1890 • Sherman Antitrust Act prohibits formation of business partnerships that restrain trade or commerce

1909 • When Macy's department store begins a program of selling books at 20-25% below publisher's list price, a lawsuit is filed by book publishers association claiming that such discounting damages value of copyrights. Macy's countersues, accusing publishers' group of representing illegal trust under Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890

1914 • Clayton Antitrust Act, an amendment to the Sherman Antitrust Act, seeks to eliminate predatory price cutting by prohibiting chain stores from entering into exclusive contracts with manufacturers

1928 • Macy's department store capitalizes on new toy craze by organizing major toy and plaything exhibition in New York City

1936 • Robinson-Patman Act (a.k.a. the Anti-Chain Store Act) supplements the Clayton Antitrust Act by making it unlawful for businesses involved in interstate commerce to charge different consumers a different price for the same commodity

1939 • Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer created by anonymous advertising copywriter for Montgomery Ward Christmas give-away program

1945 • Mattel toy company founded in Southern California by Ruth and Elliot Handler and Harold "Matt" Matson

1948 • After service in World War II, Charles Lazarus returns home and invests $5,000 to take over his father's bicycle shop, liquidates inventory and replaces it with baby furniture, hoping to capitalize on "baby boom"

1951 • Supreme Court rules on minimum-price agreements, finds that price-fixing stifles competition and promotes a distribution monopoly, overturns Robinson-Patman legislation that hurt chain stores and discount retailers

1952 • Mr. Potato Head is first toy advertised on television, a prize for cereal premiums; grosses $4 million in first year

1953 • Mrs. Potato Head debuts

1955 • Mattel begins advertising on new TV show: Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse Club on ABC-TV; spends $500,000 to advertise the "Mickey Mouse Guitar"

1957 • Charles Lazarus changes name of operation from "Children's Supermart" to Toys "R" Us

1959 • Mattel creates Barbie, toy industry transforms from seasonal to year-round business

1962 • Sam Walton leaves Ben Franklin retail chain and opens first Wal-Mart Discount City in Rogers, Arkansas; Kmart, Target Stores, Woolco and Waldenbooks also debut

1964 • Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head given plastic bodies shaped like potatoes

1966 • Charles Lazarus sells four existing Toys "R" Us stores to Interstate Stores for $7.5 million, stays on as manager of operation

1974 • Now operating forty-seven Toys "R" Us" stores in addition to several other retail operations, Interstate Stores files for bankruptcy and Charles Lazarus is appointed chief executive officer

1975 • Toys "R" Us has $200 million in revenues

1978 • Interstate Stores reorganized, now just Toys "R" Us

1978 • Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank fired from executive positions at Handy Dan Home Improvement division of Daylin, Inc.; convince Pat Farah, owner of Homeco in Long Beach, California, to join them in Atlanta and open first Home Depot stores

1983 • Toys "R" Us opens Kids "R" Us, which becomes largest children's clothing store in America

1984 • Toys "R" Us opens first international stores in Singapore and Canada

1984-89 • Sam Walton appoints Charles Lazarus to Wal-Mart's board of directors

1985 • Toys "R" Us has $2 billion in revenues

1985 • Thomas Stemberg, graduate of Harvard Business School and fired from senior executive positions at Jewel's Star Market and First National Supermarkets, draws up business plan for Staples, The Office Superstore based on Toys "R" Us model; Robert Nakasone, top manager at Toys "R" Us, serves as key adviser

1987 • PETsMART founded in Phoenix, Arizona

1990s • Charles Lazarus advises Bernard Marcus and Arthur Blank to aggressively lay-off employees who have "run out of steam" and no longer have "the capacity to take the company from a billion to $5 billion, from $5 billion to $10 billion"; Home Depot enjoys annual average profit growth of 35%, becomes world's largest home-improvement retailer

1996 • Toys "R" Us opens Babies "R" Us, becomes chain's biggest moneymaker

1996 • Robert L. Tillman, a Lowe's employee since 1963, commits the failing company to an explicitly anti-Home Depot strategy, placing stores in close proximity to Home Depots and marketing to women

2002 • Robert F. Moran, former president of Toys "R" Us, Ltd., Canada, takes over as president and chief operating officer of PETsMART; Thomas Stemberg sits on board of directors

2003 • Toys "R" Us establishes four-level, 110,000 sq. ft. store at Times Square, just ten blocks up Broadway from the Macy's toy exhibition 75 years prior

2003 • Wal-Mart is biggest corporation in the world, with $256.3 billion in sales, 2.5% of America's gross national product

2003 • Home Depot has sales of more than $64 billion

2003 • Lowe's has approximately 1,000 stores and sales of $30.8 billion; 3/4 of Lowe's locations within ten miles of a Home Depot

2005 • Toys "R" Us has over 450 international stores in 27 countries

2005 • Staples is leading seller of office supplies, with annual sales of $11.6 billion and more than 1,500 office superstores in North America and Europe

2005 • PETsMART operates over 600 superstores in the United States and Canada; offers equine products through State Line Tack catalog and via statelinetack.com; holds a 38% equity position in Medical Management International, which operates Banfield, The Pet Hospital