It’s hard to pinpoint when and where gambling culture started. The need to take a risk on an outcome seems to be a primal need, even as the necessity for hunting and danger as a way of surviving has subsided. If anything, the comfort and convenience of our daily lives has only made that need stronger.

Gambling instruments have been found in China dating back to about 2300 BC; they used coloured tiles in a game of chance. In Egypt, ivory dice have been found dating to around 1500 BC, and there is evidence of gambling from ancient India, Greece and Rome. Even “loaded” dice have been found in the preserved remains of Pompeii, suggesting that cheating is probably as old as gambling itself!

As with many cultural pursuits, the well-documented lives of ancient Romans provide us with a fascinating insight into the role of gambling. Claudius redesigned his carriage to facilitate dice-throwing and Caligula confiscated the property of centurions to cover his gambling debts. Roman soldiers purportedly gambled for the robes of Christ after his crucifixion. But let’s stick to factual history for now...

Native Americans placed bets on the outcome of serious illness within tribes. They also wagered possessions on the potential yields of an upcoming harvest.
Henry VIII outlawed gambling when he found out his soldiers were spending all their time on wagers – despite being an inveterate gambler himself. When Anne Boleyn was tried for treason, the court had odds of 10-1 on an acquittal.

So entrenched in society was the concept of gambling, that national lotteries began to spring up. During the American Revolution, the Continental army was funded by lotteries, and George Washington himself bought the first ticket for a federal lottery in 1793. Nearly all state governments sanctioned lotteries, and by the 1830’s there were 420 lotteries in America alone.

Frontier America gave birth to the archetypal image of lawless gambling that still persists to this day. Riverboats and saloons offered great opportunities for “sharpers” – or professional gamblers – but were not safe places to be dishonest. Cheats and con men were often lynched.

In the 1830’s a group of sharpers moved from the Deep South up to Cincinatti and opened the first “Wolf Trap”. These public gambling houses took ten percent of winnings and provided equipment and supervision, although they often fell victim to rowdy street gangs and violence.

After the Civil war, corruption in the legal gambling industry led to evangelical reform. Blatant fraud in the Louisiana state lottery led Congress to outlaw the remaining games. In 1910, Nevada – the future gambling mecca of the world – made it a felony to operate any gambling game.

Prohibition made drink and gambling illegal activities; it couldn’t, and didn’t stay down for long though. The difficulties inherent in prohibiting personal freedoms led to more and more public assertions of free will, in the form of moonshine bars and shotgun gambling halls. Eventually, the laws were once again relaxed, first for betting on horse racing – which was growing in popularity – and then, following Nevada’s lead in 1931, for all types of gambling. Casinos sprouted from the desert sands to form the huge gambling centres like Las Vegas that we know today.

The modern age of gambling has allowed people to bet from the comfort of their own homes via the internet. Websites such as Riverbell.com offer online poker and online blackjack as well as a host of other online casino games.

 

Perfume was first used by ancient Egyptians as part of their religious rituals, such as cleansing ceremonies. By 1500 BC the application of scented oils was also used for cosmetic and medicinal purposes, and women used perfumed creams as a prelude to lovemaking. The use of perfume spread to Greece, Rome and the Islamic world, but dwindled with the fall of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the dark ages. It was not until the twelfth century and the birth of international trade that this decline was reversed, leading to a gradual upturn in the fortunes of the market that brings us right up to the modern age of mass-marketed and exclusive scents.

The worlds first recorded chemist is widely considered to be a person named Tapputi, a Mesopotamian perfume maker from the second millennium BC, mentioned on an ancient stone tablet. Perfume makers around this time would have used herbs and spices, such as almond, coriander, myrtle, bergamot but not flowers. It was a Persian doctor, Avicenna, who introduced the process of extracting oils from flowers by means of distillation. This was a crucial development, taking us from the strong, overpowering smells formulated from herbs and spices, to the more delicate scents from, at first, roses. Rose water immediately became popular across the world. Moreover, the distillation technology developed with perfume-making in mind, had far-reaching consequences for western science, particularly chemistry.

As Islam spread into Europe, the Islamic community’s knowledge of perfume came with it. The first modern perfume – a blend of scented oils in an alcoholic solution - is believed to have been commissioned by Queen Elizabeth of Hungary in 1370. The blend was known throughout Europe as Hungary Water. The art of perfumery prospered in Renaissance Italy. Rene le Florentin was the personal perfumer of Catherine de’Medici of France, and had a secret passageway from his laboratory to her apartments, so that no formula could be stolen en route. France quickly became the European centre of perfume manufacture. The cultivation of flowers for the purpose of making perfume became huge business.

Scents were used during the renaissance primarily by the wealthy, or royalty, with an aim to mask body odour in those less-than-sanitary times. Undoubtedly, this patronage was the major factor in the creation of the western perfume industry.

Perfumed gloves became popular in 17th century France and the court of Louis XV was even known as “the perfumed court” due to daily application of scents to skin, clothes, fans and furniture. As political turmoil spread throughout the country during the following century, a quieter revolution took place with the development of eau de Cologne, a refreshing blend of rosemary, neroli, bergamot and lemon. Glass containers became increasingly popular with the opening of the Baccarat factory in 1765, and many perfumers bottled their scents in attractive Louis XIV-style pear-shaped containers.

Fragrance houses began to emerge throughout Europe during the 19th century, including the Crown Perfumery, under the patronage of Queen Victoria. Bottling became more and more important as a way of identifying the brand.

In 1921 Gabrielle Chanel launched her own brand of perfume, called Chanel No.5, because the scent was the fifth example to be presented to her by perfumer Ernest Beaux. Since then, the popularity of perfume has mushroomed during the 20th century, eventually giving way to the modern era of celebrity-endorsed perfumes and many a designer fragrance. There are currently over 30,000 designer perfumes on the market, and they are no longer the preserve of the wealthy. For instance Escada has a new scent for the summer, which comes decadently packaged as does that old-rogue brand Dunhill, who have concocted a fragrance for the terribly English male and called it Dunhill London. 

Perfumes are widely available and relatively cheap. They make ideal birthday gifts, and can scintillate the senses of any modern woman as much as they did Queen Victoria’s and Cleopatra’s before her.

 

 The hot air balloon has always had a special relationship with anyone looking to leave terra firma, even if just for a little while. It is the oldest, successful, human-carrying flight method, dating back to France in 1783 when the first successful voyage was made by the Montgolfier brothers. Since then other designs have come and gone, and other forms of airship but the hot-air balloon remains as much used today as ever it did.

The theory that lifts these balloons is remarkably simple. All you need is a large balloon, something to hold the cargo (by that I mean the people) and a method for heating the air in the balloon. Unlike some other forms of airship in which gas was employed to create the lift, the hot-air balloon, unsurprisingly, operates solely of hot-air. Convection drives the hot air to rise up the middle of the balloon giving the lift, as the air cools and then drops it’s replaced by air that has been more recently heated by the gas burner above the basket. Modern balloons use a flame resistant fabric at the mouth of the balloon to prevent the fabric being lit by the flames of the gas burner.

Throughout history the principal uses of the hot-air balloon have been military, with the Chinese the first to use unmanned balloons as a method of military signalling around 200 AD. There are also suggestions that the Nazca Indians of Peru used balloons as a tool for designing the enormous drawings on the Nazca plains. They were definitely used by the French during the Revolutionary Wars, a tethered Hydrogen balloon was used during the Battle of Fleurus in 1794, and then used again in the American Civil War.

Today military reconnaissance has moved on, and the hot air balloon is principally used for recreation. Aside from the occasional sound of the burners a balloon is practically silent as it moves, largely pushed by currents on the air and capable of travelling for great distances. With the nature of the basket they are probably the only method of air transport that offers a panoramic, unimpeded view of the entire landscape spreading out below.

Hot-air balloon rides are wonderfully romantic, and thus make possibly the perfect romantic gift idea – obviously for those who are not afraid of heights. For a completely unparalleled experience, they are relatively cheap, and if fortunate with weather and other variables, can carve some astonishingly beautiful images into anyone’s memory. There is something about nature that attracts everyone, and the hot-air balloon is one of the best ways of viewing vast expanses of landscape that anyone could contrive.

If you are looking for a romantic gift idea, why not try ASDA Entertainment for excellent deals not only on hot air balloon rides, but any number of other ideas.

 Medieval mercantile fairs were one of the primary inspirations for the rise of banking in Medieval Europe. Merchants, or money lenders, would issue documents that could be redeemed at other fairs in exchange for hard currency. These documents could be cashed at another fair in another country, or even far into the future at the same location. In the event of these documents being redeemed at a future date that might be subject to a rate of interest. These documents eventually evolved into bills of exchange, and even further down the line led to the rise of paper money and cheques, allowing the possibility of transferring large sums of money without worrying about hauling large amounts of gold across the country that could be susceptible to thievery. After the fall of the Roman banking system the Crusades are generally credited for causing the rebirth of Western banking. In order to finance the Crusades large sums of money were needed. In 1156 to Genoese brothers borrowed a large sum of money and agreed to reimburse the bank’s agents in Constantinople one month after their arrival in the city. 

These sorts of contracts became increasingly prevalent as, partially to allow the continuation of the Crusades, profits made across time differences were not seen as an infringement on laws against Usury. The Crusades also led to the rise of the Templars as medieval bankers. They took local currency, in return for a demand note, that could be redeemed at any of their castles across Europe or the Holy Land.

 

In time, a growth was experienced in long-distance and international trade, further increasing the need for transfer of sums of money across countries.

 

Possibly because they could offered the post protection, Papal banks became some of the most successful in the Western world. Civil war in Florence, the Papacy moving to Avignon and the arrest of the Knights Templar on largely trumped up charges caused chaos throughout the western banking system. Banks became a political and religious weapon, and the Lombards of northern Italy became the most successful as a result. This in turn led to a backlash against the Lombards and similar Italian enterprise bankers, leading to expulsion from Aragon, prohibition from making profit in England and imprisonment and expulsion in Flanders.

 

The Italians soon came to dominate merchant banking in the Mediterranean, and it was ruled legal in Florence to charge interest on loans despite traditional prohibitions on usury. The case was settled in the courts and charging interest was legalised. With the invention of the printing press and a slow rise in the use of paper money the banking system in the 1400s began to move steadily towards the system that we know today.

 

Nowadays interest taking is an accepted part of day-to-day life. Banks compete with each other by trying to offer high interest rates on bank accounts, and low interest rates on personal loans and mortgages. For some of the best deals on personal loans take a look at Alliance and Leicester and ASDA Finance.

Nowadays the banking system is incredibly complex, worldwide financial institutions rely on each other, governments, and their customers to continue operating their services, but where did this system come from, and how did it become so complicated?

Scholars believe that the first banks were probably religious temples in the ancient world, and may have been established as far back as five thousand years ago. Banks probably predated the invention of coined money, and in their earliest incarnation may well have been religious controlled warehouses that stored the product of agriculture. With the discovery and use of

 

precious metal, coinage may have developed. At any rate, temples and palaces were the safest places to store precious metals and other goods of value as they were constantly attended, well constructed, and there were religious deterrents to would-be thieves.

The earliest extant records of loans comes from the 18th century BC in Babylon. Babylon’s banking system, in fact, was so advanced that the first recorded system of laws – known today as Hammurabi’s Code – involved a set of regulations governing how banks should operate.

There is also evidence of banking in Ancient Greece. Temples conducted financial transactions such as loans, deposits, validation of coinage and even currency exchange, based upon weighing of comparative coins for their precious metal content. There is even evidence of credit and cheques, with credit notes being written in one city and then cashed in another.

In the fourth century in Egypt grain has been used as a form of money in addition precious metals and state granaries functioned as banks. When Egypt was conquered by the Greeks the numerous scattered government granaries were transformed into a network of grain banks, centralised in Alexandria where records were kept for the entire state.

As with so many of the other foundations of western civilisation it was the Romans who perfected the administrative aspects of banking and imposed greater regulations on financial institutions and practices. Charging interest on loans became highly developed and similarly competitive. Romans preferred to operate cash transactions. This temporarily caused the breakdown of the system when Roman banks rejected some forms of coinage produced by the Imperial mint.

The banking system in Rome broke down with the rise of Christianity which deemed interest charging to be a sin. Before this the Jewish Torah criticised interest taking. There was however the common understanding that Jews were forbidden to charge interest on loans made to other Jews, but allowed to charge interest on transactions with Gentiles.

Nowadays interest taking is an accepted part of day-to-day life. Banks compete with each other by trying to offer high interest rates on bank accounts, and low interest rates on unsecured loans and mortgages. For some of the best deals on personal loans take a look at Alliance and Leicester and ASDA Finance.

 

 

The Master of Business Administration is a business degree that originated in the United States in the 19th Century. As industrialisation grew it required more scientific approaches to business management, which has led to the expansion of MBA programs across the world. Here’s a look at how it all started...

Established in 1881, the first business school in America was at the University of Pennsylvania. Dartmouth College founded the Tuck School of Business in 1900, which was the first institution offering a masters degree in business, the forerunner to today’s MBA. The MBA model itself emerged during the first years of the 20th Century, to be followed in Europe by similar program. Business schools such as Webster Graduate School at Regent’s College and the Cranfield School of Management, both in London. The first Executive MBA (EMBA) – designed for working professionals – was introduced by the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business in 1940, and this is not offered by most business schools.

The first MBA to be awarded outside of the US was at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, followed closely by the University of Pretoria in South Africa, in 1950 and 1951 respectively. All six continents now have universities offering an MBA degree.

The UK based Association of MBA’s (AMBA) was established in 1967 and is an active advocate for MBA degrees. AMBA offer the only professional membership association for MBA students and graduates.

If you’re interested in doing an MBA in the UK, the Ashridge Business School is one of the biggest institutions offering the degree. From here you can find out about the types of jobs you might be able to obtain with an MBA. Happy studies!

 

 

 

 

It’s reckoned that 125 million people use contact lenses everyday. For many, it’s an invisible alternative to glasses, which serves the same purpose without changing the appearance of the face. Contacts provide a wider field of vision and do not steam up, as well as being more suitable for sporting activities.  They are also used to help treat medical conditions, such as keratitis, which causes abrasions on the cornea which a porous, bandage contact lens can help protect against.

The earliest contact lens principle can be attributed to – who else? – Leonardo Da Vinci, but it was never intended for the purpose of correcting vision.  In his Codex of the Eye, Manual D of 1508, he describes how to affect corneal power by immersing the eye in a bowl of water; the objective of his studies was to better understand the mechanisms of the eye, and how it focuses – this is called accommodation. Rene Descartes developed the idea in 1636 by filling a glass tube with water, which would then sit on the cornea. This proved impractical, however, as it would obstruct blinking, but there was at least a general understanding  that refracting light in some way changed the accommodation of the eye.

In 1801, scientist Thomas Young, whilst studying accommodation, made an “eyecup” filled with liquid, which could be regarded as the forebear of the modern contact lens. Again, the device could not be used as a vision aid, and it was not until 1887 that F.E. Muller, a German glassblower, produced the first lens that could be tolerated by the eye. His design rested on the rim around the cornea, and was made from brown glass, but the lenses were unwieldy and could only be worn for a few hours.

Glass-blown lenses remained the only form of contact lens until the development of Perspex in the 1930’s. William Feinbloom, an optometrist, introduced a glass/Perspex combination lens, which was much lighter and more comfortable and convenient than the pure glass lenses.

Technology improved over the next thirty years to allow smaller, corneal lenses (rather than early designs which covered the entire surface of the eye), and by the 60’s, contact lenses had gained mass appeal as a viable alternative to spectacles.  However, these early Perspex lenses allowed no oxygen to get through to the cornea, which, whilst improving vision, could have an adverse clinical effect on the health of the eye. Permeable designs were developed throughout the 70’s and 80’s, but the biggest breakthrough was the introduction of the soft lens, by Czech chemist Otto Wichterle. These were much more comfortable, and before long superceded the Perspex and glass lenses. More recently, silicone hydrogels have been used in the manufacture of even more comfortable, oxygen-permeable lenses.

If you’ve considered making the switch to lenses, ASDA now stock contact lenses and Vision Direct have contact lenses online.

Apart from your house, your car is likely to be the biggest investment you make. As with mortgages, the high cost of the purchase will often require you to take out a loan to pay the vehicle off. But where did the car loan begin? Even a little knowledge on the history of car loans will help you understand where they came from, and how that affects your purchase.

Billy Durant

After the first automobile was invented by the McLaughlin-Buick company, and more famously mass produced by Henry Ford, car registration grew in popularity during the early 20th century. But by 1910, there were still only 6,000 cars on the roads of America, and horses remained the most popular mode of transport.
Enter William Durant, salesman, entrepreneur, visionary. Durant founded General Motors and united the fledgling and disparate industry under common management – even launching a failed attempt to buy Ford. Despite not being a huge fan of cars – deeming them noisy, smelly, and frightening to animals – Billy Durant went on to become a true legend in the automotive industry. And he was the first to introduce car loans as a way of financing purchases. But how did the concept come about?

In the early days of the industry dealers had to pay cash for their stock, which meant they could only buy a few cars at a time. As mass production took hold, the assembly line was capable of producing more cars than dealers could afford. The only way round this was for the manufacturers to offer finance to dealers, who in turn could offer finance to their customers. This was the beginning of the hire purchase age, and everything from property to clothes could be paid off in instalments to suit the consumer. However, Billy Durant’s finance system was not without it’s detractors – including Henry Ford, who believed that financing car purchases would spell the end for America’s economy. Durant knew they were wrong, and his vision reached fruition with the founding of General Motors Acceptance Corporation (GMAC), the first automobile-specific loans company. In 1919, GMAC branches opened in Detroit, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Toronto. In 1920 they expanded to Britain, and by 1928, they had 4 million contracts under their belt. By the mid-eighties, GMAC were achieving annual earnings in excess of $1billion, and they now operate in 41 countries.

Such is the profitability of the car loan industry, that now all car manufacturers offer some kind of financing, and even banks have a piece of this fiercely competitive market.

Today you can get car loans from companies such as Alliance & Leicester or join the growing number of people applying for loans online.

As for paying off that loan, we’ll leave the last word to Billy himself: “Forget past mistakes. Forget failures. Forget everything except what you’re going to do now and do it.”

From the French legal term meaning “dead pledge”, mortgages are now such an integral part of our lives that the word has lost the gravitas implicit in that original meaning. It’s still a heavy commitment though, and for most people it really will mean debt until, if not death, then very close. Home ownership is now so important to people that they are prepared to build their lives around paying off a mortgage.

The concept of the mortgage is as ancient as moneylenders themselves. Common law has it that a mortgage is a conditional loan with which to buy land.
The high value of property has always put it beyond the reach of most people; lending money for the purpose of buying property is therefore as old as money itself. But for the earliest evidence of a mortgage system in Britain, we’ll start in 1190...

In the 12th century, English common law protected creditors by allowing them an interest in their debtors’ property. The title on the deed would still be in the name of the debtor, but if they failed to pay the loan back, the lender could sell the property. If the loan wasn’t repaid, the property was forfeited - or “dead”. If it was repaid, the pledge would expire, hence “dead pledge” or mortgage. You got more for your money back in merry old England, as ownership rights extended from the centre of the earth to the sky. Nowadays, with space at a premium, you generally only get surface rights. So that underground extension into the earth’s mantle needs rethunk, I’m afraid.
As economies grew over the centuries, and governments understood the importance of home ownership, it became easier for people to obtain mortgages. In the US, more and more people bought their own land and property, although a mortgage was still out of reach for many average Americans. Then the depression hit.

Fannie Mae

The great depression during the 30’s acted as a catalyst for fairer mortgage practice. Previously, rates were localised, and the cost of loans varied throughout the country, but 1938 saw the introduction of the Federal National Mortgage Association – known as Fannie Mae. The government began insuring loans against defaulting, which meant that lenders were at less risk, and therefore happier to lend more freely. Fannie Mae centralised the pool of funds for mortgage lenders, ensuring that everyone could buy at the same interest rates. Consequently, terms and underwriting guidelines became standardised.

The mortgage market was becoming stable. As interest rates rose, the term of mortgages was reduced, sometimes to a one or three year deal. Mortgages were made more widely available for low-income families. Now there are myriad loan offers out there, and lenders find ever new ways to generate money from property, whilst consumers benefit in the long-term.

Now you know a little more about mortgages, you may find it easier to find the right one for you. Alliance & Leicester have a mortgage calculator service, which will help you look for mortgages. For property searches, try Fish4.co.uk.