United Mine Workers of America. Braidwood is the home of the Mine Workersâ Union Local #1 which was the first Minersâ Union in Illinois. It led to the unionization of all states that mined for coal. William D. Ryan, born in Braidwood in 1861, was a founder of the UMWA.
1. BASF (Ludwigshafen, Germany) BASF is the biggest chemical producing company in the world with annual sales reaching $78.7 billion in 2014. The German company, headquartered in Ludwigshafen, Germany is focused on industry grade chemicals used in the automotive, construction, and pharmaceutical industries.
One additional caveat: his research of MI6 seems impeccable but alas not all the other parts were necessarily perfect. At one point, he describes Bayer as the largest chemical company in Germany in 1924. I researched this and found that in fact BASF was larger in 1924 with more than 2.5 times the sales.