Almanac: A clean business

And now a page from our "Sunday Morning" Almanac: May 7th, 1925, 92 years ago today … the day British manufacturer William Lever died at age 73.

Together with his brother James, William Lever founded a soap company known, appropriately enough, as Lever Brothers.

The brothers found success with Sunlight Soap, and in the 1890s expanded into the United States, where Lifebuoy Soap became a familiar brand.

William Lever's company survived his death, and after later merging with a Dutch company, it was rechristened as Unilever in 1930.

Many new products and advertisements followed over the years, including a cheeky 1990s commercial touting all the body parts that can cleaned with Lever 2000 soap.

And it's not just soap. Unilever sells lots of different foods as well, including Hellmann's mayonnaise, Lipton Tea, and Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.

Besides all that, Unilever can also claim credit for a clean break in urban architecture.

Lever House, the corporate headquarters it opened in 1952, was the very first modern glass-walled office building to open on Park Avenue in New York City.

And though it's since been sold, Lever House remains, and was named a New York landmark in 1982.