How Nike Came to Be

Nike is today’s leading brand in sports apparel, footwear, and equipment. It has a rich history, success stories, but also a lot of problems and challenges that need to be solved in the near future. Nike was founded in Washington County, Oregon by a track coach Bill Bowerman and his student Philip Knight in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports. They originally started the company to be a distributor for ASICS (a very well know Japanese shoe company), so they can sell their Onitsuka Tiger running shoes. Because both Bowerman and Knight were involved in running and were very interested in the sport they enjoyed selling these shoes but they always had a motive to make their own line of running shoes. In 1966 Blue Ribbon Sports opened their first store in Santa Monica, California selling ASICS shoes. In 5 years the relationship between the two companies was dying down and the distribution contract ended. On January 22^nd, 1974, the world famous Swoosh was registered as the company’s trademark and the company was creating its own set of footwear and clothes. They hired an advertising company to do their marketing and started gaining market share little by little. In 1978 the company was officially changed to “Nike Incorporated” or “Nike” for short and two years later in December 1980 Nike went public on the NYSE owning about half of the sports footwear market in the USA. Nike got its name from the Greek goddess Nike that represented victory. Now it is one of the world's most recognizable companies. 

Nike's Official Site

Cuba

A totalitarian state can be defined as any country whose government, or single leader, strictly controls and limits all aspects of the country’s affairs including human rights, public relations and economical and political affairs. The Republic of Cuba fits this description immaculately as it is one of the few remaining nations in the world that practice totalitarianism and suppress their people to the point where it is unbearable. Gaining independence from Spain in 1868, Cuba was also under a dictatorship where one ruler controlled the whole land but it was the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s that helped to create the policies and idealisms of the present day totalitarian state of Cuba. Overthrowing dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, the revolting Cubans lead by Marxist Fidel Castro took over Cuba and started a new communist regime, regardless of United States efforts to stop it such as the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Castro lead Cuba into growing economically as a country but always established a state full of political prisoners, oppressed human rights, and limited election and emigration policies. These aspects present in today’s Cuba exemplify that it is truly a totalitarian state. However, Cuba isn't much a threat as it was in the past.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yoani-sanchez/challenging-the-cuban-state_b_1515292.html