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This page provides information on the historic (and defunct) Westinghouse Electric Corporation founded in 1886 and renamed CBS Corporation in 1997 until its acquisition by Viacom. See Westinghouse for other uses including modern incarnations and recent licensing deals using the Westinghouse brand. See CBS Corporation for the present-day media company.

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1889 - renames itself the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company

1899 - founds British Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company

1914 - acquires Copeman Electric Stove Company and enters the home appliance market (sold in 1974 to White Consolidated Industries)

1915 - New England Westinghouse Company opens for business. First product: 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.

1940s - enters aviation with airborne radar (defense electronics sold 1996) 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)

1970s - sells well-known 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.

1989 - sells watthour meter division at Raleigh, North Carolina to Asea Brown Boveri Group.

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 business, to BNFL who still operates it as Westinghouse Electric Company; at this time known as CBS Corporation, creates new subsidiary company called Westinghouse Electric Corporation to manage the Westinghouse brand

1999 - sold to Viacom, Inc.

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Westinghouse Works, 1904

Group W, the broadcasting division of Westinghouse