 Welcome to beautiful Italy, birthplace of many of the world's most important historical figures like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Columbus, and Luca Pazzioli. Wait, you haven't heard of Pazzioli? In fact, he's one of the most influential men of the Renaissance and yet few have heard of him. His work influenced many in his day and still does today, for he is often referred to as the father of accounting. Hi, I'm Dave Aldridge. Welcome to this series on financial accounting. The fact is that some sort of record keeping has been around ever since the first hunter wanted to trade with the first gatherer. But Pazzioli took many of the different ideas about mathematics and record keeping and published a book which included 27 pages called Details of Calculations and Recording. This section has become the basis for modern day double entry accounting. In fact, many of the terms you will hear in accounting like debit, credit, journal, and ledger all originate from his 1494 text. So when you think of Italy as the birthplace of science, art, and culture, add accounting to that list. So Grazie Italia and Arrivederci, I'm off to Scotland. Welcome to London. I intended to shoot this segment in Scotland, but it turns out there is nothing to see in Scotland other than sheep. And they weren't the friendliest of sheep. I know what you're thinking, terrifying. In the mid-1800s, England was the economic capital of the world and in the midst of the industrial revolution. With industry moving from agriculture to manufacturing, a need arose for business owners to have a good understanding of the financial health of their businesses. During that time, accountants from Scotland petitioned the Queen to grant them a charter providing them legal rights in the profession of accounting. In fact, the term chartered accountants comes from this event. So with the industrial revolution in high gear and a charter in place granting credibility in rights, modern accountancy was born. Today the largest body of accountants in the United States is the AICPA, which represents the CPA profession nationally. The AICPA's founding established accountancy as a profession distinguished by rigorous educational requirements, high professional standards, a strict code of professional ethics, a licensing status, and a commitment to serving the public interest. In a recent survey done by the Department of Labor, it is estimated that more than one million people work as accountants in the United States, with many more working in accounting clerical and support positions. So you can see that accounting has come a long way in the 500 years since Pacioli first published his text. Accounting has grown out of obscurity into a well-respected career path in profession. In fact, a recent survey conducted by the Roy Morgan research firm listed accountant as the 11th most respected career in the world, one spot behind college professor. Today the economic capital of the world is New York City and specifically Wall Street. Accounting is present here as well. Accountants provide the financial data that help investors analyze companies for potential investing decisions. Behind me is the New York Stock Exchange, which is the largest stock exchange in the world in terms of market capitalization. By the end of 2013, companies whose stock traded on this exchange were worth approximately 16 trillion dollars. On average, 170 billion dollars of securities or stocks are traded here daily. And none of that would be possible without accounting. So that concludes this short video on the brief history of accounting. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have.