The company already existed as a watch business from 1832. The watch factory was founded by the Swiss watchmaker Ernest Francillon in St. Imier in 1866. In 1867, it becomes one of the first watch manufactures in Switzerland. In 1952, Longines goes down in the history of the Olympic Games as official timekeeper and appears at every Summer and Winter Olypics ever since. Probably the best known carriers in the history of Longines watches are Charles Lindbergh, who survived the Atlantic crossing with a strapped around the thigh Longines pilot's watch and the actor Humphrey Borgart who looked into the camera with a melancholy gaze and a tonneau-shaped Longines on his arm in the fifties. Best-known models are: Admiral, Dolce Vita, Flagship, Lindbergh and La Grande.