BRAND NAME ORIGINS

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20th Century Fox:

20th Century Studios (previously known as 20th Century Fox Film Corporation, or 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles.

20th Century Fox was formed in 1935 through the merger of William Fox's Fox Film, and Twentieth Century Pictures.

20th Century-Fox was sold for $720 million on June 8, 1981, to investors Marc Rich and Marvin Davis. By 1984, Rich had become a fugitive from justice, having fled to Switzerland after being charged by U.S. federal prosecutors with tax evasion, racketeering and illegal trading with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. 1984 Marvin Davis bought out Marc Rich's 50% interest in 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation for an undisclosed amount and sold this interest to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for $250 million in March 1985.

From 1985, the hyphen was permanently deleted from the brand name, with 20th Century-Fox changing to 20th Century Fox.

On June 28, 2012, Rupert Murdoch announced that News Corporation would be split into two publishing and media-oriented companies: a new News Corporation and 21st Century Fox, which operates the Fox Entertainment Group and 20th Century Fox. Murdoch considered the name of the new company a way to maintain the 20th Century Fox's heritage.

The logo for 20th Century Studios, a division of The Walt Disney Company

The acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney took place on March 20, 2019, including 20th Century Fox. The studio's current name was adopted on January 17, 2020, to avoid confusion with Fox Corporation.

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3M:

3M (originally the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company) is an American multinational conglomerate operating in the fields of industry, worker safety, healthcare and consumer goods.

The company produces over 60,000 products under several brands. Among the products invented, manufactured, and sold by 3M Company are a variety of types of adhesive tape, audio-visual equipment and media, medical and dental products, Post-It Notes, and safety products such as reflective coatings and signs.

The 3M Company began in 1902 in Two Harbors, Minnesota. Originally the company, then named Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing, was involved in mining a mineral deposit for grinding wheel abrasives. Three years later the company moved to Duluth to focus on manufacturing sandpaper products. In 1910 investor Lucius Pond Ordway moved the company from Duluth to the east side of St. Paul where it developed and manufactured an increasing number and variety of products, including such household necessities as masking tape and "Scotch Cellophane Tape."

On its 100th anniversary, 3M changed its legal name to "3M Company" on April 8, 2002 from the company's original name, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.

By the way, the use of the term Scotch meant stingy in the 1920s and 1930s. The brand name Scotch came about around 1925 while Richard Drew was testing his first masking tape to determine how much adhesive he needed to add. The bodyshop painter became frustrated with the sample masking tape and exclaimed, "Take this tape back to those Scotch bosses of yours and tell them to put more adhesive on it!" The name was soon applied to the entire line of 3M tapes.

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7-Eleven:

7-ELEVEn is a multinational chain of retail convenience stores, headquartered in Irving, Texas, United States. The chain was founded in 1927 as an ice house storefront in Dallas. It was named Tote'm Stores between 1928 and 1946. After 70% of the company was acquired by an affiliate Ito-Yokado in 1991, it was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Seven & I Holdings.

7-Eleven operates, franchises, and licenses 78,029 stores in 19 countries and territories as of November 2021.

The company's first outlets were in Dallas, named "Tote'm Stores" because customers "toted" away their purchases. Some stores featured "native" totem poles in front of the store. In 1946, the chain's name was changed from "Tote'm" to "7-Eleven" to reflect the company's new, extended hours, 7:00 am to 11:00 pm, seven days per week. In November 1999, the corporate name of the US company was changed from "The Southland Corporation" to "7-Eleven Inc."

Following 7-Eleven's adoption of its current logo in 1968, a lowercase n was used in the logo because the first wife of John P. Thompson Sr., the company's president during the 1960s, thought the all-capitals version seemed a little aggressive. She suggested the change "to make the logo look more graceful."

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To be continued