Ikea
The cover of a 1970 IKEA catalog.
Seventy-five years ago this week, a Swedish teenager named Ingvar Kamprad founded his first company by selling replicas of his uncle's kitchen table and smaller items, like pencils and pipes. He decided to call the company IKEA: an acronym that incorporated the first letters of his own name and the name of where he grew up (his family farm, Elmtaryd, near the village of Agunnaryd).
Since then, IKEA has become a household name in interior design across the world, known for its minimalist, affordable furniture.
To catalog and celebrate this history, IKEA debuted a museum in 2016 in Älmhult, Sweden. It features 20,000 items from the company's history, the museum's creative director, Cia Eriksson, told Business Insider. What IKEA couldn't find from its own collection, it bought from flea markets and online auctions.
Let's take a look at IKEA's evolution.