Advanced Micro Devices
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara and Austin, Texas that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it manufactured its own processors, the company outsourced its manufacturing, a practice known as fabless, after GlobalFoundries was spun off in 2009. AMD's main products include microprocessors, motherboard chipsets, embedded processors and graphics processors for servers and personal computers, embedded systems applications. AMD is the second-largest supplier and only significant rival to Intel in the market for x86-based microprocessors. Since acquiring ATI in 2006, AMD and its competitor Nvidia have maintained a duopoly in the discrete Graphics Processing Unit market. Advanced Micro Devices was formally incorporated on May 1, 1969, by Jerry Sanders, along with seven of his colleagues from Fairchild Semiconductor. Sanders, an electrical engineer, the director of marketing at Fairchild, like many Fairchild executives, grown frustrated with the increasing lack of support and flexibility within the company, decided to leave to start his own semiconductor company.
The previous year Robert Noyce, who had invented the first practical integrated circuit or the microchip in 1959 at Fairchild, had left Fairchild together with Gordon Moore and founded the semiconductor company Intel in July 1968. In September 1969, AMD moved from its temporary location in Santa Clara to California. To secure a customer base, AMD became a second source supplier of microchips designed by Fairchild and National Semiconductor. AMD first focused on producing logic chips; the company guaranteed quality control to United States Military Standard, an advantage in the early computer industry since unreliability in microchips was a distinct problem that customers – including computer manufacturers, the telecommunications industry, instrument manufacturers – wanted to avoid. In November 1969, the company manufactured its first product, the Am9300, a 4-bit MSI shift register, which began selling in 1970. In 1970, AMD produced its first proprietary product, the Am2501 logic counter, successful.
Its best-selling product in 1971 was the Am2505, the fastest multiplier available. In 1971, AMD entered the RAM chip market, beginning with the Am3101, a 64-bit bipolar RAM; that year AMD greatly increased the sales volume of its linear integrated circuits, by year end the company's total annual sales reached $4.6 million. AMD went public in September 1972; the company was a second source for Intel MOS/LSI circuits by 1973, with products such as Am14/1506 and Am14/1507, dual 100-bit dynamic shift registers. By 1975, AMD was producing 212 products – of which 49 were proprietary, including the Am9102 and three low-power Schottky MSI circuits: Am25LS07, Am25LS08, Am25LS09. Intel had created the first microprocessor, its 4-bit 4004, in 1971. By 1975, AMD entered the microprocessor market with the Am9080, a reverse-engineered clone of the Intel 8080, the Am2900 bit-slice microprocessor family; when Intel began installing microcode in its microprocessors in 1976, it entered into a cross-licensing agreement with AMD, granting AMD a copyright license to the microcode in its microprocessors and peripherals, effective October 1976.
In 1977, AMD entered into a joint venture with Siemens, a German engineering conglomerate wishing to enhance its technology expertise and enter the U. S. market. Siemens purchased 20 % of AMD's stock; that year the two companies jointly established Advanced Micro Computers, located in Silicon Valley and in Germany, giving AMD an opportunity to enter the microcomputer development and manufacturing field, in particular based on AMD's second-source Zilog Z8000 microprocessors. When the two companies' vision for Advanced Micro Computers diverged, AMD bought out Siemens' stake in the U. S. division in 1979. AMD closed its Advanced Micro Computers subsidiary in late 1981, after switching focus to manufacturing second-source Intel x86 microprocessors. Total sales in fiscal year 1978 topped $100 million, in 1979, AMD debuted on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1979, production began in AMD's new semiconductor fab in Austin, Texas. In 1980, AMD began supplying semiconductor products for telecommunications, an industry undergoing rapid expansion and innovation.
Intel had introduced the first x86 microprocessors in 1978. In 1981, IBM created its PC, wanted Intel's x86 processors, but only under the condition that Intel provide a second-source manufacturer for its patented x86 microprocessors. Intel and AMD entered into a 10-year technology exchange agreement, first signed in October 1981 and formally executed in February 1982; the terms of the agreement were that each company could acquire the right to become a second-source manufacturer of semiconductor products developed by the other. The technical information and licenses needed to make and sell a part would be exchanged for a royalty to the developing company; the 1982 agreement extended the 1976 AMD–Intel cross-licensing agreement through 1995. The agreement included the right to invoke arbitration of disagreements, after five years the right of either party to end the agreement with one year's notice; the main result of the 1982 agreeme
Amgen
Amgen Inc. is an American multinational biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Thousand Oaks, California. In 2013, the company's largest selling product lines were Neulasta/Neupogen, two related drugs used to prevent infections in patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy. Other products include Epogen, Sensipar/Mimpara, Vectibix, Prolia and XGEVA. Amgen, one of the world's largest biotechnology companies, was established in Newbury Park, California in 1980, where its world headquarters are located, it had 5,125 employees in Thousand Oaks as of 2017, which made up 7.5% of the city's total employment. It is the largest employer in Ventura County. Amgen has attracted hundreds of scientists to the Newbury Park area. Focused on the cutting edge of molecular biology and biochemistry, its goal is to provide a healthcare business based on recombinant DNA technology; the word AMGen is a portmanteau of the company's original name, Applied Molecular Genetics, which became the official name of the company in 1983.
The company's first chief executive officer, from 1980, was co-founder George B. Rathmann, followed by Gordon M. Binder in 1988, followed by Kevin W. Sharer in 2000. Robert A. Bradway became Amgen’s president and chief executive officer in May 2012 following Sharer's retirement; the company has made at least five major corporate acquisitions. 1980. William Bowes from Cetus Corporation recruits Winston Salser from UCLA to start Amgen with a scientific advisory board consisting of Normam Davidson, Leroy Hood, Arnold Berk, John Carbon, Robert Schimke, Arno Motulsky, Marvin H. Caruthers, Dave Gibson. 1989. Amgen received approval for the first recombinant human erythropoetin product, for the treatment of anemia associated with chronic kidney failure. Epogen would be approved for anemia due to cancer chemotherapy, anemia due to treatment with certain HIV drugs, for the reduction of the need for transfusions associated with surgery. 1991. In February 1991, Amgen received FDA approval for Neupogen for the prevention of infections in patients whose immune systems are suppressed due to cancer chemotherapy.
A 2002 meta-analysis found that Neupogen treatment reduced the risk of febrile neutropenia by 38%, reduced the risk of documented infection by 49%, reduced the risk of infection-related mortality by 40%. 1998. In November 1998, Immunex, a future acquisition of Amgen, received approval for Enbrel, the first rheumatoid arthritis drug targeting tumor necrosis factor alpha. A 2006 assessment by the National Institute of Clinical Excellence of the United Kingdom concluded that etanercept and related rheumatoid arthritis drugs introduced by competitors "are effective treatments compared with placebo for RA patients who are not well controlled by conventional DMARDs, improving control of symptoms, improving physical function, slowing radiographic changes in joints." A more recent study demonstrated that compared to traditional disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, treatment with etanercept improved survival, reduced cardiovascular events and reduced the incidence of hematological cancers. 2010. On June 6, 2010 Amgen received FDA approval for Prolia, a protein drug for the treatment of post-menopausal osteoporosis.
In clinical trials, Prolia reduced the rate of vertebral fractures by 61% and the risk of hip fractures by 40%. 2010 In November 2010 the FDA approved Xgeva for the prevention of complications of bone metastases in patients with solid tumors. The clinical trials enrolled patients with breast or prostate cancer. 2012. Illegal marketing practices; the Los Angeles Times reported on December 18, 2012, that AMGEN pleaded guilty and agreed to pay $150 million in criminal penalty and $612 million to resolve 11 related whistleblower complaints. Federal prosecutors accused the company of pursuing profits while putting patients at risk. Larry Husten, a contributor at Forbes.com elaborates on AMGEN's illegal marketing practices in this case, namely that the "government accused Amgen of marketing Aranesp for indications not approved by the FDA and other illegal marketing practices". One of the drugs mentioned in the lawsuit had sales of $492 million in the third quarter of 2012, down 17% from the same quarter the previous year due to "reimbursement problems and label changes".
2013. Lawmakers inserted text into the fiscal cliff bill that will allow the drugmaker to sell a class of drugs that includes Sensipar without government controls for an additional two years; the New York Times estimated that the paragraph in the fiscal cliff bill will cost taxpayers an estimated $500 million but other assessments concluded that the change would protect seniors in rural areas and reduce overall Medicare spending. 2015. In September the company announced; the same day the company announced a collaboration with Xencor on 6 early stage immuno-oncology and inflammation programmes. As part of the deal Amgen will pay $45 million upfront, with the deal being worth up to another $1.7 billion. 2016. In September, the company announced it would purchase the rights to Boehringer Ingelheims Phase I bispecific T-cell engager compound for use in the treatment of multiple myeloma. 2017. Cash returned to shareholders totaled a record $6.5 billion through dividends and share repurchases. 2018. Amgen was ranked 123 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue.
The following is an illustration of the comp
Adobe Inc.
Adobe Inc. is an American multinational computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California. It has focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more recent foray towards digital marketing software. Adobe is best known for its Adobe Flash web software ecosystem, Photoshop image editing software, Acrobat Reader, the Portable Document Format, Adobe Creative Suite, as well as its successor Adobe Creative Cloud. Adobe was founded in December 1982 by John Warnock and Charles Geschke, who established the company after leaving Xerox PARC in order to develop and sell the PostScript page description language. In 1985, Apple Computer licensed PostScript for use in its LaserWriter printers, which helped spark the desktop publishing revolution; as of 2018, Adobe has about 19,000 employees worldwide, about 40% of whom work in San Jose. Adobe has major development operations in Newton, Massachusetts, it has major development operations in Noida and Bangalore in India The company was started in John Warnock's garage.
The name of the company, comes from Adobe Creek in Los Altos, which ran behind Warnock's house. Adobe's corporate logo features a stylized "A" and was designed by Marva Warnock, graphic designer and John Warnock's wife. Steve Jobs asked to buy the company for five million dollars in 1982, but Warnock and Geschke refused, their investors urged them to work something out with Jobs, so they agreed to sell him shares worth 19 percent of the company, for which Jobs paid a five-times multiple of their company's valuation at the time, plus a five-year license fee for PostScript, in advance. The purchase and advance made Adobe the first company in the history of Silicon Valley to become profitable in its first year. Warnock and Geschke considered various business options including a copy-service business and a turnkey system for office printing, they chose to focus on developing specialized printing software, created the Adobe PostScript page description language. PostScript was the first international standard for computer printing as it included algorithms describing the letter-forms of many languages.
Adobe added kanji printer products in 1988. Warnock and Geschke were able to bolster the credibility of Postscript by connecting with a typesetting manufacturer, they weren't able to work with Compugraphic, but worked with Linotype to license the Helvetica and Times Roman fonts. By 1987, PostScript had become the industry-standard printer language with more than 400 third-party software programs and licensing agreements with 19 printer companies. Warnock described the language as "extensible", in its ability to apply graphic arts standards to office printing. Adobe's first products after PostScript were digital fonts, which they released in a proprietary format called Type 1. Apple subsequently developed a competing standard, TrueType, which provided full scalability and precise control of the pixel pattern created by the font's outlines, licensed it to Microsoft. In the mid-1980s, Adobe entered the consumer software market with Illustrator, a vector-based drawing program for the Apple Macintosh.
Illustrator, which grew from the firm's in-house font-development software, helped popularize PostScript-enabled laser printers. Adobe entered NASDAQ in August 1986, its revenue has grown from $1 billion in 1999 to $4 billion in 2012. Adobe's fiscal years run from December to November. For example, the 2007 fiscal year ended on November 30, 2007. In 1989, Adobe introduced what was to become its flagship product, a graphics editing program for the Macintosh called Photoshop. Stable and full-featured, Photoshop 1.0 was ably soon dominated the market. In 1993, Adobe introduced PDF, the Portable Document Format, its Adobe Acrobat and Reader software. PDF is now an International Standard: ISO 32000-1:2008. In December 1991, Adobe released Adobe Premiere, which Adobe rebranded as Adobe Premiere Pro in 2003. In 1992, Adobe acquired Inc.. In 1994, Adobe acquired Aldus and added PageMaker and After Effects to its product line in the year. In the same year, Adobe acquired Compution Inc.. In 1995, Adobe added FrameMaker, the long-document DTP application, to its product line after Adobe acquired Frame Technology Corp.
In 1996, Adobe Inc added Ares Software Corp. In 2002, Adobe acquired Canadian company Accelio. On December 12, 2005, Adobe acquired its main rival, Macromedia, in a stock swap valued at about $3.4 billion, adding ColdFusion, Captivate, Adobe Connect, Dreamweaver, Flash, FlashPaper, FreeHand, HomeSite, JRun and Authorware to Adobe's product line. Adobe released Adobe Media Player in April 2008. On April 27, Adobe discontinued development and sales of its older HTML/web development software, GoLive in favor of Dreamweaver. Adobe offered a discount on Dreamweaver for GoLive users and supports those who still use GoLive with online tutorials and migration assistance. On June 1, Adobe launched a series of web applications geared for collaborative work. Creative Suite 4, which includes Design, Production Premium, Master Collection came out in October 2008 in six configurations at prices from about US$1,700 to $2,500 or by individual application; the Windows version of Photoshop includes 64-bit processing.
On December 3, 2008, Adobe laid off 600 of its employees citing the weak economic environment. On November 10, 2009, the company laid off a further 680 emplo
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is an American multinational business magazine headquartered in New York City, United States. It is published by Fortune Media Group Holdings, owned by Thai businessman Chatchaval Jiaravanon; the publication was founded by Henry Luce in 1929. The magazine competes with Forbes and Bloomberg Businessweek in the national business magazine category and distinguishes itself with long, in-depth feature articles; the magazine publishes ranked lists, including the Fortune 500, a ranking of companies by revenue that it has published annually since 1955. Fortune was founded by Time co-founder Henry Luce in 1929 as "the Ideal Super-Class Magazine", a "distinguished and de luxe" publication "vividly portraying and recording the Industrial Civilization". Briton Hadden, Luce's business partner, was not enthusiastic about the idea – which Luce thought to title Power – but Luce went forward with it after Hadden's sudden death on February 27, 1929. In late October 1929, the Wall Street Crash of 1929 occurred, marking the onset of the Great Depression.
In a memo to the Time Inc. board in November 1929, Luce wrote: "We will not be over-optimistic. We will recognize that this business slump may last as long as an entire year." The publication made its official debut in February 1930. Its editor was Luce, managing editor Parker Lloyd-Smith, art director Thomas Maitland Cleland. Single copies of the first issue cost US$1. An urban legend says that Cleland mocked up the cover of the first issue with the $1 price because no one had yet decided how much to charge. In fact, there were 30,000 subscribers who had signed up to receive that initial 184-page issue. By 1937, the number of subscribers had grown to 460,000, the magazine had turned half million dollars in annual profit. At a time when business publications were little more than numbers and statistics printed in black and white, Fortune was an oversized 11"×14", using creamy heavy paper, art on a cover printed by a special process. Fortune was noted for its photography, featuring the work of Margaret Bourke-White, Ansel Adams, others.
Walker Evans served as its photography editor from 1945 to 1965. During the Great Depression, the magazine developed a reputation for its social conscience, for Walker Evans and Margaret Bourke-White's color photographs, for a team of writers including James Agee, Archibald MacLeish, John Kenneth Galbraith, Alfred Kazin, hired for their writing abilities; the magazine became an important leg of Luce's media empire. From its launch in 1930 to 1978, Fortune was published monthly. In January 1978, it began publishing biweekly. In October 2009, citing declining advertising revenue and circulation, Fortune began publishing every three weeks. Fortune is published 14 times a year. Marshall Loeb was named managing editor in 1986. During his tenure at Fortune, Loeb was credited with expanding the traditional focus on business and the economy with added graphs and tables, as well as the addition of articles on topics such as executive life and social issues connected to the world of business, including the effectiveness of public schools and on homelessness.
During the years when Time Warner owned Time Inc. Fortune articles were hosted at CNNMoney.com. In June 2014, after Time Inc. spun off from its corporate parent, Fortune launched its own website at Fortune.com. On November 26, 2017, it was announced that Meredith Corporation would acquire Time Inc. in a $2.8 billion deal. The acquisition was completed on January 31, 2018. On November 9, 2018, it was announced that Meredith Corporation was selling Fortune to Thai billionaire Chatchaval Jiaravanon for $150 million. Jiaravanon is affiliated with the Thailand-based conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group, which has holdings in agriculture, telecommunications, retail and finance. Fortune publishes ranked lists. In the human resources field, for example, it publishes a list of the Best Companies to Work For. Lists include companies ranked in order of gross revenue and business profile, as well as business leaders: There have been 17 top editors since Fortune was conceived in 1929. Following the elimination of the editor-in-chief role at Time Inc. in October 2013, the top editor's title was changed from "managing editor" to "editor" in 2014.
Fortune Battle of the Corporate Bands, an annual music competition for amateur company-sponsored bands List of United States magazines James S. Miller, "White-Collar Excavations: Fortune Magazine and the Invention of the Industrial Folk," American Periodicals, vol. 13, pp. 84–104. In JSTOR Official website Fortune Latinamerica Fortune India Fortune China Fortune Turkey List of 100 Best Companies to Work For "Fortune Data Store". Fortune. Time.. Complete downloadable list of Fortune 500/1000 Companies – 1955–2008
NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market is an American stock exchange. It is the second-largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization, behind only the New York Stock Exchange located in the same city; the exchange platform is owned by Nasdaq, Inc. which owns the Nasdaq Nordic and Nasdaq Baltic stock market network and several U. S. stock and options exchanges. "Nasdaq" was an acronym for the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations. It was founded in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers, which divested itself of Nasdaq in a series of sales in 2000 and 2001; the Nasdaq Stock Market is owned and operated by Nasdaq, Inc. the stock of, listed on its own securities exchange on July 2, 2002, under the ticker symbol NDAQ. The Nasdaq Stock Market began trading on February 8, 1971, it was the world's first electronic stock market. At first, it was a "quotation system" and did not provide a way to perform electronic trades; the Nasdaq Stock Market helped lower the spread but was unpopular among brokerages which made much of their money on the spread.
The NASDAQ Stock Market assumed the majority of major trades, executed by the over-the-counter system of trading, but there are still many securities traded in this fashion. As late as 1987, the Nasdaq exchange was still referred to as "OTC" in media reports and in the monthly Stock Guides issued by Standard & Poor's Corporation. Over the years, the Nasdaq Stock Market became more of a stock market by adding trade and volume reporting and automated trading systems, it was the first stock market in the United States to trade online, highlighting Nasdaq-traded companies and closing with the declaration that the Nasdaq Stock Market is "the stock market for the next hundred years". The Nasdaq Stock Market attracted new growth companies, including Microsoft, Cisco and Dell, it helped modernize the IPO, its main index is the NASDAQ Composite, published since its inception. However, its exchange-traded fund tracks the large-cap NASDAQ-100 index, introduced in 1985 alongside the NASDAQ Financial-100 Index, which tracks the largest 100 companies in terms of market capitalization.
In 1992, the Nasdaq Stock Market joined with the London Stock Exchange to form the first intercontinental linkage of securities markets. The National Association of Securities Dealers spun off the Nasdaq Stock Market in 2000 to form a publicly traded company. On March 10, 2000, the NASDAQ Composite peaked at 5,132.52, but fell to 3,227 by April 17, in the following 30 months fell 78% from its peak. In 2006, the status of the Nasdaq Stock Market was changed from a stock market to a licensed national securities exchange. In 2010, Nasdaq merged with OMX, a leading exchange operator in the Nordic countries, expanded its global footprint, changed its name to the NASDAQ OMX Group. To qualify for listing on the exchange, a company must be registered with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, must have at least three market makers and must meet minimum requirements for assets, public shares, shareholders. In February 2000, in the wake of an announced merger of NYSE Euronext with Deutsche Börse, speculation developed that NASDAQ OMX and Intercontinental Exchange could mount a counter-bid of their own for NYSE.
NASDAQ OMX could be looking to acquire the American exchange's cash equities business, ICE the derivatives business. At the time, "NYSE Euronext's market value was $9.75 billion. Nasdaq was valued at $5.78 billion, while ICE was valued at $9.45 billion." Late in the month, Nasdaq was reported to be considering asking either ICE or the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to join in what would have to be, if it proceeded, an $11–12 billion counterbid. In 2005, NASDAQ acquirred Instinet for $1.9 billion retaining the INET ECN and subsequently sellin the agency brokerage business to Silver Lake Partners and Instinet management. The European Association of Securities Dealers Automatic Quotation System was founded as a European equivalent to the Nasdaq Stock Market, it became NASDAQ Europe. Operations were shut however, as a result of the burst of the dot-com bubble. In 2007, NASDAQ Europe was revived as Equiduct, is operating under Börse Berlin. On June 18, 2012, Nasdaq OMX became a founding member of the United Nations Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative on the eve of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development.
In November 2016, Nasdaq chief operating officer Adena Friedman was promoted to the role of CEO, becoming the first woman to run a major exchange in the U. S. In 2016, Nasdaq earned $272 million in listings-related revenues. In October 2018, the SEC ruled that the NYSE and Nasdaq did not justify the continued price increases when selling market data. Nasdaq quotes are available at three levels: Level 1 shows the highest bid and lowest ask—inside quote. Level 2 shows all public quotes of market makers together with information of market dealers wishing to buy or sell stock and executed orders. Level 3 allows them to enter their quotes and execute orders; the Nasdaq Stock Market sessions eastern time are: 4:00 am to 9:30 am premarket session 9:30 am to 4:00 pm normal trading session 4:00 pm to 8:00 pm postmarket sessionThe Nasdaq Stock Market averages about 253 trading days per year. The Nasdaq Stock Market has three different market tiers: Capital Market is an equity market for companies that have relatively
Guam
Guam is an unincorporated and organized territory of the United States in Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean. It is the easternmost point and territory of the United States, along with the Northern Mariana Islands; the capital city of Guam is Hagåtña and the most populous city is Dededo. The inhabitants of Guam are called Guamanians, they are American citizens by birth. Indigenous Guamanians are the Chamorros, who are related to other Austronesian natives of Eastern Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan. Guam has been a member of the Pacific Community since 1983. In 2016, 162,742 people resided on Guam. Guam has a population density of 775 per square mile. In Oceania, it is the largest and southernmost of the Mariana Islands and the largest island in Micronesia. Among its municipalities, Mongmong-Toto-Maite has the highest population density at 3,691 per square mile, whereas Inarajan and Umatac have the lowest density at 119 per square mile; the highest point is Mount Lamlam at 1,332 feet above sea level.
Since the 1960s, the economy has been supported by two industries: tourism and the United States Armed Forces. The indigenous Chamorros settled the island 4,000 years ago. Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, while in the service of Spain, was the first European to visit the island, on March 6, 1521. Guam was colonized by Spain in 1668 with settlers, including Diego Luis de San Vitores, a Catholic Jesuit missionary. Between the 16th century and the 18th century, Guam was an important stopover for the Spanish Manila Galleons. During the Spanish–American War, the United States captured Guam on June 21, 1898. Under the Treaty of Paris, Spain ceded Guam to the United States on December 10, 1898. Guam is among the 17 non-self-governing territories listed by the United Nations. Before World War II, there were five American jurisdictions in the Pacific Ocean: Guam and Wake Island in Micronesia, American Samoa and Hawaii in Polynesia, the Philippines. On December 7, 1941, hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Guam was captured by the Japanese, who occupied the island for two and a half years.
During the occupation, Guamanians were subjected to beheadings, forced labor and torture. American forces recaptured the island on July 21, 1944. An unofficial but used territorial motto is "Where America's Day Begins", which refers to the island's close proximity to the international date line; the original inhabitants of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands were the Chamorro people, who are believed to be descendants of Austronesian people originating from Southeast Asia as early as 2000 BC. The ancient Chamorro society had four classes: chamorri, matua and mana'chang; the matua were located in the coastal villages, which meant they had the best access to fishing grounds, whereas the mana'chang were located in the interior of the island. Matua and mana'chang communicated with each other, matua used achaot as intermediaries. There were "makåhna" or "kakahna", shamans with magical powers and "Suruhånu" or "Suruhåna" healers who use different kinds of plants and natural materials to make medicine.
Belief in spirits of ancient Chamorros called "Taotao mo'na" still persists as a remnant of pre-European culture. It is believed that "Suruhånu" or "Suruhåna" are the only ones who can safely harvest plants and other natural materials from their homes or "hålomtåno" without incurring the wrath of the "Taotao mo'na", their society was organized along matrilineal clans. Latte stones are stone pillars; the latte-stone was used as a foundation. Latte stones consist of a base shaped from limestone called the haligi and with a capstone, or tåsa, made either from a large brain coral or limestone, placed on top. A possible source for these stones, the Rota Latte Stone Quarry, was discovered in 1925 on Rota; the first European to travel to Guam was Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for the King of Spain, when he sighted the island on March 6, 1521, during his fleet's circumnavigation of the globe. When Magellan arrived on Guam, he was greeted by hundreds of small outrigger canoes that appeared to be flying over the water, due to their considerable speed.
These outrigger canoes were called Proas, resulted in Magellan naming Guam Islas de las Velas Latinas. Antonio Pigafetta said that the name was "Island of Sails", but he writes that the inhabitants "entered the ships and stole whatever they could lay their hands on", including "the small boat, fastened to the poop of the flagship." "Those people are poor, but ingenious and thievish, on account of which we called those three islands Islas de los Ladrones." Despite Magellan's visit, Guam was not claimed by Spain until January 26, 1565, by General Miguel López de Legazpi. From 1565 to 1815, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, the only Spanish outposts in the Pacific Ocean east of the Philippines, were an important resting stop for the Manila galleons, a fleet that covered the Pacific trade route between Acapulco and Manila. To protect these Pacific fleets, Spain built several defensive structures that still stand today, such as Fort Nuestra Señora de la Soledad in Umatac. Guam is the biggest single segment of Micronesia, the largest islands between the island of Kyushu, New Guinea, the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands.
Spanish colonization commenced on June 15, 1
United States dollar
The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its territories per the United States Constitution since 1792. In practice, the dollar is divided into 100 smaller cent units, but is divided into 1000 mills for accounting; the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. Since the suspension in 1971 of convertibility of paper U. S. currency into any precious metal, the U. S. dollar is, de facto, fiat money. As it is the most used in international transactions, the U. S. dollar is the world's primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their official currency, in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean: the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while still minting their own coins, or accept U. S. dollar coins. As of June 27, 2018, there are $1.67 trillion in circulation, of which $1.62 trillion is in Federal Reserve notes.
Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power "To coin money". Laws implementing this power are codified at 31 U. S. C. § 5112. Section 5112 prescribes the forms; these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as "legal tender" in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar; the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 provides for the minting and issuance of other coins, which have values ranging from one cent to 100 dollars; these other coins are more described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that "a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time"; that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the "Statements" are being expressed in U. S. dollars. The U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States.
The word "dollar" is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution. There, "dollars" is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act. Section 9 of that act authorized the production of various coins, including "DOLLARS OR UNITS—each to be of the value of a Spanish milled dollar as the same is now current, to contain three hundred and seventy-one grains and four sixteenth parts of a grain of pure, or four hundred and sixteen grains of standard silver". Section 20 of the act provided, "That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units... and that all accounts in the public offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation". In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States. Unlike the Spanish milled dollar, the U.
S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. In addition to the dollar the coinage act established monetary units of mill or one-thousandth of a dollar, cent or one-hundredth of a dollar, dime or one-tenth of a dollar, eagle or ten dollars, with prescribed weights and composition of gold, silver, or copper for each, it was proposed in the mid-1800s that one hundred dollars be known as a union, but no union coins were struck and only patterns for the $50 half union exist. However, only cents are in everyday use as divisions of the dollar. XX9 per gallon, e.g. $3.599, more written as $3.599⁄10. When issued in circulating form, denominations equal to or less than a dollar are emitted as U. S. coins while denominations equal to or greater than a dollar are emitted as Federal Reserve notes. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the note form is more common. In the past, "paper money" was issued in denominations less than a dollar and gold coins were issued for circulation up to the value of $20.
The term eagle was used in the Coinage Act of 1792 for the denomination of ten dollars, subsequently was used in naming gold coins. Paper currency less than one dollar in denomination, known as "fractional currency", was sometimes pejoratively referred to as "shinplasters". In 1854, James Guthrie Secretary of the Treasury, proposed creating $100, $50 and $25 gold coins, which were referred to as a "Union", "Half Union", "Quarter Union", thus implying a denomination of 1 Union = $100. Today, USD notes are made from cotton fiber paper, unlike most common paper, made of wood fiber. U. S. coins are produced by the United States Mint. U. S. dollar banknotes are printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and, since 1914, have been issued by t
US$11.94 billion (FY 2015)
