Word: bata
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Thomas Bata's visit to Prague last December at the invitation of the new Czechoslovakian leadership was a particularly joyful journey. At 75, he heads Toronto-based Bata Shoe, which made 300 million pairs of shoes last year. Founded in 1894 by his father in the Moravian town of Zlin, Czechoslovakia, the firm was nationalized by the Communists in 1945. The family moved to Canada and proceeded to build the world's largest shoe company...
...return, he was greeted by Czech crowds chanting "Bata! Bata! Bata!" Local officials gave the Canadian industrialist a haunting tour of the giant factory that his late father had built. Dilapidated, the aging shoe factory still turns out footwear on the machinery installed by his family nearly a half-century ago. Bata plans to renovate the factory as part of a joint venture. Forty years after being driven out of his country, Thomas Bata is a returning hero...