The was an organization founded by George Westinghouse in 1886 as Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company. The company purchased CBS in 1995 and was renamed '''CBS Corporation''' in 1997 .
George Westinghouse had previously founded the Westinghouse Air Brake Company . Westinghouse Electric received the rights for the first patent for Alternating-current transmission from Nikola Tesla and unveiled the technology for lighting in Great Barrington, Massachusetts . The company pioneered long-distance power transmission and high-voltage transmission. In addition to George Westinghouse, engineers working for the company include William Stanley , Nikola Tesla and Oliver Schallenberger . It was historically the rival to General Electric .
- 1889 - renames itself the ''Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company''
- 1890s
- --- 1891 - build world's first commercial AC system ( Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant )
- --- 1893 - supplies electric lights and power for Chicago World Fair
- --- 1895 - installs hydropower AC generators at Niagara Falls which supplied power to Buffalo, NY
- --- 1899 - founds British Westinghouse Electric And Manufacturing Company
- 1900s
- --- 1901 - acquires Bryant Electric Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut , which continues operation as a subsidiary
- --- 1909 - ousts George Westinghouse as chairman during bankruptcy reorganization
- 1910s
- --- 1914 - acquires Copeman Electric Stove Company in Flint, Michigan from Lloyd Groff Copeman , moves it to Mansfield, Ohio and enters the home appliance market (sold in 1974 to White Consolidated Industries )
- --- rifles for the Czar's army.
- --- 1916 - share of British Westinghouse purchased by a British holding company, which becomes Metropolitan-Vickers
- 1920s - enters the broadcasting industry, with stations like KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- 1930s - enters the nuclear age with an industrial Atom Smasher .
- --- 1934 - opens its Home of Tomorrow in Mansfield, Ohio , to demonstrate Westinghouse home appliances
- --- 1935 - completes longest continuous electric steel annealing furnace in the world at Ford Motor Company , Dearborn, Michigan
- 1930s - funds invention of the Magnetohydrodynamic Generator
- 1940s - enters aviation with airborne Radar (defense electronics sold 1996 ), jet engine propulsion, and ground based airport lighting.
- --- 1945 - renames itself the ''Westinghouse Electric Corporation'', and makes first automatic elevator.
- 1950s - enters consumer finance with Westinghouse Credit Corporation
- 1960s - acquires ThermoKing , begins automated Mass Transit (sold 1988 ); adopts "You Can Be Sure If It's Westinghouse" as advertising slogan for home appliances
- 1970s - sells well-known home appliance division to White Consolidated Industries which becomes White-Westinghouse
- 1980s - acquires Cable Television operator TelePrompter (sold 1985 ) and robot maker Unimation ; sells Street Light division to Cooper Lighting , elevator/escalator division to Schindler Group , and lamp division to Philips .
- --- 1988 - closes the East Pittsburgh plant, which had once been the primary Westinghouse manufacturing facility.
- --- 1989 - sells watthour meter division at Raleigh, North Carolina to Asea Brown Boveri Group.
- 1990s
- --- 1994 - sells electric power distribution and control business unit to Eaton Corporation for $1 billion
- --- 1995 - buys CBS for US$5.4 billion.
- --- 1996 - buys Infinity Broadcasting
- --- 1996 - sells Westinghouse Electronic Systems defense business to Northrop Grumman for $3 billion, becoming Northrop Grumman Electronic Systems .
- --- 1997 - sells most non-broadcast operations; renames itself CBS Corporation
- --- 1998 - sells remaining manufacturing asset, its nuclear energy business, to BNFL which sold it to Toshiba in 2006 which still operates it as Westinghouse Electric Company today.
- --- 1998 - CBS Corporation creates a new subsidiary called Westinghouse Electric Corporation to manage the Westinghouse Brand .
- --- 1999 - sells itself to Viacom, Inc.
- [http://www.westinghousenuclear.com/Our_Company/history/Timeline/1900_1939.shtm Timeline of Westinghouse historical events]
- "Who Killed Westinghouse?" - Contemporary ''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'' article detailing Westinghouse's history and break-up
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