Giovanni Agnelli (1921–2003)

Giovanni Agnelli inherited control of Italy’s largest motor manufacturing company at the age of 45 in 1966, and over the next 30 years ...

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Sir John Aird (1833–1911)

Sir John Aird was the head of an engineering and building company that carried out numerous important works in the United Kingdom, in the ...

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Reinhold Rücker Angerstein (1718–60)

Reinhold Rücker Angerstein was the most talented of the representatives of the Swedish Ironmasters` Association (the Jernkontoret) who ...

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Sir Richard Arkwright (1732–92)

Sir Richard Arkwright transformed the cotton industry throughout Europe. He was born at Preston, and after being apprenticed as a barber, ...

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Giorgio Armani (1934)

The career of Giorgio Armani exemplifies the power of brands in 20th- and 21st-century industry, and shows how association with popular ...

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Sir William George Armstrong (1810–1900)

William Armstrong was the principal innovator in the use of hydraulic power, which in his lifetime came to be the means of operating ...

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Paul Arzens (1903–90)

Paul Arzens was one of the foremost European industrial designers of the 20th century. He spent most of his life in Paris and was ...

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Laura Ashley (1925–85)

Laura Ashley (nee Mountney) was one of the most successful British entrepreneurs of the second half of the 20th century, whose success was ...

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Joseph Aspdin (1778–1855)

Cement is one of the most important building materials of the past two centuries, used as mortar to bind brick or stone, to cover ...

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Frank Atkinson (1924–2014)

Frank Atkinson was the founder-director of Beamish, the museum’s inspiring genius, and an influential advocate over many years for the ...

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Karl Auer von Welsbach (1858–1929)

Carl Auer von Welsbach, also known as Carl Auer, was a distinguished industrial chemist. He was born in Vienna where he father was ...

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Joseph Ritter von Baader (1763–1835)

Joseph Ritter von Baader was the son of a physician in Munich, who initially studied medicine but turned to mechanical engineer and ...

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Karl Ludwig Johannes Baedeker (1801–55)

Karl Baedeker and his successors initiated a brand, which 160 years after his death remains instantly recognisable.He was born in Essen to ...

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Leo Baekeland (1863–1944)

Leo Baekeland was a Belgian chemist whose researches did much to shape the material culture of the mid-20th century. He read chemistry at ...

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John Baildon (1772–1846)

The Scotsman John Baildon was one of the pioneers of industrial development in Upper Silesia, now in Poland but in Baildon’s lifetime part ...

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John Logie Baird (1888–1946)

The television was among the inventions that did most to change society in the twentieth century. European, American and Japanese ...

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