Stock Exchanges To collect money, to finance projects, companies and governments sell shares in those companies to the public. In exchange for pre-determined amounts, certificates of holdings in these companies are issued, these are known as shares, stocks and bonds. One may buy a share for a company for a small amount initially but if the company becomes profitable then the value of the share may multiply and people may be...

The First Banks Banks were originally meant to perform the services of accepting deposits from people and lending money on interest and they began in ancient Greece, Babylon and Egypt. In those days the deposits were made in the temples and it was much later, around 200 B.C., that the Romans passed laws which made banks and money changers official. The Italian money , changer’s carried out their business from benches...

Coins Coins are used as currency or money and are pieces of metal of a specific weight and bearing the seal or stamp of the issuing authority. The Lydians made the first coins in the 7th century B.C. and were called ‘staters’. Other people also saw the utility of these coins and they too started making their own and within the next century almost the entire Asia minor and Europe had...

The Beginning of Counting Today it seems very simple and natural that when you add one and one, you get two yet it was no so for millions of years because man never thought of it. In the earlier days, quantity was represented by objects i.e. if a man wanted to tell how many sheep he had then he would put that many stones in a heap or in a small...

The Days of the Week     There was a time when the only division of time was a month, because days and weeks were not known to man. When cities were built and they began to flourish, the need for fixing the days for trading, festivals, holiday arose. The Jews fixed every seventh day of the week for religious purpose, the Babylonians fixed every seventh day for trading and so...

Wrestling One of the oldest sports known to us is wrestling, evidence of this can be found in many old book  paintings, sculptures and even in carvings on cave walls. Greek legends suggest that this sport was invented by their hero called Theseus. The walls of the ancient Egyptian tombs have figures of wrestlers painted and carved on them. Evidence shows that wrestling was a developed sport more than 5000 years...

Figure Skating   Ice skating is of three different types i.e. Ice dancing, Speed skating and Figure skating. Of these three figure skating is the most graceful, it requires the skaters to skate in certain patterns on ice. These contests can be divided into two main parts which are free skating and school figures. In free skating the skaters have the liberty of making all movements like spinning and leaping. School...

Polo This is a game which is played on horseback by players who try to move a small ball into the opponent’s goal with the help of a mallet. Polo was probably first invented and played in Persia in the 1st century. Polo did not originate as a game it was initially used to train soldiers. It then became popular in the royal families and noblemen. With the passage of time...