In the late 1920s, American automaker General Motors (GM) introduced four brands to supplement its five existing brands of passenger cars. In descending order of price, these were LaSalle, to supplement Cadillac; Viking (example pictured), to supplement Oldsmobile; Marquette, to supplement Buick; and Pontiac, to supplement Oakland. The brands were introduced in an effort to fill gaps in GM's pricing ladder and produce cars that were cheaper to make for its existing divisions. The Great Depression resulted in the failure of most of these brands. Viking and Marquette were each discontinued within two years of their introductions, and LaSalle after slightly more than a decade. Pontiac had the opposite fate; it was Oakland that would be discontinued, while Pontiac would continue until 2010.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_companion_make_program

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1910:

Emil Kraepelin published a new edition of his Textbook of Psychiatry, including for the first time Alzheimer's disease, named after his colleague Alois Alzheimer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alzheimer%27s_disease

1966:

Vietnam War: United States and South Vietnamese troops began Operation Hastings to push North Vietnamese forces out of the Demilitarized Zone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Hastings

2014:

A Moscow Metro train derailed, killing 24 people and injuring 160 others in the deadliest accident in the metro system's history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Moscow_Metro_derailment

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

kombu: Edible kelp (“a type of brown seaweed”) (from the class Phaeophyceae) used in East Asian cuisine. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/kombu

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

All purposeful manifestations of life, including their very purposiveness, in the final analysis have their end not in life but in the expression of its nature, in the representation of its significance.   --Walter Benjamin https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin