Time Warner's roots extend back to 1922 - the year that Henry Luce and Briton Hadden founded publisher Time, Inc., and brothers Harry, Abe, Jack, and Sam Warner established the origins of Warner Bros., which later became Warner Communications.
America Online's ancestry stretches back to the early 1980s when Stephen Case joined the management of a company called Control Video.
Later renamed Quantum Computer Services, the company created the online service that would become America Online in 1985.
Quantum Computer Services changed its name to America Online in 1991.
It went public the next year.
As America Online was germinating, Time, Inc.
and Warner Communications were eyeing each other.
The two companies merged in 1990 to form Time Warner.
Gerald Levin was appointed CEO in 1992.
For America Online, 1996 marked the first year the company began charging its subscribers a flat rate, vastly increasing the amount of time they spent online.
America Online grew through acquisitions of CompuServe in 1998 and Netscape Communications in 1999.
Meanwhile Time Warner had created Time Warner Telecom and taken it public.
America Online announced that it would acquire Time Warner in early 2000.
After a lengthy review by regulatory bodies, America Online acquired Time Warner for $ 106 billion and formed AOL Time Warner in 2001.
Case became chairman, and Levin was appointed CEO.
Also that year America Online invested about $ 100 million in Amazon.com.
Levin retired from the company in 2002 and was replaced by Co-COO Richard Parsons.