Linde Company was founded by an inventor Carl von Linde in 1879 in Wiesbaden, Germany starting with the production of a mechanical system of refrigeration. In 1907, the firm established a subsidiary, Linde Air Products, in the USA and attracted new investors. Nevertheless, after the defeat of Germany in the world war, the subsidiary was expropriated and included in the Union Carbide Corporation; only in 1992, it split from the Corporation to become an independent Praxair Company.