The defence giant behind radar missiles also gave kitchens the microwave oven
Raytheon began in 1922 making a tube that let radios run from the mains instead of costly batteries. During the Second World War it built most of the Allies' radar magnetrons, and in 1945 one of its engineers noticed a magnetron could heat food. The microwave oven was born inside what became a weapons colossus.
Laurence Marshall, Vannevar Bush and Charles Smith founded the American Appliance Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, first aiming at refrigeration before switching to electronics. Their first hit was a helium rectifier, inspired by Smith's research on the star Zeta Puppis, named Raytheon, light from the gods. It powered battery eliminators, converting household alternating current for radios. The company adopted the name in 1925 and by the 1930s ranked among the world's biggest vacuum-tube makers.
War transformed it. By 1945 Raytheon produced roughly 80 percent of all magnetrons, the heart of microwave radar, and pioneered shipboard radar for hunting submarines. That year Percy Spencer discovered the heating effect, and the Radarange oven was demonstrated in 1947. After buying Amana in 1965, Raytheon sold the first countertop household microwave in 1967 and came to dominate the market. Meanwhile it developed the first guidance system able to intercept a flying target and moved into missiles such as the Sparrow and Hawk.
The other half of today's firm has aviation roots. In 1929 William Boeing and Pratt & Whitney founder Frederick Rentschler created United Aircraft and Transport; its eastern manufacturing arm became United Aircraft in 1934, joining the Dow Jones index in 1939. Its Pratt & Whitney J57 was for years the most powerful jet engine available, and it later powered the Boeing 747. Renamed United Technologies in 1975, it diversified into lifts, air conditioning and security.
In 2020 United Technologies spun off Otis and Carrier and merged its aerospace businesses with Raytheon, keeping the better-known Raytheon name; in July 2023 the company became RTX. Now based in Arlington, Virginia, it makes engines, avionics, missiles, satellites and drones, earning much of its revenue from the United States government.
Source: RTX Corporation
