1.
Headquarters (album)
–
After a struggle for creative autonomy with their record label, the group had been allowed to record by themselves. Headquarters reached No.1 on the Billboard 200 chart and was certified platinum in the United States with sales of more than two million copies within the first two months of release. It peaked at #2 on the UK charts and it is included in the 2006 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. The album was released on May 22,1967 and charted at the No.1 in the U. S and it stayed at that position for only one week, and was then replaced by The Beatles Sgt. It then began a run of 11 consecutive weeks at the No.2 position as Sgt, peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band remained at No.1. The original rear cover features a collage of photos including one of the band with producer Chip Douglas. However the photo was mislabeled, it identifies Hank Cicalo as sitting next to Chip Douglas and this is known as the Producers Cover. Colgems/RCA corrected the error in 1968 by substituting a different photo rather than revising the caption, Peter, Micky and Mike were sporting light beards while Davys shoulder-length hair had been cut off, this has come to be known as the Beard Cover. This is the corrected version because it was practice for RCA to add an RE to the catalog number when any one side of a record sleeve had a revision. The Beard Cover has a number of COS/COM-103 RE. In 2007, Rhino issued a deluxe edition of the album. The CD set was housed in a digipak with a slipcase and featured original artwork, as well as a booklet of essays. The discs contained both the stereo and mono mixes of the album, remastered, as well as alternate mixes and outtakes, Side 1 Side 2 The albums preliminary track lineup was compiled shortly after the sessions had ended. Many of the songs were written by the four group members, a few of the songs were also written by songwriters Boyce and Hart. Michael Nesmith recruited fellow folk musician Chip Douglas, a member of The Modern Folk Quartet and The Turtles, Douglas, credited under his birth name, Douglas Farthing Hatlelid, also contributed bass guitar and a song. The two songs also have similar basslines, though this appears unintentional and it was eventually featured on Missing Links Volume Two and also subsequent reissues of the first album. Dobalina, Mr. Bob Dobalina coming from an airport intercom, came from the movie China Clipper, Never mind the furthermore. From the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma, the line Never mind the furthermore, the plea is self-defense is also performed on the song No Time Zilch was the hidden meaning of it all, it added up to. nothing
Headquarters (album)
–
Headquarters
2.
Head Office
–
Headquarters denotes the location where most, if not all, of the important functions of an organization are coordinated. In the United States, the corporate headquarters represents the entity at the center or the top of a corporation taking full responsibility for managing all business activities, in the UK, the term head office is most commonly used for the HQs of large corporations. The term is also used regarding military organizations, a headquarters is the entity at the top of a corporation that takes full responsibility for the overall success of the corporation, and ensures corporate governance. Many companies have an office at a different address to their corporate office. A headquarters normally includes the leader of business unit and his or her staff as well as all functions to manage the business unit, the head of the business unit is responsible for overall result of the business unit. Military headquarters take many forms depending on the size and nature of the unit or formation they command, typically, they are split into the forward, main and rear components, both within NATO nations, and those following the organization and doctrine of the former Soviet Union. The forward or tactical HQs is a group of staff. The main HQs is less mobile and is involved in both the planning and execution of operations, there are a number of staff assembled here from various staff branches to advise the commander, and to control the various aspects of planning and the conduct of discrete operations. A main HQ for a large formation will have a chief of staff who coordinates the staff effort, the rear or logistic HQs is some distance from the battle or front line in conventional operations. The headquarters of the Catholic Church is Vatican City, the headquarters of the Russian Orthodox Church is in Danilov Monastery, Moscow. The World Council of Churches, including Orthodox Churches, has its headquarters in Geneva, the headquarters of Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople is located in Istanbul, Turkey. The headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is located in Salt Lake City, Utah, the Anglican Communion Office is in London. In Japanese budō martial arts such as karate, judo, aikido, kendo, there is usually a headquarters for each organization or region. The Japanese word honbu is generally used for that, also outside Japan, sometimes they refer to this headquarters as honbu dojo in which dojo is a facility provided for practicing discipline, the training ground. Sometimes honbu is written as hombu, the way it is pronounced, but according to the Hepburn transcription, weapons and Tactics of the Soviet Army Janes, London,516 pp. Wanner, Herbert Global and regional corporate headquarters in, Kählin, Christian, H. Switzerland Business & Investment Handbook, Orell Füssli and Wiley, Wanner, Herbert, LeClef, Xavier, & Shimizu, Hiroshi Global Headquarters on the Move, From Administrators to Facilitators Prims Second Semester 2004, Arthur D. Little
Head Office
–
The
United Nations Headquarters in
New York City.
Head Office
–
KBR Tower, the headquarters of
KBR and a part of
Cullen Center, in
Downtown Houston
Head Office
–
Randall's Food Markets headquarters in
Westchase,
Houston; Randall's is a subsidiary of
Safeway Inc.
3.
Headquarters of the United Nations
–
The headquarters of the United Nations is a complex in New York City designed by Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. The complex has served as the headquarters of the United Nations since its completion in 1952. It is located in the Turtle Bay neighborhood of Manhattan, on spacious grounds overlooking the East River and its borders are First Avenue on the west, East 42nd Street to the south, East 48th Street on the north and the East River to the east. The term Turtle Bay is occasionally used as a metonym for the UN headquarters or for the United Nations as a whole, the United Nations has three additional, subsidiary, regional headquarters, or headquarters districts. These were opened in Geneva in 1946, Vienna in 1980 and they are technically extraterritorial through a treaty agreement with the U. S. government. However, in exchange for police, fire protection and other services, the United Nations agrees to acknowledge most local, state. The United Nations Headquarters complex was constructed in stages with the complex completed between 1948 and 1952. The US$8.5 million purchase was funded by his father, John D. Rockefeller. The Rockefeller family owned the Tudor City Apartments across First Avenue from the site, Wallace Harrison, the personal architectural adviser for the Rockefeller family and brother-in-law to a Rockefeller daughter, served as the Director of Planning for the United Nations Headquarters. His firm, Harrison and Abramovitz, oversaw the execution of the design, the property was originally a slaughterhouse before the donation took place, bordered on one side by the Rockefeller owned Tudor City Apartments. While the United Nations had dreamed of constructing an independent city for its new world capital, the diminutive site on the East River necessitated a Rockefeller Center-type vertical complex, thus, it was a given that the Secretariat would be housed in a tall office tower. During daily meetings from February to June 1947, the team produced at least 45 designs and variations. Rather than hold a competition for the design of the facilities for the headquarters, the American architect Wallace K. Harrison was named as Director of Planning, and a Board of Design Consultants was composed of architects, planners and engineers nominated by member governments. Niemeyer met with Corbusier at the latters request shortly after the arrived in New York City. Corbusier had already been lobbying hard to promote his own scheme 23, instead, he asked the younger architect to assist him with his project. Niemeyer began to absent himself from the meetings, only after Wallace Harrison and Max Abramovitz repeatedly pressed him to participate did Niemeyer agree to submit his own project. This would not split the site, but on the contrary, after much discussion, Harrison, who coordinated the meetings, determined that a design based on Niemeyers project 32 and Le Corbusiers project 23 would be developed for the final project. The complex as built, however, repositioned Niemeyers General Assembly building to the north of this tripartite composition and this plan included a public plaza as well
Headquarters of the United Nations
–
View from
Roosevelt Island
Headquarters of the United Nations
–
UN Secretary-General
Dag Hammarskjöld in front of the General Assembly building (1950s)
Headquarters of the United Nations
–
View from First Avenue towards the library, Secretariat and General Assembly buildings
Headquarters of the United Nations
–
Flags of the member states, arranged in alphabetical order
4.
New York City
–
The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
New York City
–
Clockwise, from top:
Midtown Manhattan,
Times Square, the
Unisphere in
Queens, the
Brooklyn Bridge,
Lower Manhattan with
One World Trade Center,
Central Park, the
headquarters of the United Nations, and the
Statue of Liberty
New York City
–
New Amsterdam, centered in the eventual
Lower Manhattan, in 1664, the year
England took control and renamed it "New York".
New York City
–
The
Battle of Long Island, the largest battle of the
American Revolution, took place in
Brooklyn in 1776.
New York City
–
Broadway follows the Native American Wickquasgeck Trail through Manhattan.
5.
KBR Tower
–
KBR Tower is a 550 ft tall skyscraper in Downtown Houston, Texas, United States, it is a part of the Cullen Center complex. The KBR Tower has the headquarters of KBR, the 40 story building has about 1,047,748 square feet of rentable office space. The building was completed in 1973, by 1991, Dresser Industries and its subsidiary, M. W. Kellogg, switched office buildings. Kellogg took over 400,000 square feet of space on 16 floors of the Houston skyscraper formerly occupied by its parent firm, the skyscraper was renamed the M. W. Kellogg Tower. In exchange Dresser took over space at 3 Greenway Plaza, which had renamed to the Dresser Tower. The building swap satisfied Kelloggs need for more space, in 1998, Exxon announced that it was forming a new subsidiary, Exxon Upstream Development Co. The company planned to house the company in the Kellogg Tower before moving it to the Greenspoint business district. By 2001, Halliburton owned the tower in a joint venture with TrizecHahn, in August of that year, Halliburton announced that it would consolidate 8,000 local employees to office space in Westchase. Halliburton planned to vacate about 650,000 square feet of Class B office space in the Kellogg Tower, in December 2001 Halliburton canceled its plans to relocate employees to Westchase. Nancy Sarnoff of the Houston Business Journal said that it made sense for the company to lease existing space instead of constructing new office space in times of economic downturns. In 2004, Jeanneret & Associates renewed its lease of 9,806 square feet space in the KBR Tower for 10 years, in 2010, KBR signed a 20-year lease for 1,200,000 square feet at the KBR Tower and 500 Jefferson. In 2011 Brookfield Properties Corp. offered a 50% interest in the KBR Tower for sale, paul Layne, Suresh Brookfields Houston area executive vice president, said that the KBR lease made the building a major candidate for the sale of its interest. KBR owns the other 50% interest, Layne did not state whether KBR had the right of first refusal on Brookfields interest. Layne said that confidentiality concerns were why he did not reveal the information, in 2012 an affiliate of W. P. List of tallest buildings in Houston Emporis Skyscraperpage Brookfield Properties
KBR Tower
–
The KBR Tower, with the Downtown Houston
YMCA ahead
KBR Tower
–
Base of the KBR Tower
6.
KBR (company)
–
KBR, Inc. is an American engineering, procurement, and construction company, formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton. The company also has offices in Arlington, Virginia, Birmingham, Alabama. KBR and its predecessors have received contracts with the U. S. military including during World War II, the Vietnam War. The companys corporate offices are in the KBR Tower in Downtown Houston, in 1901 Morris Woodruff Kellogg founded The M. W. Kellogg Company in New York City. The company was incorporated in 1905 and its headquarters was moved to Jersey City, Kellogg was announced the number one construction company for years 1993 to 1995. This is mainly due to their work in the Dulles Greenway, Kellogg set up one of the first petroleum laboratories in the country in 1926 to commercialize and then license the technology. This led to Kellogg building some 130 units in the United States, in the 1930s and 1940s, Kellogg worked with leading refiners on various technologies. For the war effort, these led to the construction of six hydroreformer units, twenty fluid catalytic cracking units. Even bigger than the work was K-25, the gaseous diffusion plant at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This period also included the development of the Benedict–Webb–Rubin equation of state which has become an industry mainstay. In 1970, Kellogg moved from New York City to Houston, Texas, the 1970s saw Kellogg become the first American contractor to receive contracts from the Peoples Republic of China. The 1980s saw continuation of global activity in LNG and ethylene with millisecond furnaces starting up in the United States, ten years later, Halliburton acquired Dresser, and combined Kellogg with Brown & Root to create a new, larger subsidiary — Kellogg Brown & Root. Brown & Root was founded in Texas in 1919 by Herman Brown and Daniel Root, Root soon died and Herman Browns younger brother, George R. Brown, joined the company in 1922. The company began its operations by building roads in Texas, one of its first large-scale projects, according to the book Cadillac Desert, was building a dam on the Texas Colorado River near Austin during the Depression years. For assistance in federal payments, the company turned to the local Congressman, after other very profitable construction projects for the federal government, Brown & Root gave massive sums of cash for Johnsons first run for the U. S. Senate in 1941. During World War II, Brown & Root built the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, in 1947 Brown & Root built one of the worlds first offshore oil platforms. According to Tracy Kidders book Mountains Beyond Mountains, Brown & Root was a contractor in the Péligre Dam project, the project was designed by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and financed by the Export-Import Bank of the United States. Following the death of Herman Brown, Halliburton Energy Services acquired Brown & Root in December 1962, at the height of the anti-war movement of the 1960s, Brown & Root was derided as Burn & Loot by protesters
KBR (company)
–
KBR Tower, the headquarters of KBR and a part of
Cullen Center, with the
Downtown Houston YMCA ahead
KBR (company)
–
KBR, Inc.
KBR (company)
–
500 Jefferson, also a part of Cullen Center, has additional KBR offices
KBR (company)
–
KBR offices on Clinton Drive, within the boundaries of the
East End and the
Fifth Ward. It is the former headquarters of Brown & Root. As of December 2010 KBR no longer operates this office.
7.
Cullen Center
–
For the building in Chicago, Illinois formerly named Continental Center II, see CNA Center. Cullen Center is a complex in Downtown Houston, Texas. The complex is now managed by Brookfield Properties, previously Trizec Properties owned all four office buildings. The complex includes the headquarters of the Houston Fire Department and KBR, the buildings include 1600 Smith,600 Jefferson, KBR Tower, and 500 Jefferson Street. In 1959 the family of Hugh Roy Cullen, an oil businessperson, to the surprise of everyone the family planned for the 12 acres, 5½ city block site to accommodate several sites. The first two buildings were to be a 500 room, 15-18 story hotel and a 25 story office building, next, a 40-45 story office building was to be completed. Other buildings were planned to be added at later times, work for clearing the land was scheduled to begin in December 1959. During the year, the plans also included another 25 story office building. Welton Beckett and Associates master planned the first two buildings, the 21 story, $12 million 500 Jefferson and the 12-story, $6 million Hotel America, gerald E. Veltmann, the president of Cullen Center, Inc. In other words, the building separated the pedestrian and vehicular traffic from one another. The first levels were to have open plazas, the developer planned to establish air-conditioned bridges connecting the buildings at their second levels. Continental Center II opened in 1974, the KBR Tower was built in 1973 and renovated in 1991. Continental Center I was completed in 1984, by 1987 the Canadian company Trizec Corporation bought debentures carrying an option to buy portions of the Cullen Center, including 1600 Smith Street. By 1997 Trizec had convinced several Cullen Center tenants to move to the nearby Allen Center, during that year Continental Airlines announced that it was moving its headquarters to the Cullen Center. Paul Layne, a president of the TrizecHahn Office division. Tim Reylea, the president of Cushman Realty Corp. said that the Continental move is probably the largest corporate relocation in the central business district of Houston ever. Bob Lanier, Mayor of Houston, said that he was tickled to death by the move to relocate to Downtown Houston. In 2001, when Enron collapsed, it vacated 800,000 square feet of space in the Allen Center, in 2008 Continental signed five year lease renewals for its Downtown Houston office space
Cullen Center
–
Continental Center I (now
1600 Smith) and
KBR Tower at night
Cullen Center
–
500 Jefferson (left) and 600 Jefferson (right)
Cullen Center
–
500 Jefferson
Cullen Center
–
Cullen Center KBR Tower Garage
8.
Downtown Houston
–
Downtown Houston is Houstons central business district, containing the headquarters of many prominent companies. There is a network of pedestrian tunnels and skywalks connecting the buildings of the district. The tunnel system is home to restaurants, shops and services. What is now Downtown made up almost all of the City of Houston until expansions of the city limits in the early 20th century, Downtown Houston was the original founding point of the city. After the Texas Revolution, two New York real estate promoters, John Kirby Allen and Augustus Chapman Allen, purchased 6,642 acres of land from Thomas F. L, parrot and his wife, Elizabeth, for $9,428. The Allen brothers first landed in the area where the White Oak Bayou and Buffalo Bayou meet, gail Borden, Jr. a city planner, laid out wide streets for the town. The city was granted incorporation by the Texas legislature on June 5,1837, Houston was the temporary capital of Texas. In 1840, the town was divided into four wards, each with different functions in the community, by 1906 what is now Downtown was divided among six wards. The wards are no longer political divisions, but their names are used to refer to certain areas. Houston became a choice, as only the most powerful storms were able to reach the city. The second came a year later with the 1901 discovery of oil at spindletop, shipping and oil industries began flocking to east Texas, many settling in Houston. From that point forward the area grew substantially, as many skyscrapers were constructed, in the 1980s, however, economic recession canceled some projects and caused others to be scaled back, such as the Bank of the Southwest Tower. Ralph Bivins of the Houston Chronicle wrote that Fox said that area was a neighborhood of Victorian-era homes. Bivins said that the construction of Union Station, which occurred around 1910, hotels opened in the area to service travelers. Afterwards, according to Bivins, the area began a downward slide toward the skid row of the 1990s. Passenger trains stopped going to Union Station in 1974, the construction of Interstate 45 in the 1950s separated portions of the historic Third Ward from the rest of the Third Ward and brought those portions into Downtown. Beginning in the 1960s the development of the 610 Loop caused the focus of the Houston area to move away from Downtown Houston, in the mid-1980s, the bank savings and loan crisis forced many tenants in Downtown Houston buildings to retrench, and some tenants went out of business. Barna said that this development further caused Downtown Houston to decline, the Gulf Hotel fire occurred in 1943
Downtown Houston
–
Skyline of Downtown
Downtown Houston
–
Freeway map of Houston highlighting downtown.
Downtown Houston
–
Downtown Houston at night
Downtown Houston
–
Skyline District of Downtown as seen from highway
I-45
9.
Houston
–
Houston is the most populous city in the state of Texas and the fourth-most populous city in the United States. With a census-estimated 2014 population of 2.239 million within an area of 667 square miles, it also is the largest city in the southern United States and the seat of Harris County. Located in Southeast Texas near the Gulf of Mexico, it is the city of Houston–The Woodlands–Sugar Land. Houston was founded on August 28,1836, near the banks of Buffalo Bayou and incorporated as a city on June 5,1837. The city was named after former General Sam Houston, who was president of the Republic of Texas and had commanded, the burgeoning port and railroad industry, combined with oil discovery in 1901, has induced continual surges in the citys population. Houstons economy has an industrial base in energy, manufacturing, aeronautics. Leading in health care sectors and building equipment, Houston has more Fortune 500 headquarters within its city limits than any city except for New York City. The Port of Houston ranks first in the United States in international waterborne tonnage handled, the city has a population from various ethnic and religious backgrounds and a large and growing international community. Houston is the most diverse city in Texas and has described as the most diverse in the United States. It is home to cultural institutions and exhibits, which attract more than 7 million visitors a year to the Museum District. Houston has a visual and performing arts scene in the Theater District. In August 1836, two real estate entrepreneurs from New York, Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen, purchased 6,642 acres of land along Buffalo Bayou with the intent of founding a city. The Allen brothers decided to name the city after Sam Houston, the general at the Battle of San Jacinto. The great majority of slaves in Texas came with their owners from the slave states. Sizable numbers, however, came through the slave trade. New Orleans was the center of trade in the Deep South. Thousands of enslaved African Americans lived near the city before the Civil War, many of them near the city worked on sugar and cotton plantations, while most of those in the city limits had domestic and artisan jobs. Houston was granted incorporation on June 5,1837, with James S. Holman becoming its first mayor, in the same year, Houston became the county seat of Harrisburg County and the temporary capital of the Republic of Texas
Houston
–
Clockwise from top: Sam Houston monument,
Downtown Houston,
Houston Ship Channel,
The Galleria,
University of Houston, and the
Christopher C. Kraft Jr. Mission Control Center.
Houston
–
Sam Houston
Houston
–
Houston, c. 1873
Houston
–
Union Station, Houston, Texas (postcard, c. 1911)
10.
United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
United States
–
Native Americans meeting with Europeans, 1764
United States
–
Flag
United States
–
The signing of the
Mayflower Compact, 1620.
United States
–
The
Declaration of Independence: the
Committee of Five presenting their draft to the
Second Continental Congress in 1776
11.
Corporate headquarters
–
Corporate headquarters takes responsibility for the overall success of the corporation and ensures corporate governance. It is sometimes referred to as the office, which is the location where the executives of a business work. Generally, corporate headquarters acts as a core when the business is operating, most other divisions and branches report to the corporate headquarters and staff may visit there periodically for training or other instructions. The corporate services are relocated into a separate legal entity called shared services center. Corporate headquarters is considered a business most prestigious location, a corporations headquarters may also bring prestige to the city it is located in and help attract other businesses to the area. Businesses frequently locate their headquarters in large cities, such as New York. The corporate headquarters may or may not be in the location in which the business is incorporated or where the majority of its employees work, offices of a business that are not the corporate headquarters are called branch offices. The headquarters is often selected by the founders of the company to be located to where they live. Branch offices may then be opened, either locally, within the country or internationally, most of the multi-business firms have their corporate headquarters performs obligatory functions. It represents all businesses legally in respect of the regulator and aggregates the financial, tax, similarly, the corporate headquarters can also function as the company’s face to the customer and build reputational value. Shared services are provided by the corporate headquarters for various business units. Owing to the aggregation of demand for services, the headquarters can realize scale effects. Typical shared services are HR, IT, and marketing services, in contrast to the first two roles, the value creation role of the corporate headquarters is more entrepreneurial in nature. It is considered the source of corporate advantages and key in justifying the configuration of diversified companies. It comprises various horizontal and vertical coordination activities, such as the leveraging of the synergy potential, the “control role of the corporate headquarter guides the operations of the individual businesses toward the corporate goals. It can either focus on the outcome, or the operational behaviour. Head office Lists of corporate headquarters by city
Corporate headquarters
–
The
Continental Center I and the
KBR Tower, both part of the
Cullen Center complex in
Downtown Houston, have the corporate headquarters of
Continental Airlines and
KBR
Corporate headquarters
–
Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong.This tower houses the Bank of China Hong Kong HQ, and was the first building outside the USA to break the 1,000-foot mark for a skyscraper.
Corporate headquarters
–
The Petronas Towers and the
Kuala Lumpur Tower dominate the skyline of Kuala Lumpur's Central Business District.
12.
Corporation
–
A corporation is a company or group of people authorized to act as a single entity and recognized as such in law. Early incorporated entities were established by charter, most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through registration. Corporations chartered in regions where they are distinguished by whether they are allowed to be for profit or not are referred to as for profit and not-for-profit corporations, there is some overlap between stock/non-stock and for profit/not-for-profit in that not-for-profit corporations are always non-stock as well. A for profit corporation is almost always a stock corporation, registered corporations have legal personality and are owned by shareholders whose liability is limited to their investment. Shareholders do not typically actively manage a corporation, shareholders instead elect or appoint a board of directors to control the corporation in a fiduciary capacity, in American English, the word corporation is most often used to describe large business corporations. In British English and in the Commonwealth countries, the company is more widely used to describe the same sort of entity while the word corporation encompasses all incorporated entities. In American English, the company can include entities such as partnerships that would not be referred to as companies in British English as they are not a separate legal entity. Despite not being human beings, corporations, as far as the law is concerned, are legal persons. Corporations can exercise human rights against real individuals and the state, Corporations can be dissolved either by statutory operation, order of court, or voluntary action on the part of shareholders. Corporations can even be convicted of offenses, such as fraud. However, corporations are not considered living entities in the way humans are. While not a corporation, this new type of entity became very attractive as an alternative for corporations not needing to issue stock, in Germany, the organization was referred to as Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung or GmbH. In the last quarter of the 20th Century this new form of organization became available in the United States and other countries. Since the GmbH and LLC forms of organization are technically not corporations they will not be discussed in this article, the word corporation derives from corpus, the Latin word for body, or a body of people. By the time of Justinian, Roman law recognized a range of corporate entities under the names universitas and these included the state itself, municipalities, and such private associations as sponsors of a religious cult, burial clubs, political groups, and guilds of craftsmen or traders. Such bodies commonly had the right to own property and make contracts, to receive gifts and legacies, to sue and be sued, private associations were granted designated privileges and liberties by the emperor. Entities which carried on business and were the subjects of rights were found in ancient Rome. In medieval Europe, churches became incorporated, as did local governments, such as the Pope, the point was that the incorporation would survive longer than the lives of any particular member, existing in perpetuity
Corporation
–
McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world.
Corporation
Corporation
–
1/8 share of the
Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288.
Corporation
–
A
bond issued by the
Dutch East India Company, dating from 1623, for the amount of 2,400 florins
13.
United Kingdom
–
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom or Britain, is a sovereign country in western Europe. Lying off the north-western coast of the European mainland, the United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Sea lies between Great Britain and Ireland, with an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world and the 11th-largest in Europe. It is also the 21st-most populous country, with an estimated 65.1 million inhabitants, together, this makes it the fourth-most densely populated country in the European Union. The United Kingdom is a monarchy with a parliamentary system of governance. The monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 6 February 1952, other major urban areas in the United Kingdom include the regions of Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester. The United Kingdom consists of four countries—England, Scotland, Wales, the last three have devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in their capitals, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast, respectively. The relationships among the countries of the UK have changed over time, Wales was annexed by the Kingdom of England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535 and 1542. A treaty between England and Scotland resulted in 1707 in a unified Kingdom of Great Britain, which merged in 1801 with the Kingdom of Ireland to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, there are fourteen British Overseas Territories. These are the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, British influence can be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former colonies. The United Kingdom is a country and has the worlds fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP. The UK is considered to have an economy and is categorised as very high in the Human Development Index. It was the worlds first industrialised country and the worlds foremost power during the 19th, the UK remains a great power with considerable economic, cultural, military, scientific and political influence internationally. It is a nuclear weapons state and its military expenditure ranks fourth or fifth in the world. The UK has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946 and it has been a leading member state of the EU and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. However, on 23 June 2016, a referendum on the UKs membership of the EU resulted in a decision to leave. The Acts of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have devolved self-government
United Kingdom
–
Stonehenge, in
Wiltshire, was erected around 2500 BC.
United Kingdom
–
Flag
United Kingdom
–
The
Bayeux Tapestry depicts the
Battle of Hastings, 1066, and the events leading to it.
United Kingdom
–
The
Treaty of Union led to a single united kingdom encompassing all Great Britain.
14.
Military
–
The task of the military is usually defined as defense of the state, and its citizens, and the prosecution of war against another state. The profession of soldiering as part of a military is older than recorded history itself, some of the most enduring images of the classical antiquity portray the power and feats of its military leaders. The Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC was one of the points of Pharaoh Ramses IIs reign. A thousand years later, the first emperor of unified China, Qin Shi Huang, was so determined to impress the gods with his military might, he was buried with an army of terracotta soldiers. The Romans were dedicated to military matters, leaving to posterity many treatises and writings, as well as a number of lavishly carved triumphal arches. Issue, Possibly cognate with Thousand, cf. Latin and Romance language root word mil-) The first recorded use of the military in English. It comes from the Latin militaris through French, but is of uncertain etymology, the word is now identified as denoting someone that is skilled in use of weapons, or engaged in military service, or in warfare. As a noun, the military usually refers generally to an armed forces, or sometimes, more specifically. In general, it refers to the physicality of armed forces, their personnel, equipment, as an adjective, military originally referred only to soldiers and soldiering, but it soon broadened to apply to land forces in general, and anything to do with their profession. The names of both the Royal Military Academy and United States Military Academy reflect this, as such, it now connotes any activity performed by armed force personnel. Military history is considered to be the history of all conflicts. Military history has a number of facets, one main facet is to learn from past accomplishments and mistakes, so as to more effectively wage war in the future. Another is to create a sense of tradition, which is used to create cohesive military forces. Still another may be to learn to prevent wars more effectively, human knowledge about the military is largely based on both recorded and oral history of military conflicts, their participating armies and navies and, more recently, air forces. In the whole history of humanity, every nation had different needs for military forces, how these needs are determined forms the basis of their composition, equipment, and use of facilities. It also determines what military does in terms of peacetime, All military forces, whether large or small, are military organizations that have official state, and world recognition as such. Organisations with similar features are paramilitary, civil defense, militia and these commonalities of the states military define them. Another role of military personnel is to ensure a continuous replacement of departing servicemen and women through recruitment
Military
–
Soldiers from
the Canadian Grenadier Guards in the
Kandahar Province of Afghanistan
Military
–
CF-18 Hornet launches a laser-guided bomb
Military
–
The
Kawasaki C-1 is a tactical military transport of the
Japan Air Self-Defence Force.
Military
–
Dutch civilians celebrating the arrival of the
I Canadian Corps in
Utrecht as the
Canadian Army liberates the Netherlands from Nazi occupation
15.
Organization
–
An organization or organisation is an entity comprising multiple people, such as an institution or an association, that has a collective goal and is linked to an external environment. The word is derived from the Greek word organon, which means organ, a hybrid organization is a body that operates in both the public sector and the private sector simultaneously, fulfilling public duties and developing commercial market activities. A voluntary association is an organization consisting of volunteers, such organizations may be able to operate without legal formalities, depending on jurisdiction, including informal clubs. Organizations may also operate in secret and/or illegally in the case of secret societies, criminal organizations, the study of organizations includes a focus on optimizing organizational structure. In common law countries, legal juries render decisions of guilt, liability and quantify damages, juries are used in athletic contests, book awards. Sometimes a selection committee functions like a jury, in the Middle Ages, juries in continental Europe were used to determine the law according to consensus among local notables. Committees are often the most reliable way to make decisions, condorcets jury theorem proved that if the average member votes better than a roll of dice, then adding more members increases the number of majorities that can come to a correct vote. The problem is that if the member is subsequently worse than a roll of dice. Parliamentary procedure, such as Roberts Rules of Order, helps prevent committees from engaging in discussions without reaching decisions. Bad parts of the organization starve, everybody is paid for what they actually do, and runs a tiny business that has to show a profit, or they are fired. Companies who utilize this organization type reflect a rather one-sided view of what goes on in ecology and it is also the case that a natural ecosystem has a natural border - ecoregions do not in general compete with one another in any way, but are very autonomous. The pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline talks about functioning as this type of organization in this article from The Guardian. This organizational type assigns each worker two bosses in two different hierarchies, one hierarchy is functional and assures that each type of expert in the organization is well-trained, and measured by a boss who is super-expert in the same field. The other direction is executive and tries to get projects completed using the experts, projects might be organized by products, regions, customer types, or some other schema. As an example, a company might have an individual with overall responsibility for products X and Y, therefore, subordinates responsible for quality control of project X will have two reporting lines. A hierarchy exemplifies an arrangement with a leader who leads other individual members of the organization, so one can imagine that if the leader does not have the support of his subordinates, the entire structure will collapse. Hierarchies were satirized in The Peter Principle, a book that introduced hierarchiology, the broader analysis of organizations is commonly referred to as organizational structure, organizational studies, organizational behavior, or organization analysis. A number of different perspectives exist, some of which are compatible, From a functional perspective, from an institutional perspective, an organization is viewed as a purposeful structure within a social context
Organization
–
Diagram of the Federal Government and American Union, 1864.
Organization
–
Structure of the
United Nations.
16.
Corporate governance
–
Corporate governance broadly refers to the mechanisms, processes and relations by which corporations are controlled and directed. Corporate governance includes the processes through which corporations objectives are set and pursued in the context of the social, regulatory, Governance mechanisms include monitoring the actions, policies, practices, and decisions of corporations, their agents, and affected stakeholders. Corporate governance practices are affected by attempts to align the interests of stakeholders, Corporate scandals of various forms have maintained public and political interest in the regulation of corporate governance. In the U. S. these include Enron and MCI Inc and their demise led to the enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, a U. S. federal law intended to restore public confidence in corporate governance. Comparable failures in Australia are associated with the passage of the CLERP9 reforms. Similar corporate failures in other countries stimulated increased regulatory interest, internal stakeholders are the board of directors, executives, and other employees. Much of the contemporary interest in governance is concerned with mitigation of the conflicts of interests between stakeholders. The danger arises that, rather than overseeing management on behalf of shareholders and this aspect is particularly present in contemporary public debates and developments in regulatory policy. Ways of mitigating or preventing these conflicts of interests include the processes, customs, policies, laws, an important theme of governance is the nature and extent of corporate accountability. A related discussion at the macro level focuses on the effect of a corporate governance system on economic efficiency and this has resulted in a literature focussed on economic analysis. In this sense, Governance and Corporate Governance are different from management because governance must be EXTERNAL to the object being governed, governing agents do not have personal control over, and are not part of the object that they govern. For example, it is not possible for a CIO to govern the IT function and they are personally accountable for the strategy and management of the function. As such, they “manage” the IT function, they do not “govern” it, at the same time, there may be a number of policies, authorized by the board, that the CIO follows. When the CIO is following these policies, they are performing “governance” activities because the intention of the policy is to serve a governance purpose. Without these policies, procedures and indicators, the board has no way of governing, one source defines corporate governance as the set of conditions that shapes the ex post bargaining over the quasi-rents generated by a firm. The firm itself is modelled as a structure acting through the mechanisms of contract. Here corporate governance may include its relation to corporate finance, the Cadbury and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reports present general principles around which businesses are expected to operate to assure proper governance. Rights and equitable treatment of shareholders, Organizations should respect the rights of shareholders and they can help shareholders exercise their rights by openly and effectively communicating information and by encouraging shareholders to participate in general meetings
Corporate governance
17.
Strategic planning
–
Strategic planning is an organizations process of defining its strategy, or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to pursue this strategy. It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the strategy, Strategic planning became prominent in corporations during the 1960s and remains an important aspect of strategic management. It is executed by strategic planners or strategists, who involve many parties and research sources in their analysis of the organization, Strategy has many definitions, but generally involves setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends will be achieved by the means, the senior leadership of an organization is generally tasked with determining strategy. Strategy can be planned or can be observed as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to its environment or competes, Strategy includes processes of formulation and implementation, strategic planning helps coordinate both. However, strategic planning is analytical in nature, strategy formation itself involves synthesis via strategic thinking, as such, strategic planning occurs around the strategy formation activity. Strategic planning is a process and thus has inputs, activities, outputs and this process, like all processes, has constraints. It may be formal or informal and is typically iterative, with feedback loops throughout the process, some elements of the process may be continuous and others may be executed as discrete projects with a definitive start and end during a period. Strategic planning provides inputs for strategic thinking, which guides the actual strategy formation, the first two elements relate to factors internal to the company, while the latter two relate to factors external to the company. These elements are considered throughout the planning process. Data is gathered from a variety of sources, such as interviews with key executives, review of available documents on the competition or market, primary research, industry studies. This may be part of an intelligence program. Inputs are gathered to support an understanding of the competitive environment and its opportunities. Other inputs include an understanding of the values of key stakeholders, such as the board, shareholders and these values may be captured in an organizations vision and mission statements. A variety of strategic planning tools may be completed as part of planning activities. The organizations leaders may have a series of questions they want answered in formulating the strategy and gathering inputs, such as, what is considered value to the customer or constituency. Which products and services should be included or excluded from the portfolio of offerings, what is the geographic scope of the organization. What differentiates the organization from its competitors in the eyes of customers, which skills and resources should be developed within the organization
Strategic planning
–
Wikimedia Movement Strategic Plan (PDF)
18.
Income tax in the United States
–
In the United States, a tax is imposed on income by the federal government, most state governments, and many local governments. The income tax is determined by applying a tax rate, which may increase as income increases, Individuals and corporations are directly taxable, and estates and trusts may be taxable on undistributed income. In the United States, the payroll tax usually refers to FICA taxes that pay into Social Security and Medicare, while income tax refers to taxes that pay into state. Partnerships are not taxed, but their partners are taxed on their shares of partnership income, residents and citizens are taxed on worldwide income, while nonresidents are taxed only on income within the jurisdiction. Several types of credits reduce tax, and some types of credits may exceed tax before credits, an alternative tax applies at the federal and some state levels. Taxable income is total income less allowable deductions, Individuals may also deduct a personal allowance and certain personal expenses, including home mortgage interest, state taxes, contributions to charity, and some other items. Some deductions are subject to limits, Capital gains are taxable, and capital losses reduce taxable income to the extent of gains. Individuals currently pay a rate of tax on capital gains. Taxpayers generally must self assess income tax by filing tax returns, advance payments of tax are required in the form of withholding tax or estimated tax payments. Taxes are determined separately by each jurisdiction imposing tax, due dates and other administrative procedures vary by jurisdiction. April 15 following the tax year is the last day for individuals to file tax returns for federal and many state, Tax as determined by the taxpayer may be adjusted by the taxing jurisdiction. A tax is imposed on net income in the United States by the federal, most state. Income tax is imposed on individuals, corporations, estates, the definition of net taxable income for most sub-federal jurisdictions mostly follows the federal definition. The rate of tax at the level is graduated, that is. Some states and localities impose a tax at a graduated rate. Federal tax rates in 2013 varied from 10% to 39. 6%, Individuals are eligible for a reduced rate of federal income tax on capital gains and qualifying dividends. The tax rate and some deductions are different for individuals depending on filing status, married individuals may compute tax as a couple or separately. Single individuals may be eligible for reduced tax rates if they are head of a household in which live with a dependent
Income tax in the United States
–
Federal government receipts by source, 2010.
Income tax in the United States
–
Total U.S. Tax Revenue as a % of GDP and Income Tax Revenue as a % of GDP, 1945-2011, from Office of Management and Budget Historicals
Income tax in the United States
–
The U.S. federal
effective corporate tax rate has become much lower than the nominal rate because of
tax shelters such as
tax havens.
Income tax in the United States
–
Total tax revenue as share of GDP for OECD countries in 2009. The tax burden in the US (black) is relatively small in comparison to other industrialised countries.
19.
Legal
–
Law is a system of rules that are created and enforced through social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior. Law as a system helps regulate and ensure that a community show respect, private individuals can create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that may elect to accept alternative arbitration to the normal court process. The formation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, the law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of relations between people. Islamic Sharia law is the worlds most widely used religious law, the adjudication of the law is generally divided into two main areas referred to as Criminal law and Civil law. Criminal law deals with conduct that is considered harmful to social order, Civil law deals with the resolution of lawsuits between individuals or organizations. Law provides a source of scholarly inquiry into legal history, philosophy, economic analysis. Law also raises important and complex issues concerning equality, fairness, there is an old saying that all are equal before the law, although Jonathan Swift argued that Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. In 1894, the author Anatole France said sarcastically, In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets, and steal loaves of bread. Writing in 350 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle declared, The rule of law is better than the rule of any individual, mikhail Bakunin said, All law has for its object to confirm and exalt into a system the exploitation of the workers by a ruling class. Cicero said more law, less justice, marxist doctrine asserts that law will not be required once the state has withered away. Regardless of ones view of the law, it today a completely central institution. Numerous definitions of law have been put forward over the centuries, at the same time, it plays only one part in the congeries of rules which influence behavior, for social and moral rules of a less institutionalized kind are also of great importance. There have been attempts to produce a universally acceptable definition of law. In 1972, one indicated that no such definition could be produced. McCoubrey and White said that the question what is law, glanville Williams said that the meaning of the word law depends on the context in which that word is used. He said that, for example, early customary law and municipal law were contexts where the law had two different and irreconcilable meanings. Thurman Arnold said that it is obvious that it is impossible to define the word law and it is possible to take the view that there is no need to define the word law. The history of law links closely to the development of civilization, Ancient Egyptian law, dating as far back as 3000 BC, contained a civil code that was probably broken into twelve books
Legal
–
Lady Justice, a
goddess symbolising
justice who bears a sword – symbolising the coercive power of a
tribunal –,
scales – representing an objective standard by which competing claims are weighed – and a blindfold indicating that justice should be impartial and meted out objectively, without fear or favor and regardless of money, wealth, power or identity.
Legal
–
King
Hammurabi is revealed the
code of laws by the Mesopotamian sun god
Shamash, also revered as the god of justice.
Legal
–
The
Constitution of India is the longest written constitution for a country, containing 444 articles, 12 schedules, numerous amendments and 117,369 words.
Legal
–
Bentham's utilitarian theories remained dominant in law until the 20th century.
20.
Marketing
–
Marketing is the study and management of exchange relationships. Marketing is used to create the customer, to keep the customer, with the customer as the focus of its activities, it can be concluded that Marketing is one of the premier components of Business Management - the other being Innovation. Other services and management activities such as Operations, Human Resources, Accounting, Law, the term developed from the original meaning which referred literally to going to a market to buy or sell goods or services. The Chartered Institute of Marketing defines marketing as the management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and satisfying customer requirements profitably, a similar concept is the value-based marketing which states the role of marketing to contribute to increasing shareholder value. Marketing practice tended to be seen as an industry in the past. The overall process starts with marketing research and goes through market segmentation, business planning and execution, ending with pre and it is also related to many of the creative arts. The marketing literature is also adept at re-inventing itself and its vocabulary according to the times, the term marketing concept pertains to the fundamental premise of modern marketing. This concept proposes that in order to satisfy its organizational objectives, Marketing and marketing concepts are directly related. An orientation, in the context, relates to a perception or attitude a firm holds towards its product or service. There exist several common orientations, A firm employing a product orientation is chiefly concerned with the quality of its own product, a firm would also assume that as long as its product was of a high standard, people would buy and consume the product. A firm using a sales orientation focuses primarily on the selling/promotion of a particular product, consequently, this entails simply selling an already existing product, and using promotion techniques to attain the highest sales possible. Such an orientation may suit scenarios in which a firm holds dead stock, or otherwise sells a product that is in high demand, a firm focusing on a production orientation specializes in producing as much as possible of a given product or service. Thus, this signifies a firm exploiting economies of scale, until the minimum efficient scale is reached, a production orientation may be deployed when a high demand for a product or service exists, coupled with a good certainty that consumer tastes do not rapidly alter. The marketing orientation is perhaps the most common used in contemporary marketing. It involves a firm essentially basing its marketing plans around the marketing concept, the marketing orientation often has three prime facets, which are, A firm in the market economy can survive by producing goods that persons are willing and able to buy. Consequently, ascertaining consumer demand is vital for a firms future viability, in this sense, a firms marketing department is often seen as of prime importance within the functional level of an organization. Information from a marketing department would be used to guide the actions of other departments within the firm. As an example, a department could ascertain that consumers desired a new type of product
Marketing
–
Constructive criticism helps marketers adapt offerings to meet changing customer needs.
21.
Finance
–
Finance is a field that deals with the study of investments. It includes the dynamics of assets and liabilities over time under conditions of different degrees of uncertainty, Finance can also be defined as the science of money management. Finance aims to price assets based on their level and their expected rate of return. Finance can be broken into three different sub-categories, public finance, corporate finance and personal finance. g, health and property insurance, investing and saving for retirement. Personal finance may also involve paying for a loan, or debt obligations, net worth is a persons balance sheet, calculated by adding up all assets under that persons control, minus all liabilities of the household, at one point in time. Household cash flow totals up all the sources of income within a year. From this analysis, the financial planner can determine to what degree, adequate protection, the analysis of how to protect a household from unforeseen risks. These risks can be divided into the following, liability, property, death, disability, health, some of these risks may be self-insurable, while most will require the purchase of an insurance contract. Determining how much insurance to get, at the most cost effective terms requires knowledge of the market for personal insurance, business owners, professionals, athletes and entertainers require specialized insurance professionals to adequately protect themselves. Since insurance also enjoys some tax benefits, utilizing insurance investment products may be a piece of the overall investment planning. Tax planning, typically the income tax is the single largest expense in a household, managing taxes is not a question of if you will pay taxes, but when and how much. Government gives many incentives in the form of tax deductions and credits, most modern governments use a progressive tax. Typically, as ones income grows, a marginal rate of tax must be paid. Understanding how to take advantage of the tax breaks when planning ones personal finances can make a significant impact in which it can later save you money in the long term. Investment and accumulation goals, planning how to accumulate enough money - for large purchases, major reasons to accumulate assets include, purchasing a house or car, starting a business, paying for education expenses, and saving for retirement. Achieving these goals requires projecting what they will cost, and when you need to withdraw funds that will be necessary to be able to achieve these goals, a major risk to the household in achieving their accumulation goal is the rate of price increases over time, or inflation. Using net present value calculators, the planner will suggest a combination of asset earmarking. In order to overcome the rate of inflation, the investment portfolio has to get a higher rate of return, managing these portfolio risks is most often accomplished using asset allocation, which seeks to diversify investment risk and opportunity
Finance
–
London Stock Exchange, global center of finance.
Finance
Finance
–
Wall Street, the center of American finance.
22.
Human resources
–
Human resources are the people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, or economy. Human capital is used synonymously with human resources, although human capital typically refers to a more narrow view. Likewise, other terms used include manpower, talent, labour, personnel. Staffing is a process of hiring and or positioning in an organization, a Human Resources Manager has several functions in a company, Determine needs of the staff. Determine to use temporary staff or hire employees to fill these needs, recruit and train the best employees. Manage employee relations, unions and collective bargaining, prepare employee records and personal policies. Manage employee payroll, benefits and compensation, ensure that human resources practices conform to various regulations. Managers need to develop their skills to be effective. Organisations behaviour focuses on how to improve factors that make more effective. Pioneering economist John R. Commons used the human resource in his 1893 book The Distribution of Wealth. The term human resource was subsequently in use during the 1910s and 1920s as was the notion that workers could be seen as a kind of capital asset. Among scholars the first use of resources in its modern form was in a 1958 report by economist E. Wight Bakke. The term began to more developed in the 19th century due to misunderstandings between the employers and employees. If the market is tight, employers must compete for employees by offering financial rewards, community investment, geographical spread, how far is the job from the individual. The distance to travel to work should be in line with remuneration, occupational structure, the norms and values of the different careers within an organization. Mahoney 1989 developed 3 different types of structure, namely, craft, organization career path. Generational difference, different age categories of employees have certain characteristics, for example, their behavior, one major concern about considering people as assets or resources is that they will be commoditized, objectified and abused. Some analysis suggests that human beings are not commodities or resources, the 2000 revision of ISO9001, in contrast, requires identifying the processes, their sequence and interaction, and to define and communicate responsibilities and authorities
Human resources
–
Business administration
23.
Information technology
–
Information technology is the application of computers to store, study, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data, or information, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. IT is considered a subset of information and communications technology, the term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but it also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that the new technology not yet have a single established name. We shall call it information technology, based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development, pre-mechanical, mechanical, electromechanical, electronic. This article focuses on the most recent period, which began in about 1940, devices have been used to aid computation for thousands of years, probably initially in the form of a tally stick. Electronic computers, using either relays or valves, began to appear in the early 1940s, the electromechanical Zuse Z3, completed in 1941, was the worlds first programmable computer, and by modern standards one of the first machines that could be considered a complete computing machine. Colossus, developed during the Second World War to decrypt German messages was the first electronic digital computer, although it was programmable, it was not general-purpose, being designed to perform only a single task. It also lacked the ability to store its program in memory, programming was carried out using plugs, the first recognisably modern electronic digital stored-program computer was the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine, which ran its first program on 21 June 1948. The development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with reduced power consumption. The first commercially available stored-program computer, the Ferranti Mark I, by comparison the first transistorised computer, developed at the University of Manchester and operational by November 1953, consumed only 150 watts in its final version. Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes. IBM introduced the first hard drive in 1956, as a component of their 305 RAMAC computer system. Most digital data today is stored magnetically on hard disks. Until 2002 most information was stored on analog devices, but that year digital storage capacity exceeded analog for the first time. As of 2007 almost 94% of the data stored worldwide was held digitally, 52% on hard disks, 28% on optical devices and 11% on digital magnetic tape. It has been estimated that the capacity to store information on electronic devices grew from less than 3 exabytes in 1986 to 295 exabytes in 2007. Database management systems emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data accurately and quickly, one of the earliest such systems was IBMs Information Management System, which is still widely deployed more than 50 years later
Information technology
–
Zuse Z3 replica on display at
Deutsches Museum in
Munich. The Zuse Z3 is the first programmable computer.
Information technology
–
Employment distribution of computer systems design and related services, 2011
Information technology
–
Punched tapes that were used in early computers to represent data.
24.
Procurement
–
Procurement is the act of finding, acquiring, buying goods, services or works from an external source, often via a tendering or competitive bidding process. The process is used to ensure the buyer receives goods, services or works at the best possible price, when aspects such as quality, quantity, time, and location are compared. Corporations and public bodies often define processes intended to promote fair and open competition for their business while minimizing risk, such as exposure to fraud, almost all purchasing decisions include factors such as delivery and handling, marginal benefit, and price fluctuations. Procurement generally involves making buying decisions under conditions of scarcity, if good data is available, it is good practice to make use of economic analysis methods such as cost-benefit analysis or cost-utility analysis. An important distinction should be made between analyses without risk and those with risk, where risk is involved, either in the costs or the benefits, the concept of best value should be employed. Procurement activities are split into two distinct categories, direct and indirect spend. Direct spend refers to production-related procurement that encompasses all items that are part of finished products, such as raw material, the first category being direct, production-related procurement and the second being indirect, non-production-related procurement. Direct procurement, which is the focus in supply chain management, in contrast, indirect procurement activities concern “operating resources” that a company purchases to enable its operations. Procurement is one component of the concept of sourcing and acquisition. Typically procurement is viewed as more tactical in nature and sourcing and acquisition are viewed as more strategic, the Institute of Supply Management defines strategic sourcing as the process of identifying sources that could provide needed products or services for the acquiring organization. The term procurement used to reflect the entire purchasing process or cycle, purchasing refers to the major function of an organization that is responsible for acquisition of required materials, services and equipment. The United States Defense Acquisition University defines procurement as the act of buying goods, Acquisition and sourcing are therefore much wider concepts than procurement. Multiple sourcing business models exist, and acquisition models exist, the revised acquisition process for major systems in industry and defense is shown in the next figure. The process allows for a system to enter the process at any of the development phases. The concept and technology development phase begins with concept exploration, during this stage, concept studies are undertaken to define alternative concepts and to provide information about capability and risk that would permit an objective comparison of competing concepts. The last, and longest phase is the sustainable and disposal phase of the program, during this phase all necessary activities are accomplished to maintain and sustain the system in the field in the most cost-effective manner possible. Procurement officials increasingly realize that their make-buy supplier decisions fall along a “continuum” from simple buying transactions to more complex and it is important for procurement officials to use the right sourcing business model that fits each buyer-seller situation. A basic provider model is transaction-based, it usually has a set price for individual products, typically these products or services are readily available, with little differentiation in what is offered
Procurement
–
Model of the Acquisition Process.
25.
Westchase, Houston
–
For the community near Tampa, see Westchase, Florida. The area is bisected by Beltway 8, Westchase is adjacent to Greater Sharpstown, the International District, and the Royal Oaks Country Club subdivision. The area is immediately northeast of Alief, a large portion of Westchase is covered by a special district, the Westchase Management District, which was created by the Texas Legislature in 1995. This entity, funded by a tax increment on businesses within its boundaries, provides branding, urban planning, more than 1,500 businesses reside in Westchase, several are associated with the petroleum industry, for which Houston is considered a major capital. Major employers that have offices in Westchase include ABB Group, BMC Software, Chevron, Phillips 66, Dow Chemical, Petrochina, the Westchase district is approximately 4.32 square miles in size, with 16.3 million square feet of office space contained in 118 buildings. Westchase has been described by the Houston Press as suburban in nature, in the 1950s, large portions of Westchase were purchased by Robert E. Smith, a Houston oilman and philanthropist well-known for creating the Houston Colt. 45s baseball team. In 1969, Friendswood Development Company purchased a section of Smiths land to form what is now Woodlake, in 1973, Westchase Corporation, the predecessor to the modern management district, purchased 760 acres of Smiths land and began preparing land parcels for corporate development. Chevron and Western Geophysical were some of the first companies to establish operations in the district, construction on Beltway 8 through the area began in 1985 and was completed in 1988. In the early 1990s, BMC Software relocated its headquarters from Sugar Land to a new 20-story tower in Westchase, legislation creating the Westchase District was passed by the 73rd Texas State Legislature and became law on August 28,1995. In 2012, after splitting from ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66 began construction on a 14-acre corporate headquarters in the district, the project was completed in 2016. That same year, due to the 2010s oil glut, Halliburton moved out of its 48-acre campus near Chinatown, the two flagship full-service hotels in the district are the Marriott Westchase and the Houston Hilton Westchase. Westchase is home to one of Houstons only Japanese markets, the Nippan Daido, the consulate generals of Costa Rica and Indonesia reside in Westchase. The Indonesian consulate has been in Westchase since 1993, in 2015, Saudi Arabia submitted plans to construct a new 3-acre general consulate complex in Westchase. Westchase is located in Houston City Council district F, two Houston Fire Department stations, Station 69 Westchase and Station 83 Royal Oaks, serve Westchase. Both stations are a part of Fire District 83, Station 69, located on Beltway 8, opened in 1980, after rapid area development stressed existing emergency infrastructure. The Houston Police Departments Westside and Uptown Divisions serve separate sections of the district, Westchase is located in Harris County Precinct 3, which is headed by Commissioner Steve Radack. The United States Postal Service operates the Westchase and Debora Sue Schatz post offices in the district, Houston Community College Alief, opened in 2007, is located along Westheimer in Westchase. In 2017, the West Houston Institute, a STEM-focused facility, American InterContinental University, a for-profit institution, operates its Houston campus in the district
Westchase, Houston
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Marker of the Westchase District
Westchase, Houston
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A street sign indicating Westchase. Street signs here, and in many other special management districts of Houston, are of a different design than standard city street signs.
Westchase, Houston
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Randall's Food Markets headquarters
Westchase, Houston
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Halliburton offices in Westchase and in
Chinatown
26.
Safeway Inc.
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Safeway, Inc. is an American supermarket chain founded in 1915. It is a subsidiary of Albertsons, having been acquired by private equity investors led by Cerberus Capital Management in January 2015, Safeways primary base of operations is in the western and central United States, with some stores located in the Mid-Atlantic region of the Eastern Seaboard. The subsidiary is headquartered in Pleasanton, California with parent company headquarters in Boise, in April 1915, Marion Barton Skaggs purchased his fathers 576-square-foot grocery store in American Falls, Idaho, for $1,089. The chain, which operated as two businesses, Skaggs Cash Stores and Skaggs United Stores, grew quickly, and Skaggs enlisted the help of his five brothers to help grow the network of stores. M. B. s business strategy, to give his customers value and to expand by keeping a narrow profit margin, by 1926, he had opened 428 Skaggs stores in 10 states. M. B. almost doubled the size of his business that year when he merged his company with 322 Safeway stores and incorporated as Safeway, the original slogan was an admonition and an invitation to Drive the Safeway, buy the Safeway. The point of the name was that the grocery operated on a cash-and-carry basis — it did not offer credit and it was the safe way to buy because a family could not get into debt via its grocery bill. In 1926, Charles E. Merrill, the founder of the Merrill Lynch brokerage firm, towards this end, he purchased the 322-store Safeway chain of W. R. H. Weldon, who wished to exit retailing and concentrate on wholesale, then, in June 1926, Merrill offered Skaggs either $7 million outright or $1.5 million plus 30,000 shares in the merged firm. On July 1,1926, Safeway merged with the 673 stores from Skaggs United Stores of Idaho, on completion of the Skaggs/Safeway merger, M. B. Skaggs became the Chief Executive of the business, two years later, M. B. listed Safeway on the New York Stock Exchange. In the 1930s, Safeway introduced produce pricing by the pound, adding sell by dates on perishables, nutritional labeling, the merger instantly created the largest chain of grocery stores west of the Mississippi. In the 1930s, Charles E. Merrill temporarily left Merrill Lynch to help manage Safeway, at the time of the merger, the company was headquartered in Reno, Nevada. In 1929, it was relocated to a grocery warehouse in Oakland. Safeway headquarters remained there until the move to Pleasanton, California in 1996, the initial public offering price of Safeway stock was $226 in 1927. A five for one split in 1928 brought the price down to under $50, over the next few years, Charles Merrill, with financing supplied by Merrill Lynch, then began aggressively acquiring numerous regional grocery store chains for Safeway in a rollup strategy. Early acquisitions included significant parts of Piggly Wiggly chain as part of the breakup of that company by Merrill Lynch, most transactions involved the swap of stock certificates, with little cash changing hands. Most acquired chains retained their own names until the mid-1930s, in 1929, there were rumors of a Safeway-Kroger merger
Safeway Inc.
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Former Safeway headquarters in
Pleasanton,
California.
Safeway Inc.
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Safeway Stores 1955 Specimen
Stock Certificate
Safeway Inc.
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A Marina Safeway in
Hamilton, Montana built in 1962
Safeway Inc.
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An older store design from the 1970s and 1980s is seen in this
San Jose, California Safeway.
27.
Formation (military)
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Military organization or military organisation is the structuring of the armed forces of a state so as to offer military capability required by the national defense policy. In some countries paramilitary forces are included in an armed forces. Armed forces that are not a part of military or paramilitary organizations, such as insurgent forces, often mimic military organizations, the use of formalized ranks in a hierarchical structure came into widespread use with the Roman Army. These in turn manage Armed Services that themselves command combat, combat support and combat support formations. Within each departmental agency will be found administrative branches responsible for further agency business specialization work, in most countries the armed forces are divided into three or four Armed services, army, navy, and air force. Many countries have a variation on the model of three or four basic Armed Services. Some nations also organize their marines, special forces or strategic missile forces as independent armed services, a nations coast guard may also be an independent military branch of its military, although in many nations the coast guard is a law enforcement or civil agency. A number of countries have no navy, for geographical reasons, most smaller countries have a single organization that encompasses all armed forces employed by the country in question. Third-world armies tend to consist primarily of infantry, while first-world armies tend to have larger units manning expensive equipment and it is worthwhile to make mention of the term joint. In western militaries, a joint force is defined as a unit or formation comprising representation of power from two or more branches of the military. It is common, at least in the European and North American militaries, to refer to the blocks of a military as commands, formations. In a military context, a command is a collection of units and it is not uncommon for a nations services to each consist of their own command, but this does not preclude the existence of commands which are not service-based. A formation is defined by the US Department of Defense as two or more aircraft, ships, or units proceeding together under a commander. The formations only differ in their ability to achieve different scales of application of force to achieve different strategic, operational and tactical goals and it is a composite military organization that includes a mixture of integrated and operationally attached sub-units, and is usually combat-capable. Example of formations include, divisions, brigades, battalions, wings, formation may also refer to tactical formation, the physical arrangement or disposition of troops and weapons. Examples of formation in such usage include, pakfront, panzerkeil, testudo formation, any unit subordinate to another unit is considered its sub-unit or minor unit. It is not uncommon for unit and formation to be used synonymously in the United States, in Commonwealth practice, formation is not used for smaller organizations like battalions which are instead called units, and their constituent platoons or companies are referred to as sub-units. In the Commonwealth, formations are divisions, brigades, etc, different armed forces, and even different branches of service of the armed forces, may use the same name to denote different types of organizations
Formation (military)
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A mixed aircraft and ship formation of military vehicles during an exercise with
USN and
JASDF vehicles.
Formation (military)
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In Japan, Lieutenant General J. Northcott CB MVO, Commander In Chief,
British Commonwealth Occupation Force (BCOF), inspects the guard of honour at HQ 9th New Zealand Infantry Brigade; April 17th 1946.
Formation (military)
28.
NATO
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The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the North Atlantic Treaty which was signed on 4 April 1949. The organization constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party, three NATO members are permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and are officially nuclear-weapon states. NATOs headquarters are located in Haren, Brussels, Belgium, while the headquarters of Allied Command Operations is near Mons. NATO is an Alliance that consists of 28 independent member countries across North America and Europe, an additional 22 countries participate in NATOs Partnership for Peace program, with 15 other countries involved in institutionalized dialogue programmes. The combined military spending of all NATO members constitutes over 70% of the global total, Members defence spending is supposed to amount to 2% of GDP. The course of the Cold War led to a rivalry with nations of the Warsaw Pact, politically, the organization sought better relations with former Warsaw Pact countries, several of which joined the alliance in 1999 and 2004. N. The Treaty of Brussels, signed on 17 March 1948 by Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, the treaty and the Soviet Berlin Blockade led to the creation of the Western European Unions Defence Organization in September 1948. However, participation of the United States was thought necessary both to counter the power of the USSR and to prevent the revival of nationalist militarism. He got a hearing, especially considering American anxiety over Italy. In 1948 European leaders met with U. S. defense, military and diplomatic officials at the Pentagon, marshalls orders, exploring a framework for a new and unprecedented association. Talks for a new military alliance resulted in the North Atlantic Treaty and it included the five Treaty of Brussels states plus the United States, Canada, Portugal, Italy, Norway, Denmark and Iceland. The first NATO Secretary General, Lord Ismay, stated in 1949 that the goal was to keep the Russians out, the Americans in. Popular support for the Treaty was not unanimous, and some Icelanders participated in a pro-neutrality, the creation of NATO can be seen as the primary institutional consequence of a school of thought called Atlanticism which stressed the importance of trans-Atlantic cooperation. The members agreed that an attack against any one of them in Europe or North America would be considered an attack against them all. The treaty does not require members to respond with military action against an aggressor, although obliged to respond, they maintain the freedom to choose the method by which they do so. This differs from Article IV of the Treaty of Brussels, which states that the response will be military in nature. It is nonetheless assumed that NATO members will aid the attacked member militarily, the treaty was later clarified to include both the members territory and their vessels, forces or aircraft above the Tropic of Cancer, including some Overseas departments of France. The creation of NATO brought about some standardization of allied military terminology, procedures, and technology, the roughly 1300 Standardization Agreements codified many of the common practices that NATO has achieved
NATO
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The
North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 1949 and was ratified by the United States that August.
NATO
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Flag
NATO
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The German Bundeswehr provided the largest element of the allied land forces guarding the frontier in Central Europe.
NATO
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Reforms made under
Mikhail Gorbachev led to the end of the
Warsaw Pact.
29.
Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states
Soviet Union
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Vladimir Lenin addressing a crowd with Trotsky, 1920
Soviet Union
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Flag
Soviet Union
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Stalin and
Nikolai Yezhov, head of the
NKVD. After Yezhov was executed, he was
edited out of the image.
Soviet Union
30.
Vatican City
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Vatican City, officially Vatican City State or the State of Vatican City, is a walled enclave within the city of Rome. With an area of approximately 44 hectares, and a population of 842, however, formally it is not sovereign, with sovereignty being held by the Holy See, the only entity of public international law that has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world. It is an ecclesiastical or sacerdotal-monarchical state ruled by the Bishop of Rome – the Pope, the highest state functionaries are all Catholic clergy of various national origins. Vatican City is distinct from the Holy See, which dates back to early Christianity and is the episcopal see of 1.2 billion Latin. According to the terms of the treaty, the Holy See has full ownership, exclusive dominion, within Vatican City are religious and cultural sites such as St. Peters Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Museums. They feature some of the worlds most famous paintings and sculptures, the unique economy of Vatican City is supported financially by the sale of postage stamps and tourist mementos, fees for admission to museums, and the sale of publications. The name Vatican City was first used in the Lateran Treaty, signed on 11 February 1929, the name is taken from Vatican Hill, the geographic location of the state. Vatican is derived from the name of an Etruscan settlement, Vatica or Vaticum meaning garden, located in the area the Romans called vaticanus ager. The official Italian name of the city is Città del Vaticano or, more formally, Stato della Città del Vaticano, although the Holy See and the Catholic Church use Ecclesiastical Latin in official documents, the Vatican City officially uses Italian. The Latin name is Status Civitatis Vaticanæ, this is used in documents by not just the Holy See. The name Vatican was already in use in the time of the Roman Republic for an area on the west bank of the Tiber across from the city of Rome. Under the Roman Empire, many villas were constructed there, after Agrippina the Elder drained the area and laid out her gardens in the early 1st century AD. In AD40, her son, Emperor Caligula built in her gardens a circus for charioteers that was completed by Nero, the Circus Gaii et Neronis, usually called, simply. Even before the arrival of Christianity, it is supposed that this originally uninhabited part of Rome had long considered sacred. A shrine dedicated to the Phrygian goddess Cybele and her consort Attis remained active long after the Constantinian Basilica of St. Peter was built nearby, the particularly low quality of Vatican water, even after the reclamation of the area, was commented on by the poet Martial. The Vatican Obelisk was originally taken by Caligula from Heliopolis in Egypt to decorate the spina of his circus and is thus its last visible remnant and this area became the site of martyrdom of many Christians after the Great Fire of Rome in AD64. Ancient tradition holds that it was in this circus that Saint Peter was crucified upside-down, opposite the circus was a cemetery separated by the Via Cornelia. Peters in the first half of the 4th century, the Constantinian basilica was built in 326 over what was believed to be the tomb of Saint Peter, buried in that cemetery
Vatican City
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View of St. Peter's Square from the top of Michelangelo's dome
Vatican City
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Flag
Vatican City
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The Vatican
obelisk was originally taken from Egypt by
Caligula.
Vatican City
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Bands of the British army's 38th Brigade playing in front of St Peter's Basilica, June 1944
