Ross Perot Through the Years: EDS, POWs, GM and the Magna Charta

1930 Born June 27 in Texarkana, Tex.

1949 Admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis.

1962 Starts Electronic Data Systems with $1,000.

1969 Charters two jets to fly 26 tons of food and Christmas dinners to U.S. prisoners of war in North Vietnam but is rebuffed by Hanoi. A year later, flies the wives of five American POWs or MIAs to South Vietnam.

1974 Two Wall Street brokerage firms taken over by Perot fail.

1979 Helps mastermind mission by Retired Army Col. Arthur D. (Bull) Simons to rescue EDS employees from an Iranian prison. Ken Follett’s account of the mission, “On Wings of Eagles,” is a best-selling book in 1983.

1983 Spearheads educational reforms in Texas including controversial “no pass, no play” rules banning failing students from athletics and other school activities.

1984 Sells EDS to General Motors for $2.5 billion. Perot remains EDS chairman, becomes GM’s biggest shareholder and joins GM board. Also that year, buys copy of Magna Charta for $1.5 million.

1986 GM announces that it will pay $700 million to Perot to buy his GM shares and that he will no longer be chairman of EDS or a GM director.