On 17 November 1846, Carl Zeiss founded an optical workshop in Jena. Only one year later, he started to build simple microscopes. It soon became clear to the young mechanic that he would only be successful in cooperation with science. In 1863, he therefore persuaded the physicist Ernst Abbe to join the company, so Zeiss started to manufacture microscopes based on scientific principles in 1873. The company quickly became a globally operating manufacturer of optical devices, such as binoculars, planetarium projectors or surgical microscopes.