Zero Halliburton
Encyclopedia
Briefcase
A briefcase is a narrow box-shaped bag or case used mainly for carrying papers and other documents and equipped with a handle. Lawyers commonly use briefcases to carry briefs to present to a court, hence the name...
s, mainly of aluminum
Aluminium
Aluminium or aluminum is a silvery white member of the boron group of chemical elements. It has the symbol Al, and its atomic number is 13. It is not soluble in water under normal circumstances....
. It was originally a metal fabrication company called Zierold Company, which in 1946 changed its name to Zero Corporation. In 1952 Zero, which until then had no relation to Halliburton
Halliburton
Halliburton is the world's second largest oilfield services corporation with operations in more than 70 countries. It has hundreds of subsidiaries, affiliates, branches, brands and divisions worldwide and employs over 50,000 people....
, bought the luggage division of Halliburton, the Oklahoma
Oklahoma
Oklahoma is a state located in the South Central region of the United States of America. With an estimated 3,751,351 residents as of the 2010 census and a land area of 68,667 square miles , Oklahoma is the 28th most populous and 20th-largest state...
-Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
oilfield services company. On December 29, 2006, Zero Corporation sold its consumer division to ACE Co.,Ltd., a Japanese luggage manufacturer. Today, Zero Halliburton is a wholly owned subsidiary of ACE Co.,Ltd. of Osaka and Tokyo.
Erle P. Halliburton
Erle P. Halliburton
Erle Palmer Halliburton was an American businessman specializing in the oil business....
, the founder of Halliburton, had commissioned the aluminum case in 1938 from aircraft engineers because other luggage could not endure the rough travel through Texas oil fields in a pickup truck
Pickup truck
A pickup truck is a light motor vehicle with an open-top rear cargo area .-Definition:...
. In addition to being more durable than a leather or cloth case due to its rigidity, the aluminum case seals tightly against dust and water.
The aluminum cases have appeared in over 200 Hollywood movies
Cinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
and television shows, often as a MacGuffin
MacGuffin
A MacGuffin is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is...
, and in professional wrestling, most notably used by Steve McMichael
Steve McMichael
-World Wrestling Federation :After the end of his NFL career, he appeared at ringside in the WWF for Lawrence Taylor at WrestleMania XI on April 2, 1995 in Hartford, Connecticut. Taylor was wrestling Bam Bam Bigelow and there were several football players at ringside to keep wrestlers from...
and Irwin R. Schyster
Mike Rotunda
Lawrence Michael "Mike" Rotunda is a former American professional wrestler, perhaps best known under the name Irwin R. Schyster or I.R.S. for short. He is currently signed with WWE working as a road agent and making occasional appearances on WWE shows as Irwin R...
. In addition to aluminum, Zero Halliburton cases are available in polycarbonate
Polycarbonate
PolycarbonatePhysical PropertiesDensity 1.20–1.22 g/cm3Abbe number 34.0Refractive index 1.584–1.586FlammabilityV0-V2Limiting oxygen index25–27%Water absorption – Equilibrium0.16–0.35%Water absorption – over 24 hours0.1%...
and Texalium (an aluminum-coated fiberglass
Fiberglass
Glass fiber is a material consisting of numerous extremely fine fibers of glass.Glassmakers throughout history have experimented with glass fibers, but mass manufacture of glass fiber was only made possible with the invention of finer machine tooling...
). Famously, the Nuclear Football
Nuclear football
The nuclear football is a briefcase, the contents of which are to be used by the President of the United States of America to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room...
, the briefcase containing the launch codes the President of the United States would use to order a nuclear strike, is a modified Zero Halliburton case.