History of General Motors Departure (bearings); Delco Electronics and ACDelco (electrical and electronic components); GMAC (finance); General Aviation and North American Aviation (airplanes); GM Defense (military vehicles) and Electronic Data Systems (information technology). General Motors was capitalized by William C. Durant on September 16, 1908 as a holding company. The next day it purchased Buick Motor Company, and rapidly acquired more than twenty companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, Oakland, now known as Pontiac, and McLaughlin of Canada. Dr. Campbell, Durant's son-in-law, put 1,000,000 shares on the stock market in Chicago Buick (then controlled by Durant). Durant's earlier company, the Durant-Dort Carriage Company, had been in
General Motors Theatre the second season. The series was a breeding ground for writing and directing talent such as William Kotcheff, Donald Jack and Arthur Hailey. One of Hailey's plays for the strand, "Flight into Danger" (1956), was later remade as the feature film "Zero Hour!", and was also screened by the BBC in the United Kingdom. It was a major factor in "General Motors Theatre" producer — and CBC Supervisor of Drama — Sydney Newman moving to work in the UK, where he later worked on and created anthology series similar to "General Motors Theatre" such as "Armchair Theatre" and "The Wednesday