Sharp Corporation (シャープ株式会社, Shāpu Kabushiki-gaisha^?) is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products. Headquartered in Abeno-ku, Osaka, Japan, Sharp employed around 55,580 people worldwide as of June 2011. The company was founded in September 1912 and takes its name from one of its founder's first inventions, the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil, which was invented by Tokuji Hayakawa (早川 徳次) in 1915. Since then it has developed into one of the leading electronics companies in the world.

Sharp acquired a controlling stake in Pioneer Corporation in 2007. On 25 June 2009, Sharp and Pioneer agreed to form a joint venture comprising their optical businesses, called "Pioneer Digital Design and Manufacturing Corporation".

In 1912, Tokuji Hayakawa (早川 徳次) founded a metal workshop in Tokyo. The first of his many inventions was a snap buckle named 'Tokubijo'. Another of his major inventions was the Ever-Sharp mechanical pencil in 1915, from which the Sharp Corporation took its name. After the pencil business was destroyed by the 1923 Great Kantō earthquake, the company relocated to Osaka and began designing the first generation of Japanese radio sets. These went on sale in 1925. In 1953 Sharp started producing television sets.

John Bennett Herrington (born September 14, 1958) is a former naval aviator with the United States Navy and former NASA astronaut. With his single Space Shuttle mission in late 2002 Herrington became the first enrolled member of a Native American tribe to fly in space.

Herrington was born in Wetumka, Oklahoma. He grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Riverton, Wyoming, and Plano, Texas, where he graduated from Plano Senior High School. He earned a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs before receiving his commission in the United States Navy in 1984.

To honor his Native American heritage, Herrington, an enrolled member of the Chickasaw Nation, carried a Chickasaw Nation flag on his eleven-day trip. The flag had been presented to him by Chickasaw Nation Governor Bill Anoatubby.