After returning from a family road trip and discouraged over the lack of family- and value-oriented lodging,  Kemmons Wilson opened the first Holiday Inn hotel on August 1, 1952, in Memphis, Tennessee.

Today, Holiday Inn is the most widely recognized lodging brand in the world, with 1,600 hotels and more than 300,000 hotel rooms across the globe.

The Holiday Inn brand's history includes a long line of "firsts" that revolutionized the lodging industry including:

• First national hotel franchisee organization
• First to offer now-basics such as in-room air conditioning, free in-room television, a swimming pool and an on-site restaurant.
• Free accommodations and meals for children

In 1934 after graduating from Stanford University as electrical engineers, they become close friends after a camping and fishing trip in CO. Bill worked for GE and Dave enters graduate study at Stanford and MIT. A Stanford professor, Dr. Fred Terman, encouraged them to start their own business. So with $538 and a used Sears-Roebuck drill press, they start working together in a small garage. They formalized their partnership on January 1, 1939 and with a coin toss, named the firm. Their first product was an electronic sound testing equipment. With this innovation they began to change and innovate in the electronics industry. This legacy is continued today.

• First laser printer fast and inexpensive enough for use outside a central computer room (1980)
• Invention of the dot-matrix printer (1984) 

While attending college at Yale University, Fred Smith came up with an idea to revolutionize the transportation industry: overnight package-delivery. He made a "C" on his project because his professor told him, the idea must be feasible. Fred set out to change the course of an industry. 

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In Fred's own words...

Founded in 1976 in Brighton, England with one small shop, the Body Shop International PLC has grown to 1900 stores across 50 counties, operating in 25 languages in 12 time zones! It is a value driven company that dares to make a difference.

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In Anita's own words...

Anita Roddick (1991). Body and Soul: Profits with Principles, the Amazing Success Story of Anita Roddick & the Body Shop. (New York, NY: Crown, 256 p.).

Anita Roddick 2000). Business as Unusual. (London, UK: Thorsons, 288 p.).

Anita Roddick

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/ 38435000/jpg/_38435779_roddick150.jpg)

• To dedicate our business to the pursuit of social and environmental change.

• To creatively balance the financial and human needs of our stakeholders: employees, customers, franchisees, suppliers and shareholders.

• To courageously ensure that our business is ecologically sustainable: meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future.

• To meaningfully contribute to local, national and international communities in which we trade, by adopting a code of conduct which ensures care, honesty, fairness and respect.

• To passionately campaign for the protection of the environment, human and civil rights, and against animal testing within the cosmetics and toiletries industry.

• To tirelessly work to narrow the gap between principle and practice, whilst making fun, passion and care part of our daily lives.