Today, 02nd May 2014 in History! LEAD STORY On this day in 1918, General Motors Corporation (GM), which will become the worlds largest automotive firm, acquires Chevrolet Motor Company. GM had been founded a decade earlier by William C. Billy Durant, a former carriage maker from Flint, Michigan, whose Durant-Dort Carriage Company had taken control of the ailing Buick Motor Company. On September 16, 1908, Durant incorporated Buick into a new entity, General Motors, which by the end of that decade had welcomed other leading auto manufacturers--including Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland--into its fold. In 1910, with GM struggling financially, stockholders blamed Durants aggressive expansionism and forced him out of the company he founded. In November 1911, he launched Chevrolet Motor Company, named for his partner, the Swiss race car driver Louis Chevrolet. Still the owner of a considerable portion of GM stock, Durant began to purchase more shares in the company as his profits from Chevrolet allowed. In a final move to regain control, Durant offered GM stockholders five shares of Chevrolet stock for every one share of GM stock. Though GM stock prices were exorbitantly high, the market interest in Chevrolet made the five-for-one trade irresistible to GM shareholders. With the sale, concluded on May 2, 1918, Durant regained control of GM. Just two years later, however, he was pushed out for good by Pierre S. DuPont, whose familys powerful chemical company had begun investing in the fledgling auto industry by buying GM stock in 1914. Pierre DuPont subsequently rose to the chairmanship of GMs board and became president in 1920. In an agreement made that same year, DuPont paid off all of Durants debt; in exchange, the controversial founder left the company. Durant refused to bow out of the automotive industry, however, founding Durant Motors in 1921 and producing a line of cars for the next decade. The onset of the Great Depression in the early 1930s put an end to Durants career in cars, and he threw his entrepreneurial energy behind a string of bowling alleys located near the Buick complex in Flint, Michigan. When this venture failed as well, Durant faded from the public eye. He died on March 18, 1947, at the age of 85, just weeks before the passing of another automotive pioneer: Henry Ford. AMERICAN REVOLUTION Elias Boudinot is born, 1740 AUTOMOTIVE GM buys Chevrolet, 1918 CIVIL WAR Confederates deliver blow to Union at Chancellorsville, 1863 COLD WAR Joseph McCarthy dies, 1957 CRIME A grisly crime leads to rubber gloves, 1924 DISASTER Sandstorm in Egypt kills 12, topples buildings, 1997 GENERAL INTEREST Hudsons Bay Company chartered, 1670 Madrid revolts against French rule, 1808 End of an era at the FBI, 1972 Osama bin Laden killed by U.S. forces, 2011 HOLLYWOOD Iron Man released, 2008 LITERARY Manuscript of Edna St. Vincent Millays Conversations at Midnight destroyed in hotel fire, 1936 MUSIC Dick Clark survives the Payola scandal, 1960 OLD WEST John B. Jones becomes major in Texas Rangers, 1874 PRESIDENTIAL George W. Bush forms commission on Social Security, 2001 SPORTS Gehrig ends streak, 1939 VIETNAM WAR U.S. ship sunk in Saigon port, 1964 Joint forces continue attack into Cambodia, 1970 WORLD WAR I Allies argue over U.S. troops joining battle on Western Front, 1918 WORLD WAR II German troops in Italy surrender to the Allies, while Berlin surrenders to Russias Zhukov., 1945
Posted on: Fri, 02 May 2014 04:23:07 +0000
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