One of the best-known watch companies in the world, Omega (then La Generale Watch Company) was founded in 1848 by pocket watchmaker Louis Brandt in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. Renamed as Omega S.A. in 1903, the brand was a clear innovator in Swiss watchmaking, producing the first minute-repeater wristwatch back in 1892 and winning several chronometer contests at the Geneva Observatory. The model that broke historic ground for the brand was the Speedmaster, its sports chronograph produced in 1957, which was the same timepiece worn by American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the first landing by man on the moon in 1969. Since 1983, the brand has been a top-tier subsidiary of the Swiss watchmaking conglomerate, the Swatch Group.