1896 : Harry Winston is born in New York; four years after his father opened a small jewelry shop in Manhattan.

1920 : Harry Winston opens his first business, the Premier Diamond Company, at 535 Fifth Avenue in New York.

1925 : Harry Winston pays $1 million for the entire jewelry collection of Mrs. Rebecca Darlington Stoddard, followed by the acquisition of the equally famous collection of Mrs. Aravella Huntington, for $2 million in 1926.

1930 : Harry Winston buys a 39-carat emerald cut diamond, at the time the largest diamond ever to come on t...