Dollar

History of the currency

The word “dollar” finds its origin in the village of Bohemia of Sankt-Joachimsthal. Towards the end of the Moyen-âge, one discovered a money mine there, which made it possible to strike, towards 1486 or 1518, a currency of this metal, the joachimsthaler , quickly shortened in Thaler .

This currency was spread in the empire of the Habsbourg. The Thaler S were used in many German States (Bremen, Brunswick, Hanover, Mecklembourg-Schwerin, Mecklembourg-Strelitz, Oldenbourg, Prussia, Saxony). This name is also at the origin of the name of the Slovenien Tolar . With died of the empress Marie-Therese in 1780, a very important stock of thalers Austrian, which had just been struck, was sold with small monarchies of the area of Yemen, they were used like currency of exchange up to one recent period.

This currency also spread in Latin America, where it became the dólar .

The first American dollar, was printed in 1690 by the colony of the Massachusetts, but its design was very different because it resembled the revolutionary assignats. When the the United States acquired their independence, they took for currency the dollar . Since, their powers economic and financial contributed to the propagation of the name in other areas of the world. The use of the S doubly barred ($) has two explanations:

most probably, it comes from name " Spanish pillar dollar" when the Spaniards brought Thaler center-European to Americas. The Spanish armorial bearings, which were reproduced on the money dollars, reveal two columns, representation heraldic of the Pillars of Hercules.
According to another assumption, which seems whimsical, the initials $ would come from the US abbreviation for " United States" , two letters being superimposed. The " U" ended up being replaced by two bars for typographical reasons of constraints.

Anecdotes

With the Quebec, the dollar is popularly called Piastre (delivery piasse ). The piastre (and the penny) were the monetary unit which had course in Canada before the arrival of the British.

To maintain its image magic and fantastic world, the Walt Disney Company made print Disney Dollar with Disney characters instead of the US presidents. It is of value equivalent to the American dollar with like person in charge of the treasure Scrooge McDuck ( Uncle Picsou ).

See too

Dollar (symbol)

Simple: Dollar

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