When you think of Samsung, you probably don't think of noodles, fish or other food items.
But the now multibillion-dollar company got its start in groceries, not tech.
In 1938, founder Lee Byung-Chull started a business exporting food products made in and around Daegu, Korea, to China.
In Korean, the word "Samsung" means "three stars" — in fact, all of Samsung's logos until 1993 included three stars.
In the 1950s and 60s, after the Korean War, Lee's company started producing textiles. He even opened what was the largest wool mill in the country at the time.
Samsung also offered products and services in other areas, including insurance and retail.
In 1969, Samsung started producing electronics, a decision that would eventually lead to it becoming one of the biggest names in tech.
Lee and colleagues called the new venture "Samsung Electronics," to show that it was different from the company's other businesses. The company made black-and-white televisions at first, and within two months, it started exporting them to other countries.
Over the next decade, Samsung started producing color TVs, refrigerators, calculators, washing machines and more.
Samsung's first mobile phone was called the SH-100 and was released in 1988. It was the first mobile phone made in South Korea, although it came 15 years after the world's first ever mobile phone, produced by Motorola.
Although Motorola was a major competitor at the time, Samsung would eventually overtake it to become one of the world's leading smartphone producers, especially with its Galaxy smartphone series.
Today, the company employs over 260,000 people in 74 countries, according to its website. Forbes also included the Samsung Group in the top 15 of its 2022 Global 2000 list, which ranks the largest companies in the world based on sales, profits, assets and market value.
