Short answers, pulled from the story.
Luca Pacioli, an Italian mathematician and Franciscan friar, published the first detailed description of the double-entry bookkeeping system in 1494 in his book the Summa de arithmetica. The system had been developed in medieval Europe, particularly in Venice, before Pacioli gave it a fixed, published form. He is known as the "Father of Accounting."
Accounting is thousands of years old, with evidence traced to ancient Mesopotamia, where it developed alongside writing and money. Early forms of bookkeeping also existed in ancient Iran, and auditing systems were in use among the Egyptians and Babylonians. By the time of Emperor Augustus, the Roman government already had access to detailed financial information.
Arthur Andersen dissolved following the Enron scandal. Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in December 2001 after irregular accounting procedures conducted throughout the 1990s came to light. Andersen's role as Enron's auditor made it the biggest audit failure in history, reducing the dominant Big Five accounting firms to four.
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was passed in the United States in 2002 in response to the Enron scandal and related financial frauds involving companies such as WorldCom, Qwest, and Sunbeam. It significantly raised criminal penalties for securities fraud and for destroying, altering, or fabricating records in federal investigations. The act arose from the first admissions of fraudulent behavior made by Enron.
Financial accounting produces reports for external users such as investors, creditors, and regulators, and statements are often published six to ten months after the accounting period ends. Management accounting serves internal users within an organization, producing both historical reports and forward-looking documents such as budgets, and it is not required to follow generally accepted accounting principles.
The International Accounting Standards Board's International Financial Reporting Standards have been implemented by 147 countries. As of 2012, all major economies had plans to converge toward or adopt the IFRS. The standards are issued by the IASB alongside national standards set by bodies such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board in the United States.