A new chemical firm, The Monsanto Company, is founded and later expands its services to become a leader in biotechnology for agriculture. More than 115 years later in 2018, Bayer acquired the company. This 1940 photo shows a New Madrid farmer planting cotton, one of the crops for which Monsanto developed biotechnology.

Photo credit: Vachon, J., photographer. (1940) Planting cotton. New Madrid County, Missouri. New Madrid County United States Missouri, 1940. May. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2017810504/.