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World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., born as Capitol Wrestling Corporation (1953-1963) and known as World Wide Wrestling Federation (1963-1979) and as World Wrestling Federation (WWF) (1979-2002), is an American entertainment company mainly deals with wrestling, as well as films, music, video games and merchandising. It is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in New York.
The beginning of WWE history dates back to 1948, when the National Wrestling Alliance was born, a group of independent wrestling federations that also included Capitol Sports, a territory of the northeastern United States; it was founded by Jess McMahon and Toots Mondt on January 7, 1952 and officially joined the NWA circuit in 1953, initially remaining there until 1963 and then again from 1971 to 1983. Following the separation from the NWA, McMahon renamed the federation to World Wide Wrestling Federation, later shortened to World Wrestling Federation.
After many business deals throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it became known as World Wrestling Entertainment on May 6, 2002 due to a legal dispute with the World Wildlife Fund, known by the same acronym. On April 7, 2011, it assumed the simple name of WWE, although the full name was never officially changed.
