Toronto, Ontario, Canada
| 1930-1959 | 1960-1988 | 1989-1999 | 2000-2003 |
1930-1959 [Back to Top]
| 1930 | Roy Thomson starts a radio station in Ontario. |
| 1934 | Thomson purchases Timmons Press, a gold-mining town newspaper. |
| 1949-1952 | Thomson purchases other small town newspapers. |
| 1953-1954 | Thomson moves to the UK and purchases the Scotsman. |
| 1957 | Thomson starts Scottish Television. |
| 1959 | Thomson merges Scottish Television with the UK's Kemsley Newspapers, publisher of the Sunday Times, to form the International Thomson Organization. |
1960-1988 [Back to Top]
| 1964 | Roy Thomson is given a hereditary barony and became Lord Thomson of Fleet. |
| 1967 | International Thomson buys the Times of London and forms the Times Newspapers. |
| 1968 | Thomson joins J. Paul Getty in a North Sea oil drilling venture. |
| 1976 | The bulk of International Thomson's profits are oil revenues. |
| 1976 | Roy Thomson dies and his son Kenneth becomes chairman. |
| 1977 | Thomson completes sale of Scottish Television. |
| 1978 | International Thomson goes public. |
| 1980 | Thomson acquires Warren, Gorham & Lamont, financial publishers. |
| 1981 | Thomson acquires Litton (re-named Medical Economics), healthcare information. |
| 1981 | Thomson acquires Delmar, career, technical and vocational textbooks. |
| 1981 | International Thomson sells the Times. |
| 1983 | Thomson purchases American Banker and Bond Buyer. |
| 1985 | Thomson purchases Gale Research. |
| 1985 | Thomson acquires AutEx, financial publishing. |
| 1986 | Thomson acquires Compu-Mark. |
| 1986 | Thomson acquires South Western Publishing, an educational publisher. |
| 1987 | Thomson acquires Sweet and Maxwell from Carswell, and Law Book Company from Australia to add to its legal and regulatory holdings. |
1989-1999 [Back to Top]
| 1989 | Thomson sells its North Sea oil holdings. |
| 1989 | Thomson acquires Lawyers Cooperative Publishing for $810 million. |
| 1989 | Thomson acquires RIA . |
| 1989 | Thomson Newspapers and International Thomson merge to become the Thomson Corporation |
| 1991 | Thomson purchases Macmillan Professional and Business Reference Publishing |
| 1992 | Thomson acquires MicroMedix Healthcare Series. |
| 1992 | Thomson acquires Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), publisher of the Web of Science. |
| 1992 | Thomson acquires Course Technology. |
| 1994 | Thomson acquires Access Company (reference sources and databases). |
| 1994 | Thomson acquires MedStat. |
| 1995 | Thomson acquires Petersons guides. |
| 1996 | Thomson purchases West Publishing for $3.4 billion. Sells 43 daily papers in the US and Canada. |
| 1998 | Thomson purchases tax return software maker Computer Language Research. |
| 1998 | Thomson purchases tax and law publishing units from Pearson. |
| 1998 | Thomson purchases Knight Ridders Technimetrics financial information unit. |
| 1999 | Thomson acquires Macmillan Library Reference USA for $86 million. |
2000-2003 [Back to Top]
| 2000 | Thomson sells 130 newspapers for $2.5 billion. |
| 2000 | Thomson purchases Sylvan Learning System's Prometric division. |
| 2000 | Thomson purchases Wave Technologies International, miltimedia instructional publishing. |
| 2000 | Thomson acquires La Ley Online, legal information. |
| 2000 | Thomson acquires Greenhaven Press and Lucent Books. |
| 2000 | Thomson acquires the Carson Group (financial information). |
| 2000 | Thomson acquires Physicians World. |
| 2000 | Thomson purchases Dialog. |
| 2000 | Thomson purchases Primark for $1 billion. |
| 2001 | Thomson acquires FindLaw. |
| 2001 | Thomson merges with Canadian telecommunications giant BCE, worth $2.7 billion.(it sold its 20% interest in 2003 for $279 million). |
| 2001 | Thomson purchases higher education and corporate training businesses of Harcourt General (Netg unit) from Reed Elsevier Group for $2.06 billion. |
| 2001 | Thomson purchases NewsEdge, a business information source, for $43 million and merges it with Dialog. |
| 2002 | Gale and Dialog announce partnership. |
| 2002 | Thomson acquires Current Drugs. |
| 2002 | Thomson purchases e-learning assets from McGraw-Hill. |
| 2003 | Thomson purchases Techstreet, a digital content company focused on technical information. |
| 2003 | Thomson purchases Elite Information Group, Inc., for $122 million. |
| 2003 | Thomson's medical magazine portfolio, including Medical Economics, Drug Topics, and Patient Care, among others, is up for sale and likely to auctioned off by year end. |
| 2004 | Thomson's Findlaw acquires Glasser LegalWorks, a producer of legal and law practice serminars, events and publications. Glasser will become a part of Findlaw. |
| 2004 | Thomson-Gale acquires Scholarly Resources. |