WEBVTT
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World War II is over,
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and post-war Europe begins the difficult task
of rebuilding a broken continent.
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Meanwhile in Sweden
something else is being built:
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the welfare society,
with a better life for everyone.
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Child care, health care
and a national pension system.
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Swedes get three weeks holiday a year
and have more cash to spend than ever before.
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And there will be plenty of opportunities
to spend it.
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The beginning of the 1950s
is a milestone in the IKEA story,
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as the first home furnishing catalogue
is published.
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At a time when everything
can be measured and calculated,
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IKEA now starts using flat packs to reduce
transport costs and prevent transport damage.
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With that comes an unconventional idea:
customers can put their own furniture together.
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The world opens up,
and Swedes can now afford to travel abroad.
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The home is modernised
with household appliances.
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Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe;
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modern American culture has a huge impact
on the small country in the north.
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The 1950s also see the arrival of television,
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and Swedes can now watch a world
tired of war enter a new one;
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the Cold War.
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Levelling out
at eighty-five hundred feet for an IFI.
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Political tensions between superpowers
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lead to several dramatic events
in the decades to come.
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And it's not long before the two giants
of the communist world
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jointly control more than a billion lives.
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But neutral Sweden is going strong.
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It's a true golden age
of construction and development.
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IKEA now starts seriously developing
its business concept.
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Well-designed furniture
with good function and quality at a low price.
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And things happen quickly:
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in 1958 the company opens its first store
in Älmhult, Småland.
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A real store - thats huge!
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Surely Ingvar Kamprad, who started out
as a kid playing businessman,
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should now be satisfied?
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No, the future holds much,
much bigger things.