Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was Rolex founded?
Rolex SA () is a Swiss luxury watchmaker. Originally founded as "Wilsdorf and Davis" by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London in 1905, the company registered "Rolex" as the brand name of its watches in 1908. In 1919, the company moved its base of operations to Geneva, Switzerland in order to avoid heavy taxation from a recovering post-war Britain, and "Montres Rolex S.A." was registered as the new company name by Hans Wilsdorf in Geneva in 1920. Since 1960, the company has been owned by the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, a private family trust.
After the family decided to change the company's legal form and to keep the family out of its management, Ferdinand Alexander founded his own industrial design company, Porsche Design, in Stuttgart, Germany, which was later moved to Zell am See, Austria, where the Porsche family owns an estate called Schüttgut. The first product Porsche Design created was a chronograph wristwatch made by Swiss watchmaker company Orfina. Its design started while F.A. was still working at the Porsche Style bureau. It was launched in 1973 and was different from other chronograph wristwatches, as its case and bracelet were made out of matte black chromed steel. It was intended as accessory for Porsche drivers and sold by the Porsche dealers. It operated the then-new Valjoux 7750 movement, which is today still the most widespread mechanical movement for chronograph wristwatches. As many customers would have liked a normally-coloured watch, a version with bead-blasted stainless steel was issued. Later the movement was changed to the Lemania 5100, which was a simple and rugged movement mainly used for military watches. The Porsche Design Chrono I was made in different versions — color of case and straps, print on dial — for several country's air forces, as well as the NATO alliance.
By the start of World War II Royal Air Force pilots were buying Rolex watches to replace their inferior standard-issue watches. However, when captured and sent to POW camps, their watches were confiscated. When Hans Wilsdorf heard of this, he offered to replace all watches that had been confiscated and not require payment until the end of the war, if the officers would write to Rolex and explain the circumstances of their loss and where they were being held. Wilsdorf was in personal charge of the scheme. As a result of this, an estimated 3,000 Rolex watches were ordered by British officers in the Oflag (prison camp for officers) VII B POW camp in Bavaria alone. This had the effect of raising the morale among the allied POWs because it indicated that Wilsdorf did not believe that the Axis powers would win the war. American servicemen heard about this when stationed in Europe during WWII and this helped open up the American market to Rolex after the war.
The watchmaker Louis-François Cartier opened a shop in Paris in 1847. In 1899, his grandchildren moved the shop to the Rue de la Paix and made the shop international, opening branches in London (1902), Moscow (1908) and New York (1909). His grandson Louis Cartier designed one of the first purpose-built wristwatches for the Brazilian aviation pioneer Alberto Santos-Dumont, who made the first aircraft flight in Paris in 1906. The "Santos watch" went on sale in 1911 and was a huge success for the company.
From the beginning, wristwatches were almost exclusively worn by women, while men used pocketwatches up until the early 20th century. The concept of the wristwatch goes back to the production of the very earliest watches in the 16th century. Some people say the world's first wristwatch was created by Abraham-Louis Breguet for Caroline Murat, Queen of Naples, in 1810. Elizabeth I of England received a wristwatch from Robert Dudley in 1571, described as an arm watch. By the mid nineteenth century, most watchmakers produced a range of wristwatches, often marketed as bracelets, for women.
This brand started in Milan in 1939, named after a Swiss municipality.
In 1942 the first Breil wristwatch was introduced. Initially, the company made a line of alarm clocks and a few years later, wristwatches too. In 1956, the producer Innocente Binda made an unusual promotional action: he dropped some watches from his production from the Eiffel Tower in Paris to show that after a flight of 302 meters, his watches proved to have been fully functional.
In Frank Bowden's own lifetime, Raleigh publicity material stated that the firm was founded in 1888, which was when Bowden, as he himself confirmed, first bought into the enterprise. Thus, Raleigh's 30th anniversary was celebrated in 1918. The 1888 foundation date is confirmed by Bowden's great-grandson, Gregory Houston Bowden, who states that Frank Bowden "began to negotiate with Woodhead and Angois and in December 1888 founded 'The Raleigh Cycle Company'." The December 1888 foundation date is also confirmed by Nottinghamshire Archives. In recent years, the Raleigh company has cited 1887 as a foundation date but, whilst this pre-dates Bowden's involvement, the Raleigh brand name was created by Woodhead and Angois and the enterprise can, as demonstrated above, be traced back to 1885.
The company's first series of pocket watches, the Broadway Limited, was marketed as the "Watch of Railroad Accuracy," and Hamilton became popular by making accurate railroad watches. Hamilton introduced its first wristwatch in 1917, designed to appeal to men entering World War I and containing the 0-sized 17-jewel 983 movement originally designed for women's pendent watches. In 1928 Hamilton purchased the Illinois Watch Company for in excess of $5 million from the heirs of John Whitfield Bunn and Jacob Bunn. Some of the most collectible early Hamilton wristwatches include The Oval, The Tonneau, The Rectangular, The Square Enamel, The Coronado, The Piping Rock, The Spur, The Glendale, The Pinehurst, The Langley, The Byrd, The Cambridge, the Barrel "B", and The Flintridge. Many models came in both solid gold and gold-filled cases and, though rare, some wristwatches such as the Grant were made of silver.
The first prototypes of an electronic quartz wristwatch (not just "portable" quartz watches as the Seiko timekeeping devices at the Tokyo Olympics in 1964) were made by the CEH research laboratory in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. From 1965 through 1967 pioneering development work was done on a miniaturized 8192  Hz quartz oscillator, a thermo-compensation module, and an in-house-made, dedicated integrated circuit (unlike the hybrid circuits used in the later Seiko Astron wristwatch). As a result, the BETA 1 prototype set new timekeeping performance records at the International Chronometric Competition held at the Observatory of Neuchâtel in 1967. In 1970, 18 manufacturers exhibited production versions of the beta 21 wristwatch, including the Omega Electroquartz as well as Patek Philippe, Rolex Oysterquartz and Piaget.
George Edmund Royce was born in Orwell, Vermont on 1 January 1829 to Alpheus Royce and Harriet (Moore) Royce. He attended public schools in the vicinity of Orwell, and attended two years of college at Troy Conference Academy. In 1850, he moved to New York City and engaged in a number of business concerns, returning to Vermont in 1864 and purchasing hundreds of acres of land near Rutland, Vermont with funds from his work in New York. In 1866, Royce organized the Steam-Stone Cutter Company along with W.T. Nichols, employing the steam powered stone cutter recently invented by George J. Wardwell, thus pioneering the industrialization of marble building stone quarrying in Vermont. Royce was also the prime investor in the establishment of the True Blue Marble Company near West Rutland in 1884. In addition to marble quarrying, he was involved with Horace Henry Baxter and Trenor W. Park in the establishment of the Baxter National Bank in Rutland, serving as a founding director from 1870 until his death. He was also a director of the United States Tube Company in Buffalo, New York.
Porsche Holding GmbH, headquartered in Salzburg, Austria, was founded by Louise Piëch and Ferry Porsche (daughter and son of Ferdinand Porsche) in 1947 as Porsche Konstruktionen GesmbH in Gmünd, Austria. After Porsche 360 Grand Prix racing car was designed by Ferry Porsche with help from the engineers of his father's design office for Cisitalia in 1947, the company started manufacturing Porsche 356, starting with the prototype Porsche 356/1 and then 356/2 in 1948 at the factory located in a saw mill in Gmünd, and later at a factory in Salzburg.
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was established in 1675, when the Royal Observatory was built, as an aid to mariners to determine longitude at sea, providing a standard reference time while each city in England kept a different local time.
Stainless steel was invented in 1913 by Harry Brearley of Sheffield, working for Firth Brown Steels (now called Sheffield Forgemasters). SAE 304 stainless steel is the most common stainless steel today, invented by Dr William Herbert Hatfield FRS in 1924 at Firth-Vickers known as Staybrite 18/8, a chromium-nickel steel. Many Swiss watches were mostly made out of Staybrite.
In the late 17th century Louis XIV founded the Académie Royale de Musique (the Paris Opera) within which emerged the first professional theatrical ballet company, the Paris Opera Ballet. The predominance of French in the vocabulary of ballet reflects this history. Theatrical ballet soon became an independent form of art, although still frequently maintaining a close association with opera, and spread from the heart of Europe to other nations. The Royal Danish Ballet and the Imperial Ballet of the Russian Empire were founded in the 1740s and began to flourish, especially after about 1850. In 1907 the Russian ballet in turn moved back to France, where the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev and its successors were particularly influential. Soon ballet spread around the world with the formation of new companies, including London's The Royal Ballet (1931), the San Francisco Ballet (1933), American Ballet Theatre (1937), the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (1939), The Australian Ballet (1940), the New York City Ballet (1948), the National Ballet of Canada (1951), and the National Ballet Academy and Trust of India (2002).
Porsche Design ("Porsche Lizenz- und Handelsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG"), based in Ludwigsburg, Germany, was founded in November 2003 as a majority-owned subsidiary of Porsche AG to combine Porsche AG's and Porsche Design Group's accessories and licensing business into one single company. The company's activities are focused on the Porsche Design Studio (since 2015 "Studio F. A. Porsche") in Zell am See, Austria, which works also for other companies in the field of industrial and product design, and the "Porsche Design" and "Porsche Driver's Selection" brands.
GMT's name comes from the first name initials of founders Gene Billingsley, Mike Crane, and Terry Shrum. However, Crane and Shrum soon split acrimoniously with GMT, and founded their own company, the Fresno Gaming Association.
Royal Louis was a First Rank ship of the line of the French Royal Navy, but was never completed. Launch was scheduled to be in 1743, but on 25 December 1742 she was set alight while still on the stocks, and burnt. It was claimed that this was an act of sabotage by a Señor Pontleau, who was tried and executed for the offence.
During the 1930s, Stuttgart had already established itself as a center for the automobile industry. Germany's most important car companies had settled in the region by then. It was thus an ideal location for the new Porsche design company. When Porsche senior opened his offices in April 1931, his son Ferry (then age 21) was by his side. The firm was called "Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche GmbH Konstructionsbüro für Motoren, Fahrzeuge, Luftfahrzeuge und Wasserfahrzeugbau", meaning that Ferdinand Porsche's firm specialized in construction and consultation for engines, automobiles, airplanes, and motorboats. Porsche GmbH was founded in 1931 by Adolf Rosenberger, Ferdinand Porsche and Dr. Anton Piëch. While Rosenberger was the financial backer, he also brought technical knowledge and racing skill to the equation. Father and son were accompanied by renowned engineers.
Albert Rovers F.C. was founded in 1946 and was originally based in the Albert Road and Marina area of Ballintemple, Cork. In 1947, together with Cobh Ramblers, they became founding members of the Cork Athletic Union League. They subsequently joined the Munster Senior League and were Premier Division champions in 1953–54, 1954–55 and 1958–59. The club also enjoyed success in cup competitions. In 1949–50 they defeated League of Ireland teams Waterford and Cork Athletic on their way to winning the Munster Senior Cup. In 1949–50 they were also quarter-finalists in the FAI Cup. In the round of sixteen, they took three games to defeat Longford Town before they were knocked out by Sligo Rovers. They also won the FAI Intermediate Cup in 1953–54 and 1958–59, defeating Jacobs and Bray Wanderers in the respective finals.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a series of poker tournaments held annually in Las Vegas and, since 2005, sponsored by Caesars Entertainment Corporation (known as Harrah's Entertainment until 2010). It dates its origins to 1970, when Benny Binion invited seven of the best-known poker players to the Horseshoe Casino for a single tournament, with a set start and stop time, and a winner determined by a secret ballot of the seven players.
The Royal Observer Corps Medal is a long service medal awarded in the United Kingdom to members of the Royal Observer Corps (ROC) relating to service between 1941 and December 1995, when the ROC was stood down. The medal was initiated in 1950 by HM King George Vl.
Mercedes Gleitze was the first British woman to swim the English Channel on 7 October 1927. However, as John E. Brozek (author of "The Rolex Report: An Unauthorized Reference Book for the Rolex Enthusiast") points out in his article ""The Vindication Swim, Mercedes Gleitze and Rolex take the plunge"", some doubts were cast on her achievement when a hoaxer claimed to have made a faster swim only four days later. Hence Gleitze attempted a repeat swim with extensive publicity on 21 October, dubbed the ""Vindication Swim"". For promotional purposes, Hans Wilsdorf offered her one of the earliest Rolex Oysters if she would wear it during the attempt. After more than 10 hours, in water that was much colder than during her first swim, she was pulled from the sea semi-conscious seven miles short of her goal. Although she did not complete the second crossing, a journalist for The Times wrote "Having regard to the general conditions, the endurance of Miss Gleitze surprised the doctors, journalists and experts who were present, for it seemed unlikely that she would be able to withstand the cold for so long. It was a good performance". As she sat in the boat, the same journalist made a discovery and reported it as follows: "Hanging round her neck by a ribbon on this swim, Miss Gleitze carried a small gold watch, which was found this evening to have kept good time throughout". When examined closely, the watch was found to be dry inside and in perfect condition. One month later, on 24 November 1927, Wilsdorf launched the Rolex Oyster watch in the United Kingdom with a full front page Rolex advert in the "Daily Mail". The "Vienna Herald" described the 1969 Apollo moon landing as: 'an event almost as significant as the time a woman swam most of the English Channel with a waterproof watch on.'
On 10 March 1943, while still a prisoner of war, Corporal Clive James Nutting, one of the organizers of the Great Escape, ordered a stainless steel Rolex Oyster 3525 Chronograph (valued at a current equivalent of £1,200) by mail directly from Hans Wilsdorf in Geneva, intending to pay for it with money he saved working as a shoemaker at the camp. The watch (Rolex watch no. 185983) was delivered to Stalag Luft III on 10 July that year along with a note from Wilsdorf apologising for any delay in processing the order and explaining that an English gentleman such as Corporal Nutting "should not even think" about paying for the watch before the end of the war. Wilsdorf is reported to have been impressed with Nutting because, although not an officer, he had ordered the expensive Rolex 3525 Oyster chronograph while most other prisoners ordered the much cheaper Rolex Speed King model which was popular because of its small size. The watch is believed to have been ordered specifically to be used in the Great Escape when, as a chronograph, it could have been used to time patrols of prison guards or time the 76 ill-fated escapees through tunnel 'Harry' on 24 March 1944. Eventually, after the war, Nutting was sent an invoice of only £15 for the watch, because of currency export controls in England at the time. The watch and associated correspondence between Wilsdorf and Nutting were sold at auction for £66,000 in May 2007, while at an earlier auction in September 2006 the same watch fetched A$54,000. Nutting served as a consultant for both the 1950 film "The Wooden Horse" and the 1963 film "The Great Escape". Both films were based on actual escapes which took place at Stalag Luft III. It was also reported that in November 2013 the Rolex Speed King owned by Flight Lieutenant Gerald Imeson during the Great Escape was sold for £60,000.
In 1914, Kew Observatory awarded a Rolex watch a "Class A precision certificate", a distinction normally granted exclusively to marine chronometers. In November 1915, the company changed its name to "Rolex Watch Co. Ltd." In 1919, Hans Wilsdorf left England due to wartime taxes levied on luxury imports as well as to export duties on the silver and gold used for the watch cases driving costs too high. As a result, he moved the company to Geneva, Switzerland, where its name was officially changed to "Montres Rolex S.A.," and eventually to "Rolex S.A." Upon the death of his wife in 1944, Wilsdorf established the Hans Wilsdorf Foundation, a private trust, in which he left all of his Rolex shares, making sure that some of the company's income would go to charity. Wilsdorf died in 1960; since then, the trust has owned and run the company.
"For some years now I have been considering the idea of making a watch that our agents could sell at a more modest price than our Rolex watches, and yet one that could attain the standards of dependability for which Rolex is famous, I decided to form a separate company, with the object of making and marketing this new watch. It is called the Tudor Watch Company."
In 1953 Rolex launched their first specialized diving watch known as "The Rolex Submariner." Rolex worked with legendary French explorer and aquanaut, Jacques-Yves Cousteau to test early prototype Rolex Submariner watches. The Submariner became commercially available after it was introduced at the Basel Fair Show in 1954.