The First Books Rolls of paper or papyrus were the predecessors of books and the first books appeared only in the middle ages. In the middle of the 5th century, parchment made of goat and sheep skin with writing on one side was cut to a uniform size and bound together with pieces of leather to form the first books. This manner of making books underwent a change in the middle...

The First Schools Our modern schools are the successors of the ancient Roman and Greek schools. Initially in Greece the teachers taught only a single pupil at a time in fact the singular teacher and pupil relationship existed elsewhere in the world as well. Over a period of time these teachers began to hold teaching classes where more than one pupil was taught at the same time. As a result of...

Mathematics It is difficult to imagine our modern way of life without mathematics, imagine what would happen if we could not measure things or calculate amounts. We would not be able to even weigh the vegetables we would like to buy or for that matter calculate the price payable for them. The need to measure how long or how much or how many is so great in our daily life that...

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...