1.
United States dollar
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The United States dollar is the official currency of the United States and its insular territories per the United States Constitution. It is divided into 100 smaller cent units, the circulating paper money consists of Federal Reserve Notes that are denominated in United States dollars. The U. S. dollar was originally commodity money of silver as enacted by the Coinage Act of 1792 which determined the dollar to be 371 4/16 grain pure or 416 grain standard silver, the currency most used in international transactions, it is the worlds primary reserve currency. Several countries use it as their currency, and in many others it is the de facto currency. Besides the United States, it is used as the sole currency in two British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean, the British Virgin Islands and Turks and Caicos Islands. A few countries use the Federal Reserve Notes for paper money, while the country mints its own coins, or also accepts U. S. coins that can be used as payment in U. S. dollars. After Nixon shock of 1971, USD became fiat currency, Article I, Section 8 of the U. S. Constitution provides that the Congress has the power To coin money, laws implementing this power are currently codified at 31 U. S. C. Section 5112 prescribes the forms in which the United States dollars should be issued and these coins are both designated in Section 5112 as legal tender in payment of debts. The Sacagawea dollar is one example of the copper alloy dollar, the pure silver dollar is known as the American Silver Eagle. Section 5112 also provides for the minting and issuance of other coins and these other coins are more fully described in Coins of the United States dollar. The Constitution provides that a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and that provision of the Constitution is made specific by Section 331 of Title 31 of the United States Code. The sums of money reported in the Statements are currently being expressed in U. S. dollars, the U. S. dollar may therefore be described as the unit of account of the United States. The word dollar is one of the words in the first paragraph of Section 9 of Article I of the Constitution, there, dollars is a reference to the Spanish milled dollar, a coin that had a monetary value of 8 Spanish units of currency, or reales. In 1792 the U. S. Congress passed a Coinage Act, Section 20 of the act provided, That the money of account of the United States shall be expressed in dollars, or units. And that all accounts in the offices and all proceedings in the courts of the United States shall be kept and had in conformity to this regulation. In other words, this act designated the United States dollar as the unit of currency of the United States, unlike the Spanish milled dollar the U. S. dollar is based upon a decimal system of values. Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the form is significantly more common
2.
Gold
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Gold is a chemical element with symbol Au and atomic number 79. In its purest form, it is a bright, slightly yellow, dense, soft, malleable. Chemically, gold is a metal and a group 11 element. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements and is solid under standard conditions, Gold often occurs in free elemental form, as nuggets or grains, in rocks, in veins, and in alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the element silver and also naturally alloyed with copper. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium, golds atomic number of 79 makes it one of the higher numbered, naturally occurring elements. It is thought to have produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, from the collision of neutron stars. Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia, a mixture of acid and hydrochloric acid. Gold also dissolves in solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, but this is not a chemical reaction, as a precious metal, gold has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other arts throughout recorded history. A total of 186,700 tonnes of gold is in existence above ground, the world consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold is also used in infrared shielding, colored-glass production, gold leafing, certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatories in medicine. As of 2014, the worlds largest gold producer by far was China with 450 tonnes, Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃-. The symbol Au is from the Latin, aurum, the Latin word for gold, the Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning glow. This word is derived from the root as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word Aurora. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant shining dawn, Gold is the most malleable of all metals, a single gram can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square meter, and an avoirdupois ounce into 300 square feet. Gold leaf can be thin enough to become semi-transparent
3.
Silver
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Silver is a metallic element with symbol Ag and atomic number 47. The symbol Ag stems from Latin argentum, derived from the Greek ὰργὀς, a soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical conductivity, thermal conductivity, and reflectivity of any metal. The metal is found in the Earths crust in the pure, free form, as an alloy with gold and other metals. Most silver is produced as a byproduct of copper, gold, lead, Silver is more abundant than gold, but it is much less abundant as a native metal. Its purity is measured on a per mille basis, a 94%-pure alloy is described as 0.940 fine. As one of the seven metals of antiquity, silver has had a role in most human cultures. Silver has long valued as a precious metal. Silver metal is used in many premodern monetary systems in bullion coins, Silver is used in numerous applications other than currency, such as solar panels, water filtration, jewelry, ornaments, high-value tableware and utensils, and as an investment medium. Silver is used industrially in electrical contacts and conductors, in specialized mirrors, window coatings, Silver compounds are used in photographic film and X-rays. Dilute silver nitrate solutions and other compounds are used as disinfectants and microbiocides, added to bandages and wound-dressings, catheters. Silver is similar in its physical and chemical properties to its two neighbours in group 11 of the periodic table, copper and gold. This distinctive electron configuration, with an electron in the highest occupied s subshell over a filled d subshell. Silver is a soft, ductile and malleable transition metal. Silver crystallizes in a cubic lattice with bulk coordination number 12. Unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in silver are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak and this observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of silver. Silver has a brilliant white metallic luster that can take a polish. Protected silver has greater optical reflectivity than aluminium at all wavelengths longer than ~450 nm, at wavelengths shorter than 450 nm, silvers reflectivity is inferior to that of aluminium and drops to zero near 310 nm. The electrical conductivity of silver is the greatest of all metals, greater even than copper, during World War II in the US,13540 tons of silver were used in electromagnets for enriching uranium, mainly because of the wartime shortage of copper
4.
Copper
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Copper is a chemical element with symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with high thermal and electrical conductivity. A freshly exposed surface of copper has a reddish-orange color. Copper is one of the few metals that occur in nature in directly usable metallic form as opposed to needing extraction from an ore and this led to very early human use, from c.8000 BC. Copper used in buildings, usually for roofing, oxidizes to form a green verdigris, Copper is sometimes used in decorative art, both in its elemental metal form and in compounds as pigments. Copper compounds are used as agents, fungicides, and wood preservatives. Copper is essential to all living organisms as a trace dietary mineral because it is a key constituent of the enzyme complex cytochrome c oxidase. In molluscs and crustaceans, copper is a constituent of the blood pigment hemocyanin, replaced by the hemoglobin in fish. In humans, copper is found mainly in the liver, muscle, the adult body contains between 1.4 and 2.1 mg of copper per kilogram of body weight. The filled d-shells in these elements contribute little to interatomic interactions, unlike metals with incomplete d-shells, metallic bonds in copper are lacking a covalent character and are relatively weak. This observation explains the low hardness and high ductility of single crystals of copper, at the macroscopic scale, introduction of extended defects to the crystal lattice, such as grain boundaries, hinders flow of the material under applied stress, thereby increasing its hardness. For this reason, copper is supplied in a fine-grained polycrystalline form. The softness of copper partly explains its high conductivity and high thermal conductivity. The maximum permissible current density of copper in open air is approximately 3. 1×106 A/m2 of cross-sectional area, Copper is one of a few metallic elements with a natural color other than gray or silver. Pure copper is orange-red and acquires a reddish tarnish when exposed to air, as with other metals, if copper is put in contact with another metal, galvanic corrosion will occur. A green layer of verdigris can often be seen on old structures, such as the roofing of many older buildings. Copper tarnishes when exposed to sulfur compounds, with which it reacts to form various copper sulfides. There are 29 isotopes of copper, 63Cu and 65Cu are stable, with 63Cu comprising approximately 69% of naturally occurring copper, both have a spin of 3⁄2
5.
Bust (sculpture)
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A bust is a sculpted or cast representation of the upper part of the human figure, depicting a persons head and neck, and a variable portion of the chest and shoulders. The piece is supported by a plinth. These forms recreate the likeness of an individual and these may be of any medium used for sculpture, such as marble, bronze, terracotta or wood. A parallel term, aust, is a representation of the part of an animal or mythical creature. Sculptural portrait heads from classical antiquity are sometimes displayed as busts, however, these are often fragments from full-body statues, or were created to be inserted into an existing body, these portrait heads are not included in this article. Herma Portraiture Livius. org, Bust gallery of famous ancient Greeks Oxford definition Dictionary. com definition
6.
Star
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A star is a luminous sphere of plasma held together by its own gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, many other stars are visible to the naked eye from Earth during the night, appearing as a multitude of fixed luminous points in the sky due to their immense distance from Earth. Historically, the most prominent stars were grouped into constellations and asterisms, astronomers have assembled star catalogues that identify the known stars and provide standardized stellar designations. However, most of the stars in the Universe, including all stars outside our galaxy, indeed, most are invisible from Earth even through the most powerful telescopes. Almost all naturally occurring elements heavier than helium are created by stellar nucleosynthesis during the stars lifetime, near the end of its life, a star can also contain degenerate matter. Astronomers can determine the mass, age, metallicity, and many properties of a star by observing its motion through space, its luminosity. The total mass of a star is the factor that determines its evolution. Other characteristics of a star, including diameter and temperature, change over its life, while the environment affects its rotation. A plot of the temperature of stars against their luminosities produces a plot known as a Hertzsprung–Russell diagram. Plotting a particular star on that allows the age and evolutionary state of that star to be determined. A stars life begins with the collapse of a gaseous nebula of material composed primarily of hydrogen, along with helium. When the stellar core is sufficiently dense, hydrogen becomes steadily converted into helium through nuclear fusion, the remainder of the stars interior carries energy away from the core through a combination of radiative and convective heat transfer processes. The stars internal pressure prevents it from collapsing further under its own gravity, a star with mass greater than 0.4 times the Suns will expand to become a red giant when the hydrogen fuel in its core is exhausted. In some cases, it will fuse heavier elements at the core or in shells around the core, as the star expands it throws a part of its mass, enriched with those heavier elements, into the interstellar environment, to be recycled later as new stars. Meanwhile, the core becomes a remnant, a white dwarf. Binary and multi-star systems consist of two or more stars that are bound and generally move around each other in stable orbits. When two such stars have a close orbit, their gravitational interaction can have a significant impact on their evolution. Stars can form part of a much larger gravitationally bound structure, historically, stars have been important to civilizations throughout the world
7.
Coins of the United States dollar
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Coins of the United States dollar were first minted in 1792. New coins have been produced annually since then and they make up an aspect of the United States currency system. Today, circulating coins exist in denominations of 1¢, 5¢, 10¢, 25¢, 50¢, also minted are bullion and commemorative coins. All of these are produced by the United States Mint, the coins are then sold to Federal Reserve Banks which in turn are responsible for putting coins into circulation and withdrawing them as demanded by the countrys economy. Today four mints operate in the United States producing billions of coins each year, the main mint is the Philadelphia Mint, which produces circulating coinage, mint sets and some commemorative coins. The Denver Mint also produces circulating coinage, mint sets and commemoratives, the San Francisco Mint produces regular and silver proof coinage, and produced circulating coinage until the 1970s. The West Point Mint produces bullion coinage, Philadelphia and Denver produce the dies used at all of the mints. The proof and mint sets are manufactured each year and contain examples of all of the circulating coins. The producing mint of each coin may be identified, as most coins bear a mint mark. The identifying letter of the mint can be found on the front side of most coins, unmarked coins are issued by the Philadelphia mint. The mass and composition of the cent changed to the current copper plated zinc core in 1982, both types were minted in 1982 with no distinguishing mark. Cents minted in 1943 were struck on planchets punched from zinc coated steel which left the resulting edges uncoated and this caused many of these coins to rust. These steel pennies are not likely to be found in circulation today, the wheat cent was mainstream and common during its time. Some dates are rare, but many can still be found in circulation, nickels produced from mid-1942 through 1945 were manufactured from 56% copper, 35% silver and 9% manganese. This allowed the saved nickel metal to be shifted to production of military supplies during World War II. Few of these are found in circulation. Prior to 1965 and passage of the Coinage Act of 1965 the composition of the dime, quarter, half-dollar and dollar coins was 90% silver, the half-dollar continued to be minted in a 40% silver-clad composition between 1965 and 1970. Dimes and quarters from before 1965 and half-dollars from before 1971 are generally not in circulation due to being removed for their silver content, in 1975 and 1976 bicentennial coinage was minted
8.
Dollar
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Dollar is the name of more than twenty currencies, including those of the United States, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Liberia, Jamaica and Namibia. Generally, one dollar is divided into one hundred cents, on 15 January 1520, the Czech Kingdom of Bohemia began minting coins from silver mined locally in Joachimsthal and marked on reverse with the Czech lion. The coins were called joachimsthaler, which became shortened in common usage to thaler or taler, the German name Joachimsthal literally means Joachims valley or Joachims dale. A later Dutch coin also depicting a lion was called the leeuwendaler or leeuwendaalder, the Dutch Republic produced these coins to accommodate its booming international trade. The leeuwendaler circulated throughout the Middle East and was imitated in several German and Italian cities and this coin was also popular in the Dutch East Indies and in the Dutch New Netherland Colony. It was in throughout the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th. The currencies of Romania and Bulgaria are, to this day, the modern American-English pronunciation of dollar is still remarkably close to the 17th century Dutch pronunciation of daler. Some well-worn examples circulating in the Colonies were known as dog dollars, Spanish pesos – having the same weight and shape – came to be known as Spanish dollars. By the time of the American Revolution, Spanish dollars gained significance because they backed paper money authorized by the individual colonies, common in the Thirteen Colonies, Spanish dollars were even legal tender in one colony, Virginia. On April 2,1792, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton reported to Congress the precise amount of found in Spanish dollar coins in common use in the states. As a result, the United States dollar was defined as a unit of silver weighing 371 4/16th grains. It was specified that the money of account of the United States should be expressed in those same dollars or parts thereof, in an act passed in January 1837, the dollars alloy was set at 15%. Subsequent coins would contain the amount of pure silver as previously. On February 21,1853, the quantity of silver in the coins was reduced. However, the dollars constitutional meaning has remained unchanged through the years, silver was mostly removed from U. S. coinage by 1965 and the dollar became a free-floating fiat currency without a commodity backing defined in terms of real gold or silver. The US Mint continues to make silver $1-denomination coins, but these are not intended for general circulation, there are many quotes in the plays of William Shakespeare referring to dollars as money. This might be supported by a reference to the sum of ten dollars in Macbeth. In 1804, a British five-shilling piece, or crown, was sometimes called dollar and it was an overstruck Spanish eight real coin, the original of which was known as a Spanish dollar
9.
Gobrecht dollar
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The Gobrecht dollar, minted from 1836 to 1839, was the first silver dollar struck for circulation by the United States Mint since production of that denomination was officially halted in 1806. The coin was struck in numbers to determine whether the reintroduced silver dollar would be well received by the public. In 1835, Director of the United States Mint Samuel Moore resigned his post, shortly after, Patterson began an attempt to redesign the nations coinage. After Mint Chief Engraver William Kneass suffered a stroke later that year, on August 1, Patterson wrote a letter to Philadelphia artist Thomas Sully laying out his plans for the dollar coin. He also asked Titian Peale to create a design for the coin, Sully created an obverse design depicting a seated representation of Liberty and Peale a reverse depicting a soaring bald eagle, which were converted into coin designs by Gobrecht. After the designs were created and trials struck, production of the working dies began in September 1836. In January 1837, the standard for the percentage of precious metal in silver coins was changed from 89. 2% to 90%. In total,1,900 Gobrecht dollars were struck during the production run. Production of the Seated Liberty dollar, which utilized the same design as the Gobrecht dollar. In the 1850s, Mint officials controversially re-struck the coins without authorization, the first silver dollars struck by the United States Mint were minted in 1794. In 1806, then Secretary of State James Madison issued an order officially halting mintage of the coins, in 1831, Mint Director Samuel Moore noticed a reversal, a large shipment of Spanish dollars had recently been shipped from Canton to the United States. Later that year, President Andrew Jackson, at Moores request, no further action was taken until the summer of 1834, when officials suggested that proof coin sets be prepared as gifts for Asian dignitaries. After examining Mint records, personnel incorrectly concluded that the last Draped Bust dollars minted were dated 1804 and it is unknown precisely how many 1804 dollars were struck, though eight are known to be extant. In June 1835, Moore resigned his post as director, and was replaced by Robert M. Patterson, Mint Chief Engraver Kneass prepared a sketch based on Pattersons conception, but soon suffered a stroke, leaving him partially incapacitated. In a letter dated August 1,1835, Patterson proposed that Sully create a Seated Liberty figure for the obverse, suggesting that the figure be in a sitting posture—sitting, for example, on a rock. Patterson also suggested that the figure should hold in her right hand a pileus atop a pole to be emblematic of Liberty. Patterson preferred a soaring eagle because he believed that the heraldic eagle used on American coins. In September 1835, Thomas Sully received from Patterson a set of British coins, Sully sent Patterson three rough sketches near the beginning of October, and those were given to Gobrecht, who in turn set about making a copper engraving of the design
10.
Latin Monetary Union
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It was established in 1865 and disbanded in 1927. Many countries minted coins according to the LMU standard even though they did not formally accede to the LMU treaty, by treaty dated 23 December 1865, France, Belgium, Italy, and Switzerland formed the Latin Monetary Union. They agreed to a gold and silver standard with a gold-to-silver ratio of 15.5 to 1 as established in the French Franc. One LMU Franc represented 4.5 grams of silver or 0.290322 gram of fine gold. The treaty required that all four contracting states strike freely exchangeable gold coins, before the treaty, for example, the fineness of the silver coins in the four states varied from 0.800 to 0.900. The treaty required that the largest silver coin of 5 francs be struck 0.900 fine, the agreement came into force on 1 August 1866. The LMU served the function of facilitating trade between different countries by setting the standards by which gold and silver currency could be minted and exchanged. In this manner a French trader could accept Italian lire for his goods with confidence that it could be converted back to an amount of francs. Following the International Monetary Conference of 1867, the four nations were joined by Greece on April 10,1867. Greece took advantage of a clause in the treaty that guaranteed admission of foreign states that agreed to abide by the treaty, spain and Romania also considered joining. The discussions broke off unsuccessfully, but both countries made a attempt to conform their currencies to the LMU standard. Austria-Hungary thereafter minted some but not all of its gold coins on the LMU standard, including the 4 and 8 gulden, in 1904, the Danish West Indies were also placed on this standard but did not join the Union itself. Albania did not however mint its own coins, or issue its own paper money until it adopted an independent monetary system in 1925, from the beginning, fluctuations in the relative value of gold and silver on the world market stressed the currency union. This is today recognized as an effect of a currency based on bimetalism when precious metal prices fluctuate. When the LMU was formed in 1865, silver was nearing the end of a period of high valuation compared to gold, in 1873 the value of silver dropped significantly, followed by a sharp increase in silver imports in the LMU countries, particularly in France and Belgium. By 1873, the value of silver made it profitable to mint silver in exchange for gold at the Unions standard rate of 15.5 ounces to 1. Indeed, in all of 1871 and 1872 the French mint had received just 5,000,000 francs of silver for conversion to coin, but in 1873 alone received 154,000,000 francs. Fearing an influx of silver coinage, the nations of the Union agreed in Paris on January 30,1874
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