Dutch East India Company (VOC) established. It would become the first company ever listed on a stock exchange

The Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie abbreviated to VOC), was a publicly tradable corporation that was founded in 1602 and became defunct in 1799.

It was originally established as a chartered company to trade with India and Indianized Southeast Asian countries when the Dutch government granted it a 21-year monopoly on the Dutch spice trade. The VOC was an early multinational corporation in its modern sense. In the early 1600s, by widely issuing bonds and shares of stock to the general public, the VOC became the world's first formally listed public company. In other words, it was the first corporation to be ever actually listed on an official stock exchange.

The VOC was influential in the rise of corporate-led globalization in the early modern period. With its pioneering institutional innovations and powerful roles in world history, the company is considered by many to be the first major modern global corporation, and was at one stage the most valuable corporation ever.