Historical facts articles

The Carolingian Reform (04/21/2012)
... Rather than writing down 2,400 pennies, it was easier to write or say 10 pounds, and rather than write or say 12 pennies it was easier to write or say 1 shilling. The silver penny was the linchpin of the Carolingian system, but major transactions required unwieldy numbers of pennies, counting into the tens or even hundreds of thousands, and the pound and shilling were handy measures of pennies. The Carolingian Reform was the work of Pepin the Short (r. 751–768), the first king of the Carolingian dynasty and father of Charlemagne. In addition to establishing the Carolingian monetary system, the Reform also reduced the number of mints, strengthened royal authority over the mints, and provided for uniform design of coins....

Historical perspectives of accounting (04/21/2012)
..., income statements) because most owners had direct knowledge of their businesses and, therefore, could rely on elementary bookkeeping procedures for information. Although corporations (e.g., banks, canal companies) were present in the United States prior to the early 1800s, their numbers were few. Beginning in the late 1820s, however, the number of corporations rapidly increased with the creation and expansion of the railroads....

History of the Decimal System (04/18/2012)
... The Russian decimal system met with a cold reception in the courts of Europe, which had elaborated upon the Carolingian system into currency systems susceptible to manipulation because of a multiplicity of coins that could be selectively debased. Also, the royal courts of Europe were not impressed with innovations from countries such as Russia, which were mired in economic backwardness. The American revolutionaries, eager to depart from the practice of European monarchies, found no charm in coins called crowns and sovereigns, bearing portraits of British monarchs. The Spanish milled dollar was a popular coin in the American colonies, but the Spanish dollar was subdivided into eight reales. In 1782 Robert Morris, U....

The Great Debasement (04/12/2012)
... By March 1545 the value of the silver content had fallen to 50 percent, and by March 1546 to 33.33 percent. The value of each coin in silver content fell to only 25 percent of face value by the time the debasement had run its course in 1551. During a period of coinage debasement, a mechanism called Gresham’s law comes into play. Gresham’s law is sometimes expressed as bad currency drives out good currency....

The Medici Bank (04/12/2012)
... The parent company functioned like a modern holding company. The system of branch banks was organized such that one branch could be declared independent by rearranging accounts. Such arrangements protected the parent bank from the bankruptcy of individual branches due to localized economic difficulties. Members of the Medici family entered the Florentine banking business in the latter 1300s. In 1393 Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici (1360–1429) took ownership of the Roman branch of a bank owned by one of his Florentine cousins....

The Davidsohn Family: Innovating financial services for more than 50 years (03/02/2012)
... This gives enhanced flexibility to firms while also improving their return on investment. Currently, the Davidsohns are in the final stages of developing their fourth-generation back-office solution that will include advanced electronic securities processing along with other features designed to streamline the back office process and bring firms into compliance with the changing regulatory landscape. Michael Dougherty is a financial writer who lives in Boston, MA. He has written for newspapers and magazines along with some of the leading online Web sites. ....

The India Growth Story (12/12/2011)
... Some corporates have even picked up a taste for overseas acquisitions(TATA`s). There is an unmeasured commonality to all of this. Marketing gurus would call it “renewed self confidence”; cynics would call it dumb luck; I call it ‘taking risks’. Now the risk tolerance is not confined to the merchants of wealth alone – it is gradually beginning to infect the government too. Begrudgingly, it is either internally corporatizing; listening to outside voices and sharing responsibility; or in some cases, completely moving out of the way in areas where it knows it is underperforming: infrastructure, finance, education, health....

Many countries have followed capitalistic model of economy (06/08/2011)
... According to him, to be wealthier, a nation should let the market forces generate economic growth instead of imposing state regulations on trade and price. Though Adam Smith's theory is not much applicable in the era of globalization, but the present capitalism still finds it's root in his theory. Capitalism comprising with privatization and profit driven economic activities rather with a little motive of social welfare, can not survive too long. In the second half of twentieth century, capitalism was adopted by various countries in the different parts of globe. But they were in different models....

Baking: Past and Present (04/18/2011)
... During that time bakers used to make breads and cakes for eating as well as breads and cakes of various shapes (like animals) were used for sacrifices. The art of Baking was also popular in Roman Empire and there are proofs of existence of bakeries in Europe too during Middle age. Under The Roman Empire the baking was a highly respected profession. Baking in Modern Age These days' bakery products are in great demand, as people want to spend less time cooking for them. They rather like to spend time in working so that they can earn some extra bucks....

Labor Notes (09/28/2010)
... Producers and manufacturers brought goods to the exchange, and received in return labor notes equal to the amount of labor required to produce the goods. The labor notes could be used to buy other goods at the exchange, which were priced based upon the hours of labor that went into producing each good. Exchanges opened in different regions, and one of the largest was in Birmingham, where two series of labor notes were issued in denominations of 1, 2, 5, 10, 50, and 80 labor-hours. The exchanges were short-lived. It was a utopian idea that could not compete with a market system that incorporates all the available information that affects the prices of goods and services....

The Glass Steagall Banking Act of 1933 (United States) (09/26/2010)
...S. banks failed during the depression. President Hoover saw the banks as a victim of a crisis in confidence. To prevent panic from spreading, President Roosevelt in March 1933 ordered all banks to close for a week. On June 16 1933 the Glass-Steagall Banking Act became the law of the land....

Croesean Reform (09/19/2010)
... By then Lydian metallurgy had progressed sufficiently to enable the separation of the gold and silver in electrum. King Alyattes continued the coinage of electrum but did begin the coinage of gold. Croesus, succeeding his father as king, undertook a major reform of the Lydian currency. He abandoned the coinage of electrum, which ceased to circulate as coinage in Asia Minor, and he established a currency system of gold and silver that would later supply the model for the currency of the Persian Empire. The gold unit was called a stater, and the Greeks called the gold stater the Croesean stater....

What was Daric (09/19/2010)
... Xenophon’s Anabasis makes a reference to Cyrus agreeing to pay his soldiers 1 1/2 daric per month. The daric is mentioned in the Bible, in Ezra 2.69: “according to their ability they gave to the treasury of the work sixty-one thousand darics of gold.” Evidence of smaller coins is scanty but it seems that the Persians accepted the duodecimal system common in ancient Asiatic monetary systems. Under the duodecimal system, fractional coins came in amounts of one-third, one-sixth, and one-twelfth of the gold unit, the daric in the case of Persia....

Dollar Crisis of 1971 (09/19/2010)
... Largely because of worldwide military and political obligations, the United States ran what are called balance of payments deficits after World War II, infusing additional dollars into a world economy hungry for monetary reserves. A balance of payments deficit occurs when the outflow of dollars from U.S. imports and investment abroad exceeds the inflow of dollars from U.S....

What was the Free Silver Movement (09/19/2010)
...” The deletion of the silver dollar drew little attention at the time, but the United States was already in the clutches of a deflationary downswing that would last three decades. From 1870 until 1896 prices plunged 50 percent, a deflationary wave that hit hard at farmers in the West and South, where debt incidence stood at high levels. These groups quite rightly saw that a return to free and unlimited coinage of silver would raise the domestic money stock, raise prices, and reduce their debt burden. Much of the populist flavor of the free silver movement came from the hopes it lifted among large numbers of low-income farmers. Silver prices felt an added deflationary force because the world was rushing toward a gold standard that left little role for silver as a monetary metal....

Gold (09/06/2010)
... The ancient Egyptians held gold to be sacred to Ra, the sun god, and vast quantities of gold went into the tombs of the divine pharaohs. A religion of ancient India taught that gold was the sacred semen of Agni, the fire god, and Agni’s priests accepted gold as a gift for priestly services. The Incas of South America saw gold and silver as the sweat of the sun and the moon, and these precious metals adorned the walls of their religious temples. After the Spaniards took the Indians’ gold and silver the natives substituted foil paper, and threw gold and silver-colored confetti into the air. The Maya of the Yucatan threw gold, silver, and jade sacrifices into their gods’ cenotes....

Second Bank of the United States (08/23/2010)
... Now the Jeffersonian Republicans were supporting such a bank instead of the New England Federalists. Congress approved the charter for the Second Bank of the United States early in 1816 and President Madison signed the bill on April 10 of that year. The Second Bank was capitalized at $35 million. The government owned one-fifth of the stock and appointed 5 of the 25 directors. Shares of stock were sold at a price to attract broadly based ownership....

What were The Lombard Banks (08/20/2010)
...” Under his plan people would deposit their “dead stock” in magazines, and receive credit on account that could be exchanged as money. He recommended awarding credit on account up to “two-thirds or three-fourths of their value according to the quality thereof.” In explaining the credit on account, Murray explained that: [N]o more is required than what is already practised in Banks here and abroad, where men deposite Money and obtain the Bank-Credit, which generally passeth in Receipts and Payments without the real issuing of Money, the Money remaining as a Pawn or Ground of Security in the Cash-Chest, or else imployed by the Banker to his own Benefit. (Richards, 1929) The most famous economist of the era, William Petty, put in a good word for Lombard banks in his Treatise of Taxes and Contributions (1662). He wrote, “If public Loan Banks, Lombards, or Banks of Credit upon deposited Plate, Jewel, Cloth, Wooll, Silke, Leather, Linnen, Mettals, and other durable Commodities were erected, I cannot apprehend how there could be above one-tenth part of the Law-suits and Writings as now there are” (Richards, 1929)....

Gold Standard (08/15/2010)
... At the opening of the nineteenth century, no European country was on a gold standard or had developed a gold standard system. England and other countries coined both gold and silver and set the conversion ratio at which gold could be exchange for silver. England was still officially on a sterling silver standard, but in the eighteenth century the English government overvalued gold relative to silver, causing an outflow of silver and an inflow of gold and lifting gold to a position of preeminence in England’s monetary system. In normal times banks redeemed paper money out of reserves of specie (precious metal coinage), but during the wars with revolutionary France and Napoleon, the Bank of England suspended the redemption of its bank notes in specie. After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, Parliament turned its attention to the resumption of specie payments, and passed the Coinage Act of 1816....

Postage Stamps (08/15/2010)
... stamps.” The British South Africa Company issued stamps affixed to cards bearing the statement, “Please pay in cash to the person producing this card the face value of the stamp affixed thereto, if presented on or after the 1st August 1900. This card must be produced for redemption not later than 1st October 1900.” Either during or immediately after World War I postage stamps circulated as money in Germany, Austria, France, Russia, Italy, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Greece, and Argentina. Germany and Austria imitated the American practice of encasing the stamps in a circular metal disc with a transparent face, and a reverse side bearing an advertisement....