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French inventor and entrepreneur best known for designing, patenting and manufacturing the first commercially successful mechanical calculator, the Arithmometer and for founding the insurance companies "Le Soleil" and "L'aigle" which, under his leadership, became the number one insurance group in France at the beginning of the Second Empire.
After a short employment in the French administration, he joined the French army in 1809 eventually reaching the level of General Manager of the supply store of all of the armies located in Spain in 1813. Shortly thereafter he was promoted to Inspector of Supply for the entire French army. It was during that time that he conceived the idea of the Arithmometer to help him with the great deal of calculations that he had to perform. Thomas was made Chevalier of the Legion d'Honor for his invention of the Arithmometer in 1821.[1] This is when he changed his name from "M. Charles Xavier Thomas" to "M. le Chevalier Thomas, de Colmar" and later simply "Thomas de Colmar". Again because of the Arithmometer, he was raised to the level of Officier of the Legion d'Honor in 1857. Initially Thomas spent all of his time and energy on his insurance business, therefore there is a hiatus of more than thirty years in between the first model of the Arithmometer introduced in 1820 and its true commercialization in 1852. By the time of his death in 1870, his manufacturing facility had built around 1,000 Arithmometers, making it the first produced mechanical calculator in the world, and at the time, the only mechanical calculator reliable and dependable enough to be used in places like government agencies, banks, insurance companies and observatories just to name a few. The manufacturing of the Arithmometer went on for another 40 years until around 1914.
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variant spelling:
DE COLMAR, Charles Xavier Thomas
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History
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* 05.05.1785
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Colmar
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born
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1819
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Directeur général de la compagnie d'assurance du Phénix pendant 1 an.
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1820
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Modélisation et construction de « l’arithmomètre Thomas ».
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1820
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Dépôt d'un Brevet N°1420 d'une durée de cinq ans : Système du multiplicateur formant le premier mouvement pour une machine ou appareil appelé arithmomètre, propre à suppléer à la mémoire dans toutes les opérations d'arithmétique.
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1821
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Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur.
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1829
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Fondation de la compagnie du Soleil.
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1843
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Fondation de la compagnie de l'Aigle.
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1850
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Acquisition du château de Maisons-Laffitte.
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1850 - 1910
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Dépôt du brevet de l'Arithmomètre.
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1854
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Création d'un jardin paysager au château de Maisons-Laffitte.
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1857
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Officier de la Légion d'honneur.
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† 12.03.1870
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Paris
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died
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