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→Overview and History: adding to history from Good Jobs First research
==Overview and History==
The Monsanto company was created in 1901 by John Francis Queeny ([http://www.reformation.org/john_f_queeny.jpg photo]) and named after his wife, Olga Mendez Monsanto. Since Monsanto was originally founded to produce saccharine, an artificial sweetener that at the timewas only available in Germany. The company soon expanded into other products including "caffeine, the vanillin, aspirin, synthetic rubber and synthetic fibers."<ref name ="mattera profile">Philip Mattera, "[http://www.corp-research.org/monsanto Monsanto has become symbolic of the greed]," corporate rap sheet, Good Jobs First Corporate Research Project, arroganceaccessed November 18, scandal and hardball business practices of many multinational corporations2014. Less well known is that </ref> Monsanto was heavily involved in the creation of the first nuclear bomb for the [[Manhattan Project]] during WWII via its facilities in Dayton, Ohio. The ''Dayton Project'' was headed by Charlie Thomas, Director of Monsanto's Central Research Department. He later became the company's president.<ref>[http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev25-34/chapter2.shtml Chapter 2: High-Flux Years], Oak Ridge National Laboratory Review, accessed January 2011</ref><ref>[http://books.nap.edu/books/0309050375/html/338.html Biographical Memoirs V.65], [[National Academy of Sciences]], 1994</ref> Monsanto also operated a nuclear facility for the federal government in Miamisburg, Ohio, called the Mound Project, until the 1980s.
:"In 1967, Monsanto entered into a joint venture with IG Farben. (The) German chemical firm that was the financial core of the Hitler regime, and was the main supplier of Zyklon-B to the German government during the extermination phase of the Holocaust." <ref>Alex Constantine [http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=3960 Nutrapoison], Znet, July 2003 </ref><ref>[http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_igfarben08.htm A Short Curriculum Vitae of I.G. Farben], Biblioteca Plaeyades, accessed October 2009</ref>
IG Farben was not dissolved until 2003.<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/1549092.stm IG Farben to be dissolved], [[BBC]], September 17, 2001</ref> See also [[pharmaceutical industry]]. Monsanto expanded into producing herbicides after World War II, including the brands Ramrod, Lasso, and (later on) Roundup. In 1985, it acquired the drug company G. D. Searle, which produced aspartame under the brand name NutraSweet. At the time Searle faced lawsuits related to its Copper-7 intrauterine contraceptive device.<ref name="mattera profile"/> Beginning in the 1980s, Monsanto focused more intensively on agricultural biotechnology. According to research by Good Jobs First, the company initially aimed to develop "crops that would not be damaged when the company's herbicide Roundup was applied to kill weeds,"<ref name="mattera profile"/> a strategy it continues to pursue today. Monsanto was the creator of several attractions in Disney's TommorrowlandTomorrowland. Often they revolved around the the virtues of chemicals and plastics. Their "House of the Future" was constructed entirely of plastic, but biodegradable it was not:
:"After attracting a total of 20 million visitors from 1957 to 1967, Disney finally tore the house down, but discovered it would not go down without a fight. According to Monsanto Magazine, wrecking balls literally bounced off the glass-fiber, reinforced polyester material. Torches, jackhammers, chain saws and shovels did not work. Finally, choker cables were used to squeeze off parts of the house bit by bit to be trucked away." <ref>[http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Monsanto-Disneyland-HomeoftheFuture.htm Disneyland's Home of the Future], Mindfully.org, accessed January 2011</ref> However another of their synthetic inventions, Astroturf (fake grass), survives.
