It's hard to imagine growing up without references to E.T. phoning home, Marty McFly's attempt to get back to the future, or concerns that we're gonna need a bigger boat -- and because of Universal Pictures, we didn't have to.
The entertainment giant, which now has hands in the television, film, theme park, and video gaming industries, got its start when nickelodeon theater owner Carl Laemmle had a rift with his monopolistic distributor and decided to found his own motion picture studio.
One of the first studios to give its stars credit in films, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated on April 30, 1912. It changed its name to Universal Pictures in 1925 and is now part of NBCUniversal.
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