Last year the Sanitation Department's operating costs broke the billion-dollar mark for the first time.

Last year the university announced plans to raise $1 billion in private donations, the first public college in the nation to try to break the billion-dollar mark.

It was the first movie to reach the billion-dollar mark.

In fiscal year 1918, annual internal revenue collections for the first time passed the billion-dollar mark, rising to $5.4 billion by 1920.

The total sums that were set in movement reached and probably surpassed the billion-dollar mark.

Q. Why is it so critical to achieve exponential revenue growth to the billion-dollar mark?

Q. Where should the inflection point be for companies expecting to reach the billion-dollar mark?

They projected that with large corporate donations still being made, the donations could exceed the billion-dollar mark in a few weeks.

With an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, it was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark.

And revenue for the first time broke the billion-dollar mark for a quarter, more than twice the level in the fourth quarter of 2003.