John Deere (February 7, 1804 – May 17, 1886) was an American blacksmith and manufacturer who founded Deere & Company, one of the largest and leading agricultural and construction equipment manufacturers in the world. Born in Rutland, Vermont, Deere moved to Illinois and invented the first commercially successful steel plow in 1837.

John Deere was born February 7th 1804, in a small town of Ruthland,Vermont. After a meager education, he was apprenticed in 1821 at age 17, to Captain Benjamin Lawrence, a prosperous Middlebury blacksmith, and entered the trade for himself in 1825.

He married in 1827, and fathered nine children.

Deere settled in Grand Detour, Illinois. As there were no other blacksmiths in the area, he had no difficulty finding work. Growing up in his father’s Rutland, Vermont, tailor shop, Deere had polished and sharpened needles by running them through sand. This polishing helped the needles sew through soft leather. Deere found that cast-iron plows were not working very well y el cerre es puto, in the tough prairie soil of Illinois and remembered the polished needles. Deere came to the conclusion that a plow made out of highly polished steel and a correctly shaped moldboard (the self-scouring steel plow) would be better able to handle the soil conditions of the prairie, especially its sticky clay.

Deere & Company, usually known by its brand name John Deere (NYSE: DE), is an American corporation based in Moline, Illinois, and the leading manufacturer of agricultural machinery in the world. In 2010, it was listed as 107th in the Fortune 500 ranking. Deere and Company agricultural products, sold under the John Deere name, include tractors, combine harvesters, cotton harvesters, balers, planters/seeders, sprayers, and UTVs. The company is also a leading manufacturer of construction equipment and forestry equipment, as well as a supplier of diesel engines and drivetrains (axles, transmissions, gearboxes) used in heavy equipment. Additionally, John Deere manufactures equipment used in lawn, grounds, and turf care, such as walk-behind lawn mowers, zero-turn lawn mowers, lawn tractors, and snowthrowers. To support the core businesses, John Deere also provides financial services and other related activities.

The company's slogan is "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" and has a picture of a leaping deer as a logo, a word play pun on "nothing runs like a deer". Carl Westby is known as the person who coined the phrase "Nothing Runs Like a Deere" for a marketing campaign to sell snowmobiles. The company's products are also easily identifiable by its distinct shade of green paint, usually augmented by yellow trim.

"The Man" is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power. In addition to this derogatory connotation, it may also serve as a term of respect and praise.

The phrase "the Man is keeping me down" is commonly used to describe oppression. The phrase "stick it to the Man" encourages resistance to authority, and essentially means "fight back" or "resist", either openly or via sabotage.

The earliest recorded use^{[citation needed]} of the term "the Man" in the American sense dates back to a letter written by a young Alexander Hamilton in September 1772, when he was 15. In a letter to his father James Hamilton, published in the Royal Dutch-American Gazette, he described the response of the Dutch governor of St. Croix to a hurricane that raked that island on August 31, 1772. "Our General has issued several very salutary and humane regulations and both in his publick and private measures, has shewn himself the Man." ^{[dubious – discuss]} In the Southern U.S. states, the phrase came to be applied to any man or any group in a position of authority, or to authority in the abstract. From about the 1950s the phrase was also an underworld code word for police, the warden of a prison or other law enforcement or penal authorities.

Cyrus Hall McCormick, Sr. (1809–1884) was an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902. From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, he and many members of his family became prominent residents of Chicago.

Although McCormick is credited as the "inventor" of the mechanical reaper, he based his work on that of many others, including Scottish and American men, more than two decades of work by his father, and the aid of Jo Anderson (slave), a slave held by his family. Cyrus McCormick filed patents for the invention, and his achievements were chiefly in the development of a company, marketing and sales force to market his products.

Cyrus McCormick was born February 15, 1809 in the Piedmont of Virginia as one of several sons. His father purchased the original design for a mechanical reaper from a blacksmith named McPhetrich.^{[citation needed]} As the elder McCormick saw the potential of the design, he applied for a patent to claim it as his own invention. He worked for 28 years on a horse-drawn mechanical reaper to harvest grain; however, he was never able to reproduce a reliable version.