Charles Tiffany was born February 15, 1812, in Killingly, Connecticut.

He began his career in the country store operated by his father. In 1837, Tiffany's father lent him $500, and with another $500 contributed by a partner, John Young, he opened a stationery and fancy goods store on Broadway. Tiffany & Young's first two days sales amounted to only $4.95, and their first week's profits were a meager 33 cents. Of course, it got better.

Within 12 years, Tiffany's inventory had grown to include watches, clocks, silverware, and bronzeware. In 1845, Tiffany and Young published "The Catalogue of Useful and Fancy Articles," its first mail-order catalog.

The company continued to grow and thrive, in part because of Charles Tiffany's showmanship. He sold bits of the transatlantic cable, laid in 1850. He designed a tiny silver horse and carriage for the wedding of P T Barnum's famous midgets, Tom Thumb and Lavinia. Most notably, he bought and sold Marie Antoinette's Girdle of Diamonds and several other French crown jewels.

In 1853, Tiffany bought out his partner, and moved the business, which he renamed Tiffany & Company, uptown. In 1867, Tiffany became the first American silvermaker to earn first prize at the Paris Exposition Universelle, enhancing his reputation even further.

Ten years later, Tiffany purchased a large diamond that had been extracted from the new Kimberly Mines in South Africa. The Tiffany Diamond is the largest flawless and perfectly colored canary diamond ever mined. By then, Tiffany was selling about $6 million in diamonds each year. In 1885, Tiffany redesigned the Great Seal of the United States, which is still on the American dollar.

When he died in 1902, Charles Tiffany was worth $35 million. The Tiffany Company continued to prosper.

In 1940, Tiffany's opened a new Fifth Avenue store, the first fully air-conditioned building in New York. In 1961, the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, based on the book by Truman Capote and starring Audrey Hepburn, was released, making the name Tiffany familiar to those who had never been to New York.

In the 1990s, the pop band Deep Blue Something had a hit with a song also called "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which alludes to the film.