Timex Group B.V. is one of the best-known American watch companies. Timex's U.S. headquarters are located in Middlebury Connecticut and it has substantial operations in China, the Philippines and India and full scale sales companies in Canada, the UK, France and Mexico. The company began in 1854 as Waterbury Clock in Connecticut's Naugatuck Valley, known during the nineteenth century as the "Switzerland of America." Sister company Waterbury Watch manufactured the first inexpensive mechanical pocket watch in 1880. During World War I, Waterbury began making wristwatches, which had only just become popular, and in 1933 it made history by creating the first Mickey Mouse clock under license from Walt Disney, with Mickey's hands pointing the time. During World War II, Waterbury renamed itself U.S. Time Company. In 1950 the company introduced a wristwatch called the Timex. Over the next three decades, Timex was sold through a series of advertisements which emphasized its durability by putting the watch through "torture tests," such as falling over the Grand Coulee Dam or being strapped to the propeller of an outboard motor, with the slogan "It takes a licking and keeps on ticking." With the help of former Olympic broadcaster, spokesman John Cameron Swayze, sales took off. The company later became Timex Corporation, then Timex Group and, to date, has sold over one billion watches.
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