1900's
General Motors (GM) was founded in 1908 in Flint, Michigan as a holding company for Buick, then controlled by William C. Durant, and acquired Oldsmobile later that year. The next year, Durant brought in Cadillac, Elmore, and Oakland. In 1909, General Motors acquired the Rapid Motor Vehicle Company of Pontiac, Michigan, the predecessor of GMC Truck. A Rapid became the first truck to conquer Pikes Peak in 1909.
1920's
GM surpasses Ford Motor Company in the 1920s thanks to the brilliant leadership of Alfred Sloan. "The manufacture of correct assessments, not physical products, is what most gratified Alfred Sloan," says Farber (2002). While Ford kept inventing new ways to cut manufacturing costs, Sloan was inventing new ways of managing a complex worldwide organization, while paying special attention to consumer demands. Car buyers no longer wanted the cheapest and most basic model—they wanted style, power and prestige, which GM offered them. Thanks to consumer financing, easy monthly payments allowed far more people to buy GM cars—while Ford was moralistically opposed to credit. During the 1920s and 1930s, General Motors bought out the bus company Yellow Coach, helped create Greyhound bus lines, replaced intercity train transport with buses, and established subsidiary companies to buy out streetcar companies and replace the rail-based services with buses. GM formed United Cities Motor Transit in 1932.
1930's
General Motors bought the internal combustion engined railcar builder Electro-Motive Corporation and its engine supplier Winton Engine in 1930, renaming both as the General Motors Electro-Motive Division. Over the next twenty years, diesel-powered locomotives and trains — the majority built by GM — largely replaced other forms of traction on American railroads. (During World War II, these engines were also important in American submarines and destroyer escorts.) Electro-Motive was sold in early 2005.
1950's
At one point GM was the largest corporation ever in the United States, in terms of its revenues as a percent of GDP. In 1953 Charles Erwin Wilson, then GM president, was named by Eisenhower as Secretary of Defense. When he was asked during the hearings before the Senate Armed Services Committee if as secretary of defense he could make a decision adverse to the interests of General Motors, Wilson answered affirmatively but added that he could not conceive of such a situation "because for years I thought what was good for the country was good for General Motors and vice versa". Later this statement was often garbled when quoted, suggesting that Wilson had said simply, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." At the time, GM was the one of the largest employers in the world – only Soviet state industries employed more people.
On December 31, 1955, General Motors became the first American corporation to make over one billion dollars in a year.
2000's
After GM's massive lay-offs hit Flint, Michigan a strike began at the General Motors parts factory in Flint on June 5, 1998, which quickly spread to five other assembly plants and lasted seven weeks.
GM, to date, has been the world's leading auto manufacturer for 74 years consecutively. On December 21, 2005 Toyota Motor Corp. announced that it would produce 9.06 million vehicles for 2006. Analysts estimate that GM will only produce around 8.825 million cars for 2006, giving up the title of the world's largest auto maker. However, CEO Rick Wagoner is confident that GM will remain #1. Regardless, GM's status as both an automotive and corporate juggernaut is in jeopardy. Its financial difficulties have dragged stock value down; as of March 23, 2006, GM's market capitalization is roughly $12.5 billion.
(http://en.wikipedia.org)
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