishes the rocket equation 0 cit. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky published a paper deriving the equation that relates a rocket's velocity to its exhaust speed and mass of propellant. It showed that spaceflight was possible with liquid-fueled, staged rockets. science / technology ●●●●

c. 1903 Berlin's Kriminalpolizei begins systematic fingerprint use 0 cit. German police departments began adopting fingerprint classification systems for criminal identification, following methods pioneered by Francis Galton and Edward Henry in Britain and India during the 1890s. Fingerprinting gradually replaced the earlier Bertillon system of anthropometric measurement as the standard method of identifying repeat offenders across European and American police forces. The shift marked one of the first major applications of forensic science to routine policing. technology ●

1904 Alice Seeley Harris and the photographs of severed hands 0 cit. The missionary Alice Seeley Harris photographed Congolese victims of the rubber terror, including her image of a father named Nsala staring at the severed hand and foot of his young daughter. Her photographs were among the first uses of atrocity photography for a mass human rights campaign, shown in lantern-slide lectures across Britain and America. The images made the violence undeniable to audiences who had trusted the humanitarian story. religion / society / technology ●●●

c. 1905 August Vollmer pioneers professional policing in Berkeley 0 cit. As Berkeley's police chief, August Vollmer introduced college-educated officers, forensic science, systematic record-keeping, and radio-equipped patrol cars, earning him recognition as the father of modern American policing. He also helped found one of the first academic criminology programs, at the University of California. Vollmer's reforms spread nationally even as many departments continued to rely on patronage hiring and physical coercion. technology ●●

26 June 1906 Founding of the International Electrotechnical Commission 0 cit. no story Engineers from thirteen countries found the IEC in London, with Lord Kelvin as first president, to standardize electrical technology. It remains the global standards body for electrotechnology. diplomacy / technology ●●

15 March 1906 Founding of Rolls-Royce 0 cit. Charles Rolls and Henry Royce formally found Rolls-Royce to build luxury cars. The company later becomes one of the world's leading aero engine makers, powering Allied aircraft in both world wars. economy / technology ●●

1906 Founding of Xerox 0 cit. The Haloid Company is founded in Rochester to make photographic paper. It later commercializes xerography as Xerox, and its PARC lab invents the graphical user interface, Ethernet, and laser printing. economy / technology ●●

10 February 1906 HMS Dreadnought launched 0 cit. The Royal Navy launched HMS Dreadnought, the first battleship with an all-big-gun armament and steam turbine propulsion, which made every existing battleship in the world obsolete overnight. The ship gave its name to a new class of warship and triggered an intense Anglo-German naval arms race in the years before the First World War. Naval planners around the world scrapped or redesigned building programs in response. technology / war ●●●

10 February 1906 HMS Dreadnought 0 cit. Launched at Portsmouth in 1906, HMS Dreadnought carried an all-big-gun main battery and steam turbines that made her faster and more powerful than any battleship afloat. She was so far ahead that she made all existing battleships obsolete, including Britain's own. The design reset the naval race and gave her name to a whole class of warship. technology / war ●●●●

16 September 1908 Founding of General Motors 0 cit. William Durant founds General Motors as a holding company for Buick, soon adding Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Chevrolet. Under Alfred Sloan it becomes the world's largest automaker and a model of the modern corporation. economy / technology ●●●●

1908 The Ford Model T 0 cit. Henry Ford launched the Model T, a sturdy car simple enough to be affordable for ordinary families. It put millions on the road and made the automobile a mass product. technology ●●●●

1 October 1908 Ford introduces the Model T 0 cit. Henry Ford launched the Model T, a sturdy, affordable car meant for ordinary buyers. Strong demand pushed Ford to find faster ways to build it. economy / technology ●●●●

26 May 1908 Oil strikes at Masjed Soleyman, and Anglo-Persian is born 0 cit. After years of failure, D'Arcy's drillers hit oil in southwest Persia, the first major find in the Middle East. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed the next year to exploit it, later renamed Anglo-Iranian and then BP. economy / technology ●●●

2 July 1909 Haber synthesizes ammonia from nitrogen 0 cit. Fritz Haber showed how to make ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen under high pressure. The reaction opened the way to cheap synthetic fertilizer and explosives. science / technology ●●●●●

1910 Founding of Hitachi 0 cit. Namihei Odaira founds Hitachi as an electrical repair shop at a copper mine, building Japan's first 5-horsepower electric motors. It grows into one of Japan's largest industrial and electronics groups. economy / technology ●●●

16 June 1911 Founding of IBM 0 cit. The Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company forms from a merger of punched card and scale makers, renamed IBM in 1924. Under the Watsons it comes to dominate business machines and then the computer industry. economy / technology ●●●●

c. 1911 Mobil's flying red horse is Pegasus of Greek myth 0 cit. The Socony oil company adopted a flying red horse as its trademark around 1911, the winged horse Pegasus of Greek mythology. The emblem was later carried by Mobil. economy / religion / technology ●●

1 November 1911 First recorded aerial bombing in warfare 0 cit. During the Italo-Turkish War, Italian aviator Giulio Gavotti dropped small grenades by hand from his monoplane onto Ottoman positions near Tripoli, the first aerial bombardment in the history of warfare. Italy had also used aircraft for reconnaissance earlier that year, another military first. The episode showed early European militaries that aircraft could serve as offensive weapons, not just scouts. technology / war ●●

1911 Copper smelting begins in Katanga 0 cit. Union Miniere poured its first Katangan copper at the Star of the Congo mine near the new town of Elisabethville, today Lubumbashi. The colony was reshaped around the mines, drawing in migrant labor and building a railway to ship metal out to the coast. Katanga became one of the world's great copper producers, its output feeding European and American industry rather than local development. economy / technology ●●

1911 Ford takes mass production across borders 0 cit. Ford opened an assembly plant at Trafford Park near Manchester, extending American mass-production methods into Europe, and soon built plants in Germany and beyond. Fordism became a globally exported system, not just a set of factories but a model of industrial organization. The car majors became early examples of firms whose operations, workforce, and influence spanned continents. economy / technology ●●

13 April 1912 Royal Flying Corps formed 0 cit. Britain established the Royal Flying Corps as the air arm of the British Army, absorbing the earlier Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers. It flew reconnaissance and, increasingly, combat missions on the Western Front during the First World War. In 1918 it merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to create the Royal Air Force. technology / war ●

c. 1912 DuPont builds the dashboard of the corporation 0 cit. Engineers and managers at DuPont developed the return-on-investment formula and a chart linking profit margin, asset turnover, and capital, giving head office a single number to judge every division. Combined with Frederick Taylor's scientific management, cost accounting became the nervous system of the big industrial firm, letting a few managers control sprawling operations from the top. economy / technology ●●

1 December 1913 Ford launches the moving assembly line 0 cit. Ford installs the first moving assembly line for cars at its Highland Park plant, cutting Model T chassis assembly from over 12 hours to about 93 minutes. Mass production transforms manufacturing worldwide. economy / technology ●●●●

1913 The moving assembly line 0 cit. Ford introduced a moving assembly line that brought the work to the worker and slashed the time to build a car. Mass production lowered prices and became the model for modern manufacturing. economy / technology ●●●●

9 September 1913 Bosch scales up ammonia production at Oppau 0 cit. Carl Bosch turned Haber's laboratory reaction into a full industrial process at a BASF plant. The Haber-Bosch process made fertilizer on a scale that fed a growing world population. economy / technology ●●●●●

1 December 1913 Ford starts the moving assembly line 0 cit. Ford installed a moving assembly line at Highland Park that carried cars past stationary workers. It cut the time to build a Model T from hours to minutes and made mass production the industrial standard. economy / technology ●●●●●

1914 Krupp's Big Bertha howitzers used in the First World War 0 cit. In 1914 Krupp's huge Big Bertha siege howitzers smashed Belgian fortresses at the start of the war. Krupp was the main artillery supplier to the German war effort. technology / war ●●●

1914 Maserati's logo is the trident of the Roman god Neptune 0 cit. The Italian carmaker, founded in Bologna in 1914, took its trident logo from the statue of Neptune, the Roman sea god, in the city's central fountain. economy / religion / technology ●●

3 March 1915 Founding of the NACA 0 cit. Congress created the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics to guide and coordinate American aviation research. The NACA later became the core of NASA in 1958. science / technology ●●●

19 January 1915 Germany begins Zeppelin bombing raids on Britain 0 cit. German airships attacked English towns in the first strategic bombing raids against a home population, killing civilians far from the front lines. The raids, and later Gotha bomber attacks, brought the war directly to British cities for the first time and forced Britain to develop dedicated home air defenses. The psychological shock of bombing civilians from the air shaped military and public thinking about air power for decades. technology / war ●●

20 February 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition 0 cit. This fair celebrated the completion of the Panama Canal and San Francisco's rebuilding after the 1906 earthquake. Its Palace of Fine Arts, designed by Bernard Maki, is the only major structure still standing, later rebuilt in permanent materials because of its popularity. economy / technology ●●

1915 American capital takes over Chuquicamata copper 0 cit. The Guggenheim mining interests developed Chuquicamata in northern Chile into one of the largest open-pit copper mines on Earth, later held by the American firm Anaconda. Chilean copper became a foreign-owned enclave whose profits left the country for shareholders abroad. Resentment at this arrangement built for decades and fed a national demand to reclaim the copper. economy / technology ●●

15 July 1916 Founding of Boeing 0 cit. William Boeing incorporates the Pacific Aero Products Company in Seattle, renamed Boeing the next year. It becomes the world's leading builder of airliners, including the 707 and 747 that define the jet age. economy / technology ●●●●

7 March 1918 Founding of Panasonic 0 cit. Konosuke Matsushita founds Matsushita Electric in Osaka, starting with light socket adapters. It becomes one of the world's largest consumer electronics makers under the Panasonic and National brands. economy / technology ●●●

c. 1919 Goddard's report on reaching extreme altitudes 0 cit. Robert Goddard published "A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes" through the Smithsonian, laying out the math of rocket flight. The press mocked his suggestion that a rocket could reach the Moon. science / technology ●●●

1919 Olympus cameras are named for Mount Olympus 0 cit. The Japanese optical company, founded in 1919, took the name Olympus after Mount Olympus, home of the Greek gods. It mirrored the firm's first brand Takachiho, a sacred peak of Japanese myth. economy / religion / technology ●●

1 November 1919 Government Code and Cypher School founded 0 cit. The Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) was formed by merging the Royal Navy's Room 40 and the War Office's MI1b codebreaking units. It handled British signals intelligence between the wars and through the Second World War. GC&CS is the direct ancestor of GCHQ. politics / technology ●●

2 November 1920 KDKA begins commercial radio broadcasting 0 cit. KDKA in Pittsburgh broadcast the 1920 presidential election returns on 2 November 1920, an event often cited as the start of scheduled commercial radio in the United States. Radio quickly became a household mass medium. society / technology ●●●●

1920 Mazda is named after the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda 0 cit. The Japanese automaker, founded in 1920, drew its name from Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god of light and wisdom. The name also echoes founder Jujiro Matsuda's surname. economy / religion / technology ●●●

January 1920 British aerial bombardment ends the Dervish State 0 cit. In early 1920 Britain used the newly formed Royal Air Force to bomb the Dervish fortresses at Taleh, combined with ground columns of the Camel Corps. The air campaign broke the Dervish state within weeks after twenty years of resistance. Sayyid Mohammed Abdullah Hassan fled to the Ogaden and died later that year, most accounts say of illness. He is remembered as an early hero of Somali nationalism. politics / technology / war ●●●

c. 1921 Shinkolobwe uranium enriches the world radium trade 0 cit. After the discovery of the Shinkolobwe deposit around 1915, Union Miniere began producing radium from its unusually rich uranium ore in the early 1920s. For years the Congo mine dominated the world radium market, a valuable and dangerous trade run entirely for Belgian and shareholder profit. The same ore body would soon matter far more for a new reason, its uranium content. economy / science / technology ●●

c. 1923 Oberth's The Rocket into Interplanetary Space 0 cit. Hermann Oberth published a book arguing that rockets could carry people into space. It inspired a generation of German rocket enthusiasts, including Wernher von Braun. science / technology ●●●

16 March 1926 Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket 0 cit. Robert Goddard flew the world's first liquid-propellant rocket, which rose about 12 meters in a short flight. The design principle became the basis of modern rocketry. science / technology ●●●●●

14 March 1927 Founding of Pan American Airways 0 cit. Pan American Airways is founded, flying its first mail route from Key West to Havana. Under Juan Trippe it pioneers transoceanic flying boats and the jet age, becoming the unofficial U.S. flag carrier. economy / exploration / technology ●●●

1927 Television 0 cit. Philo Farnsworth demonstrated a fully electronic television system that transmitted a moving image. Television became the dominant mass medium of the twentieth century. technology ●●●●

6 October 1927 The Jazz Singer ushers in sound film 0 cit. The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927, was the first feature to include synchronized spoken dialogue and helped end the silent era. Sound transformed movies into an even more immersive mass medium. culture / technology ●●●

23 February 1927 Radio Act creates federal broadcast regulation 0 cit. The Radio Act of 1927 created the Federal Radio Commission to license broadcasters and manage the airwaves as a public resource. It established government oversight of who could speak over the mass medium of radio. politics / technology ●●●

6 October 1927 The Jazz Singer brings sound to film 0 cit. The Jazz Singer was the first feature to sync spoken dialogue and singing with the picture. It ended the silent era and forced the whole industry to adopt sound. culture / technology ●●●●●

23 February 1927 Radio Act of 1927 creates the Federal Radio Commission 0 cit. The Radio Act set up the Federal Radio Commission to license broadcasters and manage the airwaves as a public resource. It established federal control over the new medium of radio. politics / technology ●●●

5 July 1927 Founding of the German rocket society 0 cit. Amateur enthusiasts formed the Verein fuer Raumschiffahrt, or Society for Space Travel, to build and test rockets. Its members included a young Wernher von Braun before the group was absorbed into military work. science / society / technology ●●●

1927 American engineers build the Dnieper Dam 0 cit. The Dnieper Hydroelectric Station, the largest in Europe when finished, was built with the American engineer Hugh Cooper as chief consultant and turbines and generators from General Electric and other Western firms. Soviet propaganda hailed it as a socialist triumph. Its core technology came from the West. economy / technology ●●●

June 1928 Olmstead v. United States allows warrantless wiretaps 0 cit. The Supreme Court ruled that tapping a bootlegger's phone lines without a warrant did not violate the Fourth Amendment, because no physical trespass had occurred. Justice Louis Brandeis dissented, arguing for a right to be let alone against new technologies of intrusion. His dissent framed the privacy debate for the rest of the century. politics / technology ●●

November 1929 Byrd flies over the South Pole 0 cit. The American explorer Richard Byrd makes the first flight over the South Pole, opening the age of mechanized and aerial Antarctic exploration. The frozen continent became a stage for national prestige. exploration / technology ●●

May 1929 Ford helps build the Soviet auto industry at Gorky 0 cit. The Ford Motor Company signed an agreement to help the Soviet Union build a huge automobile plant near Nizhny Novgorod, later Gorky, based on Ford's Model A designs and production methods. American engineers helped set it up and train workers. The GAZ works became the backbone of Soviet car and truck production. economy / technology ●●●

1929 Albert Kahn's firm designs hundreds of Soviet factories 0 cit. The Detroit industrial architect Albert Kahn, who had designed Ford's plants, took a contract to design factories across the Soviet Union during the first Five-Year Plan. His firm set up a design office in Moscow, trained Soviet staff, and produced plans for hundreds of industrial projects. It was one of the clearest single channels of Western industrial technology into Soviet industry. economy / technology ●●●●

1929 Magnitogorsk rises as a copy of an American steel city 0 cit. The giant steel complex at Magnitogorsk was planned with the American firm Arthur G. McKee and modeled closely on the United States Steel works at Gary, Indiana. Foreign engineers and specialists helped raise it from bare steppe. It became the model Soviet industrial city, built on imported design. economy / technology ●●●

1930 The Stalingrad Tractor Plant is built in America and shipped east 0 cit. The Stalingrad Tractor Plant, a flagship of the Five-Year Plan, was largely fabricated in the United States, then dismantled and reassembled in the Soviet Union with American engineers on site. It turned out tractors and, in wartime, tanks. The project shows how directly Western industry supplied Soviet heavy manufacturing. economy / technology ●●●

19 June 1934 Communications Act of 1934 creates the FCC 0 cit. The Communications Act merged oversight of radio, telephone and telegraph under a new Federal Communications Commission. The FCC became the main federal regulator of American media. politics / technology ●●●●

1934 Canon began as Kwanon, named for a Buddhist deity 0 cit. The Japanese camera maker's first camera in 1934 was called Kwanon, after Kannon, also known as Guanyin, the Buddhist deity of mercy. The name was soon anglicized to Canon. economy / religion / technology ●●●

c. 1936 Founding of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory 0 cit. A group of Caltech students and researchers, including Frank Malina and Jack Parsons, began rocket experiments in the Arroyo Seco. The work grew into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, later run for NASA. science / technology ●●●●

1936 Argus cameras are named for the hundred-eyed giant of Greek myth 0 cit. The Argus camera brand, launched in Michigan in 1936, borrows the name of Argus Panoptes, the hundred-eyed all-seeing giant of Greek myth. economy / religion / technology ●

1936 Turing defines computation and its limits 0 cit. Alan Turing described an abstract machine that captured what it means to compute, and proved that some problems can never be solved by any such machine. His work answered a question left open by Godel and Hilbert about the limits of mechanical reasoning. The theoretical machine he imagined became the blueprint for the digital computer. science / technology ●●●●

31 March 1936 Italy uses poison gas at Maychew and beyond 0 cit. As Ethiopian resistance stiffened, Italy sprayed mustard gas from aircraft over troops, civilians, herds, and water sources, in breach of the Geneva Protocol it had signed. The decisive Battle of Maychew broke the emperor's main army and opened the road to the capital. The gas attacks were widely reported and condemned, yet no power moved to punish Italy for them. technology / war ●●

28 May 1937 Founding of Volkswagen 0 cit. The Nazi labor front founds Volkswagen to build Ferdinand Porsche's 'people's car,' with a factory at what becomes Wolfsburg. After the war the Beetle becomes the best selling car in history and VW a global auto giant. economy / politics / technology ●●●●

28 August 1937 Founding of Toyota 0 cit. Kiichiro Toyoda spins the Toyota Motor Corporation out of his father's loom works. Its lean production system becomes the world's most studied manufacturing method, and Toyota becomes the largest automaker. economy / technology ●●●●

1937 The jet engine 0 cit. Frank Whittle ran the first bench test of a working turbojet engine. Jet propulsion led to fast, high flying aircraft and made mass air travel practical. technology ●●●

c. 1937 Peenemuende rocket center established 0 cit. The German army opened a research center on the Baltic coast to develop long-range rockets under Wernher von Braun. It became the birthplace of the V-2 missile. science / technology / war ●●●

1938 The Mercury car brand is named for the Roman messenger god 0 cit. Edsel Ford launched the Mercury car brand in 1938, naming it after Mercury, the swift Roman messenger god, to convey speed and dependability. economy / religion / technology ●●

4 March 1938 Oil found in commercial quantities at Dammam No. 7 0 cit. After years of dry holes, well number seven at Dammam finally strikes oil in commercial volumes, proving Saudi Arabia sat atop enormous reserves. It began the transformation of a poor desert kingdom into the world's swing producer. economy / technology ●●●

1 January 1939 Founding of Hewlett-Packard 0 cit. Bill Hewlett and David Packard formalize their partnership, working from a Palo Alto garage now marked as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. HP grows into a leading maker of instruments, computers, and printers. economy / technology ●●●

30 April 1939 New York World's Fair of 1939 0 cit. Built around the theme "The World of Tomorrow," this fair featured the Trylon and Perisphere and previewed television, nylon, and early concepts of highway-based suburban living to Depression-weary Americans. It opened four months before the outbreak of World War II in Europe, and several participating countries' pavilions closed early as the war began. culture / technology ●●

1939 Hewlett-Packard is founded in a Palo Alto garage 0 cit. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard, students of Stanford's Frederick Terman, started HP in a garage that is now treated as the birthplace of Silicon Valley. Wartime and Cold War military contracts for electronics gave the young company its first steady business. economy / technology / war ●●