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Staight from their official site:

Aperture Science was founded by Cave Johnson in 1953. In 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave Aperture Science a contract stating that Aperture Science would provide all branches of the United States Military (save for the navy) with shower curtains.

From 1957 to 1975, the company was almost entirely dedicated to the development of shower curtains. In 1978, Cave Johnson contracted mercury poisoning while inventing a deadly rubber sheeting injected with mercury, which would be put into shower curtains that would be given to each member of the House Naval Appropriations committee. By 1979, both of Cave Johnson's kidneys had failed, and he had severe brain damage and "could not be convinced that time was not flowing backwards". While dying, Johnson created a 3-tier program which he thought would continue Aperture Science's success "far into the fast-approaching distant past."

The first tier was the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver, which would be used to interrupt the life-saving Heimlich maneuver. The second was the Take-A-Wish Foundation, which would take wishes from terminally ill children and award them to healthy (but wish deprived) adults. The third tier was, in Johnson's opinion, the least well thought out. It was described as "some kind of rip in the fabric of space", which, in Johnson's words, "would help with the shower curtains I guess". Soon after, Johnson expired.

In 1981, Aperture Science completed the first two tiers, and the announcement of this was accompanied by a lavish TV special. After a string of public disasters involving "very public" choking and sad children, the Aperture Science senior company officials were summoned before a Senate investigative committee. As the investigation continued, an engineer stated that some progress had been made with tier three. He referred to it as a 'man-sized ad hoc quantum tunnel through physical space with possible applications as a shower curtain'. The committee was permanently recessed and Aperture was given an open-ended contract to continue work on the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver as well as the 'Portal' project.

From 1981 to 1985, work on the 'Portal' project continued. During this time, several Fatah personnel choked to death on lamb chunks despite their bodyguards' intervention, showing that the government had apparently put the Heimlich Counter-Maneuver to work.

In 1986 Aperture Science heard that Black Mesa worked on portal technology similar to that which Aperture Science was working on. In response, Aperture Science began to develop the Genetic Lifeform and Disc Operating System (GLaDOS). In 1996, the disk operating part was completed and work began on the genetic lifeform area.

Several years later, the untested GLaDOS was activated in the Aperture Laboratories on the same day as Aperture Science's first bring-your-daughter-to-work-day. Aperture Science claimed that "In many ways, the initial test goes well".

EXACTLY.

I am totally gonna buy it when they finish it.

OH GOD

I don't know...
He is a LOT less annoying now.

Thank you.