How Business Worked

The world-famous Mars corporation is a multi-billion-dollar confectionary giant run by a family who is as tight-lipped about their personal lives as they are about their business practices.
The company is known for its fortress levels of secrecy, with photographs of key family members hard to come by.
Yet over the years historians have been able to shed light on the inner workings and family history of one of America’s wealthiest dynasties. A dynasty that also dominates pet food markets, pasta sauces and chewing gum.
But is running your own chocolate family as sweet as it sounds or will the strain it puts on your loved ones leave a sour taste in your mouth?
Considering this once small-time family-run sweet shop is now a bigger brand than McDonalds, Kellogg’s and even four times as big as Hershey – their biggest competitor – it’s fair to say we could all learn a lot about running a business - and family - by examining the Mars Corporation.
So it's time to learn How History Works as we peel back the wrapper on the rise and lives of the Mars Family: Sweets, Success and Secrecy.

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#HowHistoryWorks #business #history

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SOURCRES
https://www.snackhistory.com/frank-mars/
https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/forrest-mars
https://zaf.mars.com/about/history/1930/forrest-e-mars-sr-moves-uk
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-m-and-ms-chocolate-1992159
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/life-on-mars-the-mars-family-saga-has-all-the-classic-elements-1535722.html
https://www.forbes.com/profile/forrest-mars-jr/?sh=199a6abf79ee

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#history #uk #riseandfall

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Turn on any news station and you’ll see sights of looted shops, smashed-up streets, and hooligans clashing with riot police. But the recent riots in Southport area - unfortunately - are nothing new.
Yes, the displays deliberate misinformation are a cause for concern.
But civil unrest happened back in ‘81, ‘85 and 1990.
2001 and 2005 also saw racial tensions reach boiling points in Bradford and Birmingham.
In 2010, angry students smashed up the Conservative Party headquarters after the government hiked up university fees.
One year later, a police shooting triggered unrest across the entire capital.
In a bid to show firm leadership, then-London Mayor Boris Johnson spent about £320,000 of the city’s budget on three water cannons. But the riots subsided before the police got a chance to use them. The cannons collected dust until finally being sold years later for a rumoured £11,000.
But he was just one person trying to predict the next tear in societal fabric.
Every time riots broke out, experts asked the same question: how much of this is caused by socioeconomic policies and cultural clashes, and how much is just opportunistic destruction fuelled by far-right groups and left-wing agitators?
The answer depends on who you ask.
Economists will cite the UK’s high inflation and stagnant wages as root causes. The UK may still be in the top-ten GDPs, but being overtaken by India is surely a sign that His Majesty's domain has lost its economic edge.
Meanwhile, some social scientists point to public spending cuts and austerity. Others say mass immigration and an unaffordable national health service have strained infrastructure to breaking point.
Then there are the artists and entertainers.
Despite the British accent being popular amongst Hollywood productions, British influence isn’t what it was since the days of Britpop and Beatlemania.
Before Harry Potter was adapted into movies, the British film industry was on life support.
As for football, the less said the better…
But what really rubs salt in the wound is how Britain’s status stands in stark contrast to its former glory.
The little island almost dominated the entire world through military might and naval power. Then it ruled through industry and commerce. During the 20th century, the underdog helped fend off global threats to become a political powerhouse.
However, slowly but surely, that status has been diminishing.
They say in life everything moves slowly until it happens all at once.
So was the United Kingdom’s decline slow and steady or did a few bad decisions suddenly shove the superpower to the brink of irrelevance?
It’s time to learn How History works as we track “The 400-Year Rise and Fall of Britain”.

The Chinese had the longest-lasting empire in the history of the world but it only took six months for it to end. So what do you do when you have a young emperor left over?
Do you cast the boy onto the street? Do you use him as a political pawn? Or do you keep him prisoner inside his own palace and figure out what to do with him later?
For Puyi, all of these happened and much more.
He was the last Emperor three times. That’s how uniquely strange his life was. His time on earth was filled with tragedy and horror, and some of it was done by Puyi himself. He may have started as a living god but he ended as a war criminal, peasant and – depending on who you ask – a changed man.
But can we blame him for all of his misbehaviour or was he in over his head as a mere puppet in a way of life that was bigger than any of us could ever comprehend?
It’s time to learn How History Works by examining what happens to a young boy when he’s at the centre of a transition between two vastly different civilisations.
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Sources

https://www.britannica.com/summary/China
https://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/post/7456/china-chronicles-the-coup-detat-of-empresses-dowagers-cixi
https://alphahistory.com/chineserevolution/hundred-days-reforms/
https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/china-history/puyi.htm
https://erenow.net/biographies/the-last-manchu/6.php
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Sun-Yat-sen/The-revolution-of-1911
https://royalcentral.co.uk/asia/the-man-who-tried-to-become-the-emperor-of-china-169086/
https://www.chinafetching.com/zhang-xun
https://inf.news/ne/history/dfa7cc6bff06312bb20bf15b5662386d.html
https://www.bjreview.com/special/2015-08/31/content_702161.htm
https://peacepalacelibrary.nl/research-guide/tokyo-trial
https://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2054364,00.html
https://www.historyofroyalwomen.com/empress-xiaorui-min/empress-xiaorui-min-the-widow-of-the-last-emperor-of-china/

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#wealth #history #business

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The super-rich are self-made. So if you’re broke, it’s not your parents’ fault. It’s your own.
Sorry to break it to you, but only one fifth of millionaires were handed wealth by their parents.
As for billionaires, a study by the American Economic Association looked into the Forbes 400 list to discover that only 32% belonged to very rich families.
That means if you’re under 30 and have a billion in the bank, then you definitely got it from mum and dad.
But either way it doesn’t matter, because by the time your grandkids get hold of the daily fortune, your gene pool will have gone from rags to riches and back again.
Or at least that’s the proverb.
“Clogs to clogs is three generations”.
Maybe you’ve heard a version with ‘short-sleeves’ or something similar, but if not, don’t worry. You probably know an example in your own life of a time when a family became wealthy only to lose it all by the third generation.
The idea is the first generation works hard to gain wealth, the second generation works hard to maintain wealth, and the third generation works hard to spend wealth.
But some versions have it that the reason the grandkids end up with nothing is because it was their parents - the original heirs to the fortune - who didn’t share the same values as their entrepreneurial forebears..
Surely the proverb isn’t true though?
Surely we just want it to be true because it feeds into our natural sense of jealousy and inequality?
After all, business dynasties like Trump and Rockefeller aren’t going away anytime soon. If anything, they’re getting richer.
And the nepo-babies of Hollywood prove you don’t need looks or talent to become a successful model or actor, just a dad who was once in a rock band.
Before, a business could only survive on its name if it was a law firm, accountancy office, or funeral directors.
Nowadays, the family is kept off the branding and locked in the boardroom.
Rupert Murdoch’s vast media empire recently lined up his son to take over, and the makers of M and M and Snickers are making sure the levers of power are in the hands of the Mars family.
Look at Goldman Sachs and the Lehman Brothers; both started as family run before growing into towering behemoths. They certainly survived past the third generation.
Granted, Lehman Brothers went down in the 2008 financial collapse, but their ‘clogs to clogs’ journey took 174 years!
So is there a strategy to sustain family wealth or is this just survivorship bias?
How do some families ride out economic forces and shifts in society to ensure that future generations?
Who were the families that first jumped the gap between the have and have nots?
They were the merchants of Florence and they made Silicon Valley look like a lemonade stand.

The Hermit Kingdom of Korea may have opened its doors since the demise of the Japanese empire, but in many ways it’s more closed off than ever before. It’s a place of unspeakable horrors where smiling children perform pitch perfect violin recitals for the elites, knowing full well that a bum note could get their families thrown into concentration camps.

The country’s cult of personality is so unlike anything the world has ever seen that it sounds like a work of fiction. It’s a strange cross between ‘1984’ and ‘The Truman Show’ where everyone performs, no one criticises and the rulers are always watching. Who are the rulers? The Kim family, whose dead ancestors remain very much in power in what the late Christopher Hitchens called a ‘necrocracy’.

But how does a family keep this show running? How did they even rise to power? And will their grip on the nation last or is their way of life coming to an end? It’s time to learn How History Works by entering North Korea, the biggest family run dictatorship.

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#HowHistoryWorks #History #NorthKorea

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SOURCES
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_Envy
2. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kim-Il-Sung
3. https://www.jstor.org/stable/651615
4. https://www.rbth.com/history/329842-north-korea-kim-il-sung-ussr-history
5. https://www.history.com/news/korean-war-peace-treaty-pows
6. https://www.businessinsider.com/the-many-failed-attempts-to-kill-the-leaders-of-north-korea-2017-7?op=1&r=US&IR=T
7. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/1968-north-korean-assassins-tried-kill-south-korea%E2%80%99s-president-180527
8. https://korea-dpr.com/
9. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-jun-26-fg-gourmet26-story.html
10. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-16255126
11. https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/1866848/tourism-or-propaganda-how-ethical-your-north-korean-holiday
12. https://www.history.com/news/north-korea-kim-jong-il-kidnapped-actress-obsessed-films
13. https://insidethemagic.net/2022/08/north-korea-heir-loses-everything-to-go-to-disneyland-kb1/
14. https://news.yahoo.com/satellite-images-show-kim-jong-101704795.html
15. https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2022/08/21/how-does-dennis-rodman-know-kim-jong-un/
16. https://abcnews.go.com/International/timeline-investigation-kim-jong-nams-apparent-assassination/story?id=45855541

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#history #singapore #economy

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Today Singapore is one of the richest countries in the world.
It has more billionaires per capita than any other nation outside of Monaco, the second busiest shipping port on earth, a massive financial center third only to London and New York, and a GDP that puts most of its far larger more populated neighbours to shame.
What’s more is that despite what a lot of people may think it’s not like Singapore is just a tax haven exclusively benefiting the super rich either.
Despite its tiny size, immense wealth and incredibly dense population, Singapore has effectively the highest home ownership rate of any advanced country on earth.
This is all alongside world leading healthcare, education, public transport, public amenities and (most importantly for a lot of its residents) unparalleled public safety…
Now, you probably already knew all of this, Singapore's reputation as a magnet of global wealth is not exactly a secret, even if it has come with some major (and often overlooked) tradeoffs.
But less than a lifetime ago the story was very different…
Far from what it is today, Singapore was one of the POOREST places anywhere on the planet.
Its people lived in ruins left behind by a consecutive string of occupying forces, barely able to feed themselves.
This desperation bred serious animosity amongst the diverse population stuck living there. Civil unrest, crime, disease and malnutrition were everyday realities.
The swampy peninsula was simply SO destitute and politically problematic that it became the first (and so far only) nation in history to achieve its independence… involuntarily…
Yeah that’s right, (almost exactly) 60 years ago the newly formed state of Malaysia saw what was going on in this city, and literally decided to kick them out of the club.
But since then, the story has changed entirely.
No population in recorded history has gained more wealth more quickly than the people of Singapore who are now, four, HUNDRED times richer than they were back when they had independence thrust upon them.
What happened in between then and now, is a valuable history lesson that can teach us many of the right things (and a few of the wrong things) about what it takes to build a modern economic superpower from the ground up.

*** Sources ***

Lee, K.Y., 2000. From third world to first: The Singapore story, 1965–2000. New York: HarperCollins.

https://www.amazon.com/Third-World-First-Singapore-1965-2000/dp/0060197765

https://www.ubs.com/us/en/wealth-management/insights/global-wealth-report.html

https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryofBritain/The-Fall-of-Singapore/

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS?locations=SG-US

https://tradingeconomics.com/singapore/tax-revenue-percent-of-gdp-wb-data.html

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNS.ICTR.ZS?locations=SG-US-XC

https://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/newspapers/digitised/article/straitstimes19520507-1.2.21

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owner-occupancy

https://www.straitstimes.com/business/banking/singapore-among-preferred-destination-for-billionaires-with-47-in-the-country

https://web.archive.org/web/20240925140255/https://www.population.gov.sg/files/media-centre/publications/Population_in_Brief_2024.pdf

https://archive.doingbusines

If you’ve ever worked for a tyrannical boss, lived with a megalomanic housemate or been trapped in a relationship with a controlling ex, then you’ve probably asked yourself “Were they always like this or did they become evil?”

Perhaps instead you’ve been scared to see how dark you can be on occasion and worry about what would happen if you had complete power. Or maybe you secretly wish to rise to the top no matter the coasts? These incidents aren’t as uncommon as they sound. They are frighteningly common. All they need is consent – or coercion – or people just like you! So today we’re going to lay out the steps of this wicked transformation so you can stop it from happening to you or someone else before it’s too late.

It’s time to learn How History Works as we explain “How to become a dictator”

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#selfimprovement #History #dictator

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SOURCES
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mind-brain-and-value/202101/why-do-we-love-underdog-stories-psychology-weighs-in
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/true-story-reichstag-fire-and-nazis-rise-power-180962240/
https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/great-purge
https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/18-brumaire-the-context-and-course-of-a-coup-detat/
https://irqnow.com/saddam1979/
https://www.africanexponent.com/post/ten-reasons-libya-under-gaddafi-was-a-great-place-to-live-2746
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/08/lee-kuan-yew-blake-masters-the-new-right/
https://bookanalysis.com/1984/thought-police/
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27519044
https://www.verdict.co.uk/saddam-hussein-book-novelist-dictators-books/
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/ministry-of-propaganda-and-public-enlightenment
https://www.cnbc.com/2011/03/18/The-Worlds-Longest-Ruling-Dictators.html
https://www.history.com/news/mussolinis-final-hours
https://www.history.com/news/did-marie-antoinette-really-say-let-them-eat-cake
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicolae-Ceausescu

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#warrenbuffett #History #business

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Even people who know nothing about business or finance will know the name Warren Buffett.
As the story goes he purchased his first shares over 83 years ago, and since then he has had what many consider to be the greatest investing career of all time.
His prudent approach to picking (and at times creating) winning businesses has made him one of the richest men in the world, and in the process has also minted more than a dozen OTHER billionaires who followed in his wake.
Perhaps most interestingly though, he has done all of this while remaining largely popular with the general public.
Today, even after a long lifetime to collect potential scandals, he is one of the few global billionaires to enjoy a positive net approval rating.
Which when you really think about it… doesn’t actually make that much sense.
If you actually look into details of his businesses extended history you will find that; he has stripped companies for parts, helped to kick off the private equity boom, lobbied for favorable regulations at the expense of consumers, been embroiled in antitrust lawsuits, union fights, and has had more than his fair share of double standards…
Like that time that he called derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction"... right before his company sold billions of dollars worth of those same derivatives.
Or made a big deal about how financially conservative he was driving a second hand car… right before purchasing a fleet of private jets.
During the global financial crisis he owned businesses that allegedly gave out predatory loans to bad borrowers, while also owning a significant stake in the company that was SUPPOSED to be overseeing the same market.
After that whole system imploded, he then swooped in and made billions of dollars through favorable deals with names like Bank of America and Goldman Sachs.
This is not to mention that, literally, his entire business model is just moving money around to make rich people even richer!
We should hate this guy right?!... and yet… we don’t…
But why?

**** Sources ****

https://www.statista.com/chart/25360/what-americans-think-about-famous-billionaires/

https://sabercapitalmgt.com/buffetts-investment-in-dempster-mill-a-cigar-butt/

https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2015/10/16/berkshire-hathaway-as-idealized-private-equity/

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F2/601/48/376914/

https://www.freightwaves.com/news/federal-court-rules-unions-cant-strike-over-bnsf-attendance-policy

https://berkshirehathaway.com/news/may0208.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-regulator-sues-berkshire-unit-over-risky-home-loans-2025-01-06/

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/archival-collection/financial-crisis-inquiry-commission-4967/transcript-interview-warren-buffett-531019?page=103

https://www.macrotrends.net/2324/sp-500-historical-chart-data

https://www.whitehousehistory.org/the-presidents-timeline

https://www.nytimes.com/1982/08/26/business/cities-service-agrees-to-occidental-s-bid-in-4-billion-merger.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/19/warren-buffett-bought-a-25-pinball-machine-in-1946-and-made-money.html

https://qz.com/1190595/the-typical-us-congress-member-is-12-times-richer-than-the-typical-american-household

https://archive.ourworldin

SOURCES

1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tesla-cell-phones-1926/
2. https://allthatsinteresting.com/nikola-tesla-facts
3. https://www.thefamouspeople.com/profiles/thomas-edison-4395.php
4. https://big-visioners.medium.com/did-thomas-edison-jump-in-front-of-a-train-1fd612613bdf
5. https://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-edison-in-the-obstacle-is-the-way-2014-5?op=1&r=US&IR=T
6. https://www.ge.com/about-us/history#/
7. https://www.magellantv.com/articles/a-war-of-currents-the-real-story-of-thomas-edison-and-the-invention-of-the-electric-chair
8. https://www.discovermagazine.com/technology/the-cruel-animal-testing-behind-thomas-edisons-quest-to-show-dangers-of-ac
9. https://bigthink.com/surprising-science/why-nikola-teslas-greatest-achievement-may-be-in-niagara-falls/
10. https://www.nps.gov/edis/learn/kidsyouth/the-phonograph.htm
11. https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/history-and-civilisation/2019/09/edison-and-teslas-cutthroat-current-war-ushered-in-the-electric-age
12. https://lcb.org/news/editorials/why-nikola-tesla-never-graduated-from-college-it-has-everything-to-do-with-gambling
13. https://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-edison-in-the-obstacle-is-the-way-2014-5?op=1&r=US&IR=T
14. https://www.businessinsider.com/thomas-edison-in-the-obstacle-is-the-way-2014-5?op=1&r=US&IR=T

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#Edison #History #Tesla

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The rivalry between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla is legendary. It’s the classic tale of genius versus genius, a tale about how the crossroads of art and commerce can lead to riches beyond your wildest dreams or financial ruin. But that’s an oversimplification. These guys were more than yesteryear’s version of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. In truth, both men were technological visionaries and savvy businessmen, but in completely different ways. One was a man who invented and the other was a man who perfected.

So, whereas Nikola Tesla envisioned a future where humans could video call with devices in their pockets, Thomas Edison realized the inventions of others, like a prototype of Silicon Valley. In time, Edison would live on as a synonym for American engineering and entrepreneurism. Tesla, thought, would die penniless living in a hotel, slowly going mad and obsessed with feeding the pigeons. But together they changed the world. And they did it by doing things that anyone could do.

It’s time to learn How History Works as we explore ‘The Business Dos and Don’ts of Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla’.

Lesson number. Nurture your talents.

On July 10th, 1856 in what is now modern-day-Croatia, a woman was giving birth during a thunderstorm. The midwife remarked that this dramatic fallacy proved the baby would be a child of darkness. “No”, the mother replied, “he will be a child of light”. She was right. The child would grow up to be a pioneer in electrical lighting: Nikola Tesla.

It’s a good thing that his parents did not discourage him from following his destiny. They did not encourage him to take a laboring job or brush off his interest in scientific experimentation. Everyone knows how much parents worry about ensuring their children have a stable life. Yet far too many people never get to display their talents because their wings are clipped before they leave the nest.

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#history #finance #recession

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Written By: Sam

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--- Sources ---

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2025/11/10/recessions-have-become-ultra-rare-that-is-storing-up-trouble

https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/elon-r-musk/

https://fortune.com/2025/11/13/38-trillion-national-debt-peter-peterson-foundation-historians-economists/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-56333-8

https://northlab.faculty.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/195/2022/10/sfchronicle.com-This-one-fact-will-completely-change-how-you-think-about-California-wildfires.pdf

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

https://www.pacificresearch.org/artificially-low-interest-rates-bad-for-economy

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/white-house-budget-director-plans-194507506.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/03/11/us/how-covid-stimulus-money-was-spent.html

https://www.kearney.com/about/kearney-in-the-media/press/article/zombie-companies-surge-by-almost-9-annually-now-totaling-2-370-worldwide-kearney

https://www.axios.com/2020/06/15/zombie-companies-us

https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2025/press-release/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/grant-panic/

https://www.epi.org/productivity-pay-gap/

https://www.statista.com/chart/34534/median-house-price-versus-median-income-in-the-us/?srsltid=AfmBOoqoYJImnuzZdQ1TOwxAwBUMskHJC1aWFtF6TE0y4_NpdhCgcEIX

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The crash of 1929 (and the great depression that followed in its wake) was the most severe economic downturn in modern history.
A huge financial bubble, record inequality, loose borrowing and bad economic policies all combined to create a perfect storm of manufactured suffering.
The impact on regular workers was so bad, that many soldiers who fought in the second world war said they preferred serving on ships in the Pacific, because at least there they were supplied with rations and a place to sleep.
BUT, what a lot of people forget, is that this downturn wasn’t all that unusual at the time.
Sure, the great depression was a little bit… greater… than the rest, but between 1900 and 1929 there were no less than 9 separate economic crashes, and at least 4 of those would be considered major recessions by today's standards…
What makes this even more concerning is that today almost 100 years later, economists and historians still don’t fully understand what exactly caused the great depression… and if we don’t properly understand the lessons of history, it makes it very hard to learn from them.
The only thing is… by one means or another, we have actually gotten really good at avoiding economic recessions… at least… on paper.
Since the end of the second world war the frequency and severity of economic downturns has constantly declined.
Now you might point to examples like 2008 and the lockdowns of 2020, but they are more of the exceptions that highlight a rather concerning rule…
The global economy really did take a beating five years ago thanks to lockdowns, but the average person actually saw their debts decline, savings increase and overall financial situation improve.
Beyond that of course, some other people did far far better.
Almost a century on from the great depression it looks like one of two things have happened, either we have found a cure for economic crashes… or we have forgotten why we had these downturns in the first place…