Basil Zaharoff
Sir Basil Zaharoff G.C.B., G.B.E., D.C.L. (Hon. Oxon.)
1850 Born
1877 Started selling armaments for the Anglo-Swedish firm of Nordenfelt in Greece
1885 Sold one of the world's first submarines to Greece, he sold two to Turkey in 1886.
His main products in the 1880s and 1890s were quick-firing guns.
1888 Engineered Nordenfelt's merger with the rival company of Hiram Maxim; he then visited Russia to sell the new Maxim machine-gun, and then Chile, Peru, and Brazil in 1888–9.
1897 When Vickers, Sons and Co acquired the Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Co, he was retained by the new combine and then for the next thirty years acted as their "General Representative for business abroad".
Established Chairs of Aviation in London, Paris, and Petrograd.