Many of the world's most famous brands have a military heritage.
Some brands proudly display their backgrounds in their logos, websites and marketing, while others would rather consign their early beginnings to the history books.
Either way, a surprising amount of brands started off by supplying products to the armed forces or discovered the products that made them famous during times of conflict.
The original Jeeps went into production in 1941, purpose-built for the military. Willys MB Jeeps became the most commonly-used 4-wheel drive vehicles of the US army during World War II.
Mars invented the recipe for M&Ms during the Spanish Civil War, when Forrest Mars Sr. saw soldiers eating pieces of chocolate covered in a candy coating, which prevented them from melting in the sun. He was on his visit behind the lines with a member of the Rowntree family, which went on to make Smarties — a candy very similar to M&Ms — sold outside of the US.
Vodafone began its life in the 1980s as a subsidiary of Racal Electronics, the UK’s largest military radio technology producer at the time. Racal was also once the third-largest British electronics company. Here's Vodafone's first mobile phone, the Mobira Transportable, which weighed 11 pounds.
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