Anniversary Celebrations

An anniversary is commonly associated with weddings. Married persons who regard the date of their marriage as important may mark the yearly date of their wedding in some special way.

Broader groups in society, especially the families, and even more especially the children of such a couple, may help to celebrate such occasions; this is particularly common on the 40th, 50th, and 60th annivs.

Retailers (especially jewellers), sensing a profit opportunity, have encouraged gift-giving on such special days, and may often suggest a hierarchy of types of gifts to reflect the importance of longer years of marriage (and perhaps of greater ability to purchase more expensive gifts).

Economy
The 2004 total gross state product was $187 billion. If Arizona (and each of the other US states) were an independent country along with all existing countries (2005), it would have the 61st largest economy in the world (CIA - The World Factbook). This figure gives Arizona a larger economy than such countries as Norway, Denmark, Czech Republic, Ireland, Finland, and New Zealand. Arizona currently has the 21st largest economy among states in the U.S..

The state's per capita income is $27,232, 39th in the U.S. Early in its history, Arizona's economy relied on the "Five C's": copper, cotton, cattle, citrus, and climate (tourism). At one point Arizona was the largest producer of cotton in the country. Copper is still extensively mined from many expansive open-pit and underground mines, accounting for two-thirds of the nation's output.

Employment
The state government is Arizona's largest employer, while Wal-Mart is the state's largest private employer, with 17,343 employees (2003). Arizona lost much of its comparative advantage as a high-tech industry leader between 1990 and 2001, according to a state Department of Commerce report.

In 2001, 161,166 Arizonans were employed in the high-tech sector, accounting for about 8.3 percent of total private-sector employment of more than 1.9 million. High-tech payroll in 2001 was $2.2 billion, or 14.7 percent of the private-sector total. High-tech employment was led by software and computers, with 34,314; electronics components manufacturing, 30,358; aerospace manufacturing, 25,641; architectural and engineering services, 21,378; telecommunications, 21,224; and instruments manufacturing, 13,056.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/