100 Oldest Companies - Our Connection With Out Past

I love this type of trivia, 100 Oldest Companies ... just tickles me.

Aaaand, I love this particular piece of throw-away malarkey because, well, it's not really that throw-away. The linkage back to our past (especially if you're from the UK) blows me away. For instance the oldest is Brooke's Mill that has been going since 1541 - granted the business is no longer manufacturing cloth as it did until 1987 which must've been a sad year for 'em.

But, the company is still around.
Some context - in 1541:

• Second ever Dalai Lalam died
• Henry VIII is ruling over England
• The Amazon River is discovered by non-locals (Francisco de Orellana)
  
• The sitting Pope had kids
• El Greco is born
  
• Various dioceses are established in England because of Henry VIII's Reformation
• The Kingdom of Chile comes into being
• The first Bible in Swedish is printed
• Jacques Cartier creates the first French settlement in the "New World" near modern-day Quebec
  
• Spanish explorer, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, is the first European wander around bits of modern-day Texas
  
• China is loving the Ming Dynasty
• Francisco Pizarro, the governor of Peru and conqueror of the Inca civilization, was assassinated
• Scotland was independent of England

And this is the year that Brooke's Mill came into being ... a company you can still, on this very day, send an invoice to.

Nice.

Thanks to ia play for the original link