When one thinks about the types of people that work for a big bank, it's not likely they think of archivists, geologists, historians, or gerontologists.
But as it turns out, Bank of America, along with most of its industry peers, now has these types of professionals on staff.
"Bank of America created these roles to ensure we have our finger on the pulse of emerging trends that impact our clients, our business, and the economy in the future," says Michael Sherman, a senior vice president and global staffing executive for Bank of America.
He says most banks hire "business people who dabble in demographic data"— but Bank of America is unique in that it brings on demographic and psychographic experts who specialize in reaching specific demographics and really know business.
Of course these employees only make up a tiny fraction of the 230,000-person workforce at Bank of America, but they make a big difference, Sherman says.
"By being truly immersed in their area of expertise, the individuals in these unique roles at Bank of America provide in-depth insights into market trends, data, behaviors, and expectations that help shape the way we not only interact with these customers, but also ensures that the products and services we offer are tailor-made for their specific needs," he explains.
For example, Bank of America's gerontologist — a person who studies the social, biological, and psychological aspects of aging — helps the company intimately understand the societal and psychological issues its aging customers face. "As older generations' financial needs evolve, we want to be at the forefront of offering solutions that meet their changing needs," says Sherman.
The geologists at Bank of America — those who study the Earth, the materials of which it is made, and the processes acting upon them — work closely on the firm's environmental initiatives, governance, and policies "to make the world a better place for generations to come," he says. "Bank of America is in the middle of a 10-year initiative with the Harvard University Center for the Environment to develop a Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Action Plan, and internal geologists are working with engineers, economists, attorneys, and government agencies to address greenhouse gas reduction goals."
Meanwhile the bank's historians and archivists manage corporate archives which date back to 1784, and oversee the Bank of America Art Collection, one of the largest corporate collections out there, Sherman explains.
"They also manage the 'Museums on Us' program, which provides Bank of America clients free access to 150 museums in the US the first weekend of every month," he says.
By tapping expertise from a wide spectrum of talent, Bank of America says it's able to meet evolving customer needs, all while diversifying its own workforce with a larger variety of backgrounds, skills, and experiences.
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Faith in the 
But it only partially succeeded.
Sir Christopher Wren was the foremost architect in Britain in the 17th century. 
Peace prevailed in Europe until 1701 when the War of the Spanish Succession was fought over who had the right to succeed Charles II as the King of Spain. The war ended with the Peace of Utretcht in 1713 which recognized Philip V as the King of Spain; however, the war further impoverished France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and other participants. 
The Big Bang illuminates a dark, empty limbo, and an entire universe appears. It expands incredibly quickly. Within a second of the explosion, energy shatters, creating forces like electromagnetism and gravity. This energy also congeals to form matter — quarks that combine to form protons and electrons. 
As the universe expands, huge unstructured clouds of hydrogen and helium atoms begin to appear. The clouds are essentially mush but contain within them tiny differences in density that allow gravity to compact them. The early universe breaks up into a billion clouds whose density and temperature is constantly increasing.
The temperature within these clouds of hydrogen and helium continues to rise, until it crosses the threshold temperature of 10 million degrees. Protons fuse, there is a huge release of energy, and 200 million years after the Big Bang, stars are born. 
Even stars die, and when they do, chemicals form. Protons from supernova explosions (the death of stars) fuse to create all of the heavy elements on the periodic table. These elements combine to form chemically complex planets and moons, and our solar system is born. 
The "Goldilocks Principle" states that circumstances must be exactly right for any type of complexity to form or to continue to exist. Just as Goldilocks' porridge could not be too hot or too cold, planets with too much or too little energy can neither create nor sustain life. Earth was just far enough from the stars to have the perfect amount of energy, as well as the diversity of elements and large amounts of water that allowed atoms to combine into molecules.
Four billion years ago, DNA begins to copy itself and scatter information through the ocean. In this way, instructions about how to make living organisms are spread. DNA is not perfect, and sometimes it makes mistakes. But this is how DNA learns new ways to make living organisms, building greater diversity and complexity within the environment. 
Up until about 800 million years ago, living organisms were single-celled and relatively simple. These organisms were diverse, however, and complex on the inside. Soon, multicelled organisms like fish, plants, reptiles, and dinosaurs began to appear.
Two-hundred thousand years ago, as a part of the evolutionary process of our mammalian ancestors, humans were born. 
With advancements in global trade and communication like shipping, trains, the telegraph, and the internet, humans have become more interconnected than ever before. Our environment will only become more complex as we continue to learn from one another at an extremely rapid pace.
He concludes his talk with a warning: The Big History Project wants to show us our power and capabilities as agents of collective learning. But hopefully it also humbles us and shows us our contingency and fragility as the fortunate result of well-timed chemical reactions. 
Blood and broken glass mixed with half-melted ice. Piot, who was a 27-year-old medical school graduate and junior lab worker at the time, describes that moment:
Pattyn thought the virus must be a new rare hemorrhagic fever, a disease that causes the seemingly constant bleeding that accompanies some Ebola cases, and the sort of fever that the lab was not certified as safely equipped to handle — but they wanted to keep investigating anyway.
Only then did Piot realize how dangerous their behavior might have been and the risks they were taking.
Kennan’s non-interventionism led him to the conclusion that America ought to focus its efforts internally, not abroad.
Seventy-six years ago Thursday, millions of Americans tuned in to their regular nighttime broadcast and got some rather shocking news. A panicked newscaster informed the masses that Martians had landed in the small town of Grovers Mill, N.J., and 7,000 US soldiers had been deployed to fight off the invaders. 
In 1888, chancellor George Goschen converted bonds first issued in 1752 which were later used to finance the Napoleonic and Crimean Wars, the Slavery Abolition Act (1835) and the Irish Distress Loan (1847).
