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HP's $118.4 billion in sales would make it the 56th largest economy in the world in terms of GDP, just behind Peru.
Founded in 1939, HP predates the computer age.
Stanford grads William (Bill) Hewlett and David Packard founded the company with $538 in capital, including equipment.
The friends decided on the order of their monikers in the company name with the toss of a coin.
HP was literally begun in a Palo Alto garage, setting the template for Silicon Valley start-ups.
The garage is now officially deemed a state historical landmark.
HP is the largest IT company in the world in terms of annual revenue.
HP's first product was a resistance-capacitance audio oscillator used for testing.
Walt Disney Studios was an early customer, using HP oscillators to make the ground-breaking film, Fantasia.
Packard's style of leadership, known as "management by walking around," and the early embrace of clear corporate goals, helped define modern business practices.
Packard's book, The HP Way, details the management practices that built the company.
The casual culture endemic to Silicon Valley tech firms was pioneered at HP in the 1940s.
On-site recreational facilities, another hallmark of the modern tech company, were provided by HP a half-century ago.
HP had one of the nation's first catastrophic health-insurance plans for employees.
Flexible hours, a.k.a. flextime, was conceived at an HP plant in Germany and made it to the United States by 1973.
Newsweek named HP the greenest large company in America in September of 2009.
The earliest electronic mail system used within companies was developed by HP Limited in the United Kingdom.
HP purchased another company for the first time in 1958. The deal put them in the business that grew into today's huge printer franchise.
Its subsequent history of mergers and acquisitions, including deals with Compaq and EDS in the 2000s, helped make HP a global behemoth.
The company's first computer, the HP 2116A, was introduced in 1966. It was used as an instrument controller.
Prices for the computer ranged from $25,000 to $50,000. That bought you 4K of memory, which could be expanded to 32K.
The rugged 2116A moved computers out of their sheltered environment. One installed on board a research ship lasted more than a decade.
Founded in 1966, HP Laboratories functioned for many years as a research facility of global stature.
The HP 9100, the original desktop scientific calculator, was introduced in 1968 and billed in advertisements as a "personal computer."
The handheld HP-35 calculator, released in 1972, was been named one of the 20 products that changed world.
HP brought the first light-emitting diode (LED) to market in 1968.
The company's first true personal computer, the HP-85, was introduced in 1980.
The first mass-market laser printer was brought to market in 1980 by HP.
Inkjet printing was developed by the company starting in 1978, and commercialized several years later.
Touch-screen computing came to HP PCs in 1983 with the HP-150.
HP prefigured cloud computing in the '70s by allowing as many as 16 people to use a minicomputer on a time-share basis.
HP's integrated microprocessor development system changed the way technology is created.
HP was the first major company to commercialize reduced instruction set computing (RISC).
HP moved into medical equipment in 1961. Agilent Technologies, spun off in 2000, included the medical lines, along with company's measurement, components, and chemical analysis units.
Agilent became the largest public offering in Silicon Valley history.
Dave Packard served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1971.
The company has been a part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average cohort since 1997.
HP was the first IT company to surpass $100 billion in annual revenue.
460: HP's rank among the Fortune 500 list of largest American companies in 1962, its first year on the charts.
9: HP's current rank on the Fortune 500.
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