WHAT MONOPOLY ?

The 31^st December appears to be big company day.

The East India Company (also known as the English East India Company, and, after the Treaty of Union, the British East India Company) was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China. The Company was granted an English Royal Charter, under the name Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies, by Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, making it the oldest among several similarly formed European East Indian Companies, the largest of which was the Dutch East India Company. The Company was granted status as a limited liability business.

Arthur Guinness started brewing ales from 1759 at the St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin. On 31 December 1759 he signed (up to) a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery. Ten years later on 19 May 1769 Guinness exported his ale for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to Great Britain. By 1914, Guinness was producing 2,652,000 barrels of beer a year, which was more than double that of its nearest competitor Bass, and was supplying more than 10% of the total UK beer market. In the 1930s, Guinness became the seventh largest company in the world.

On the 31^st December 1955 the General Motors Corporation became the first U.S. corporation to make over US$1 billion in a year. They’ve been through a few changes since then.

On the 31^st December 1983, the antitrust decision arrived at between the United States Government and AT&T Bell System went into effect. The Bell System was the American Bell Telephone Company and then, subsequently, AT & T led system which provided telephone services to much of the United States and Canada from 1877 to 1984, at various times as a Monopoly. As a result of the break up on 31^st December, effective from 1^st January 1984, AT&T’s local operations were split into seven independent Regional Holding Companies, also known as Regional Bell Operating Companies (RBOCs), or "Baby Bells". Afterwards, AT&T, reduced in value by approximately 70%, continued to operate all of its long-distance services, although in the ensuing years it lost portions of its market share to competitors such as MCI and Sprint.

I wonder how all that works ?