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.
Watermark
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A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light, caused by thickness or density variations in the paper. Watermarks have been used on stamps, currency, and other government documents to discourage counterfeiting. There are two ways of producing watermarks in paper, the dandy roll process, and the more complex cylinder mould process. Watermarks vary greatly in their visibility, while some are obvious on casual inspection, various aids have been developed, such as watermark fluid that wets the paper without damaging it. A watermark is very useful in the examination of paper because it can be used for dating, identifying sizes, mill trademarks and locations, the word is also used for digital practices that share similarities with physical watermarks. In one case, overprint on computer-printed output may be used to output from an unlicensed trial version of a program. In another instance, identifying codes can be encoded as a watermark for a music, video, picture. Watermarks were first introduced in Fabriano, Italy, in 1282, traditionally, a watermark was made by impressing a water-coated metal stamp or dandy roll onto the paper during manufacturing. The invention of the roll in 1826 by John Marshall revolutionised the watermark process. The dandy roll is a light roller covered by similar to window screen that is embossed with a pattern. Because the chain wires are located on the outside of the wires, they have a greater influence on the impression in the pulp. This embossing is transferred to the fibres, compressing and reducing their thickness in that area. Because the patterned portion of the page is thinner, it transmits light through. If these lines are distinct and parallel, and/or there is a watermark, if the lines appear as a mesh or are indiscernible, and/or there is no watermark, then it is called wove paper. This method is called line drawing watermarks, another type of watermark is called the cylinder mould watermark. A shaded watermark, first used in 1848, incorporates tonal depth, instead of using a wire covering for the dandy roll, the shaded watermark is created by areas of relief on the rolls own surface. Once dry, the paper may then be rolled again to produce a watermark of even thickness, in philately, the watermark is a key feature of a stamp, and often constitutes the difference between a common and a rare stamp. Collectors who encounter two otherwise identical stamps with different watermarks consider each stamp to be a separate identifiable issue, the classic stamp watermark is a small crown or other national symbol, appearing either once on each stamp or a continuous pattern
3.
EURion constellation
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The EURion constellation is a pattern of symbols incorporated into a number of banknote designs worldwide since about 1996. It is added to help imaging software detect the presence of a banknote in a digital image, such software can then block the user from reproducing banknotes to prevent counterfeiting using colour photocopiers. Research shows that the EURion constellation is used for colour photocopiers, the name EURion constellation was coined by Markus Kuhn, who uncovered the pattern in early 2002 while experimenting with a Xerox colour photocopier that refused to reproduce banknotes. The word is a combination of EUR, the euros ISO4217 designation, and Orion, the EURion constellation first described by Kuhn consists of a pattern of five small yellow, green or orange circles, which is repeated across areas of the banknote at different orientations. The mere presence of five of these circles on a page is sufficient for some colour photocopiers to refuse processing, the EURion constellation is most prominent, and was therefore first recognised, on the 200210 Euro banknote. Some banks integrate the constellation tightly with the design of the note. On 50 DM German banknotes, the EURion circles formed the innermost circles in a pattern of fine concentric circles. On the front of former Bank of England Elgar £20 notes, they appear as green heads of musical notes, on some U. S. bills, they appear as the digit zero in small, yellow numbers matching the value of the note. On Japanese Yen, these circles sometimes appear as flowers, technical details regarding the EURion constellation are kept secret by its inventors and users. A patent application suggests that the pattern and detection algorithm were designed at Omron Corporation and it is also not clear whether the feature has any official name. The term Omron anti-photocopying feature appeared in an August 2005 press release by the Reserve Bank of India, in 2007 it was picked up in an award announcement by a banknote collectors society. The following table lists the banknotes on which the EURion constellation has been found so far, countries where all recent banknotes use the constellation are in bold. Since 2003, image editors such as Adobe Photoshop CS or Paint Shop Pro 8 refuse to print banknotes, however, experiments by Steven J. Murdoch and others showed that this banknote detection code does not rely on the EURion pattern. It instead detects a digital watermark embedded in the images, developed by Digimarc, the rules for currency image use Nieves, J. Ruiz-Agundez, I. Recognizing Banknote Patterns for Protecting Economic TransactionsDatabase and Expert Systems Applications,2010 Workshop on, IEEE, 247--249
4.
Optically variable ink
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Optically variable ink is an anti-counterfeiting measure used on many major modern banknotes, as well as on other official documents. The ink displays two distinct colors depending on the angle the bill is viewed at, the United States fifty-dollar bill, for example, uses color shifting ink for the numeral 50 so that it displays copper at one angle and bright green in another. OVI is particularly useful as a measure as it is not widely available. One major manufacturer is a Swiss company called SICPA, additional suppliers include Sun Chemical and the Brazilian company Sellerink, located in São Paulo, Brazil. Color-shifting inks reflect various wavelengths in white light differently, depending on the angle of incidence to the surface, an unaided eye will observe this effect as a change of color while the viewing angle is changed. A color copier or scanner can copy a document only at one fixed angle relative to the document’s surface
5.
Ulysses S. Grant
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Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States. As Commanding General, Grant worked closely with President Abraham Lincoln to lead the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy in the American Civil War and he implemented Congressional Reconstruction, often at odds with President Andrew Johnson. His presidency has often criticized for tolerating corruption and for the severe economic depression in his second term. Grant graduated in 1843 from the United States Military Academy at West Point, after the war he married Julia Boggs Dent in 1848, their marriage producing four children. Grant initially retired from the Army in 1854 and he struggled financially in civilian life. When the Civil War began in 1861, he rejoined the U. S. Army, in 1862, Grant took control of Kentucky and most of Tennessee, and led Union forces to victory in the Battle of Shiloh, earning a reputation as an aggressive commander. He incorporated displaced African American slaves into the Union war effort, in July 1863, after a series of coordinated battles, Grant defeated Confederate armies and seized Vicksburg, giving the Union control of the Mississippi River and dividing the Confederacy in two. After his victories in the Chattanooga Campaign, Lincoln promoted him to lieutenant general, Grant confronted Robert E. Lee in a series of bloody battles, trapping Lees army in their defense of Richmond. Grant coordinated a series of devastating campaigns in other theaters, as well, in April 1865, Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox, effectively ending the war. Historians have hailed Grants military genius, and his strategies are featured in history textbooks. After the Civil War, Grant led the armys supervision of Reconstruction in the former Confederate states and he also used the army to build the Republican Party in the South. After the disenfranchisement of some former Confederates, Republicans gained majorities, in his second term, the Republican coalitions in the South splintered and were defeated one by one as redeemers regained control using coercion and violence. In May 1875, Grant authorized his Secretary of Treasury Benjamin Bristow to shut down and his peace policy with the Indians initially reduced frontier violence, but is best known for the Great Sioux War of 1876. Grant responded to charges of corruption in executive offices more than any other 19th Century president and he appointed the first Civil Service Commission and signed legislation ending the corrupt moiety system. In foreign policy, Grant sought to trade and influence while remaining at peace with the world. His administration successfully resolved the Alabama claims by the Treaty of Washington with Great Britain, Grant avoided war with Spain over the Virginius Affair, but Congress rejected his attempted annexation of the Dominican Republic. His administration implemented a standard and sought to strengthen the dollar. Grant left office in 1877 and embarked on a two-year diplomatic world tour that captured the nations attention, in 1880, Grant was unsuccessful in obtaining the Republican presidential nomination for a third term
6.
United States Capitol
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The United States Capitol, often called the Capitol Building or Capitol Hill, is the home of the United States Congress, and the seat of the legislative branch of the U. S. federal government. It sits atop Capitol Hill at the end of the National Mall in Washington. Though not at the center of the Federal District, the Capitol forms the origin point for the Districts street-numbering system. The original building was completed in 1800 and was subsequently expanded, like the principal buildings of the executive and judicial branches, the Capitol is built in a distinctive neoclassical style and has a white exterior. Both its east and west elevations are referred to as fronts, though only the east front was intended for the reception of visitors. In 2014, scaffolding was erected around the dome for a project scheduled to be completed by early 2017. All exterior scaffolding was removed by the end of summer 2016, prior to establishing the nations capital in Washington, D. C. the United States Congress and its predecessors had met in Philadelphia, New York City, and a number of other locations. In September 1774, the First Continental Congress brought together delegates from the colonies in Philadelphia, followed by the Second Continental Congress, Congress requested that John Dickinson, the Governor of Pennsylvania, call up the militia to defend Congress from attacks by the protesters. In what became known as the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, Dickinson sympathized with the protesters and refused to remove them from Philadelphia. As a result, Congress was forced to flee to Princeton, New Jersey, on June 21,1783, and met in Annapolis, Maryland, the United States Congress was established upon ratification of the United States Constitution and formally began on March 4,1789. New York City remained home to Congress until July 1790, when the Residence Act was passed to pave the way for a permanent capital. As part of the legislation, Philadelphia was chosen as a capital for ten years, until the nations capital in Washington. Pierre Charles LEnfant was given the task of creating the city plan for the new capital city, in reviewing LEnfants plan, Thomas Jefferson insisted the legislative building be called the Capitol rather than Congress House. The word Capitol comes from Latin and is associated with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on Capitoline Hill, the connection between the two is not, however, crystal clear. In spring 1792, United States Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson proposed a competition to solicit designs for the Capitol and the Presidents House. The prize for the competition was $500 and a lot in the Federal City, the most promising of the submissions was by Stephen Hallet, a trained French architect. However, Hallets designs were overly fancy, with too much French influence, a late entry by amateur architect William Thornton was submitted on January 31,1793, to much praise for its Grandeur, Simplicity, and Beauty by Washington, along with praise from Thomas Jefferson. Thornton was inspired by the east front of the Louvre, as well as the Paris Pantheon for the portion of the design
7.
United States Note
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A United States Note, also known as a Legal Tender Note, is a type of paper money that was issued from 1862 to 1971 in the U. S. Having been current for more than 100 years, they were issued for longer than any form of U. S. paper money. They were known popularly as greenbacks, a name inherited from the earlier greenbacks, the Demand Notes, often termed Legal Tender Notes, they were named United States Notes by the First Legal Tender Act, which authorized them as a form of fiat currency. They were originally issued directly into circulation by the U. S. Treasury to pay expenses incurred by the Union during the American Civil War, during the next century, the legislation governing these notes was modified many times and numerous versions were issued by the Treasury. S. Treasury Seals and serial numbers in place of green ones, existing United States Notes remain valid currency in the United States, however, as no United States Notes have been issued since January 1971, they are increasingly rare in circulation. The Act of July 17,1861 authorized United States Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase to raise money via the issuance of $50,000,000 in Treasury Notes payable on demand. These Demand Notes were paid to creditors directly and used to meet the payroll of soldiers in the field. While issued within the framework of Treasury Note Debt, the Demand Notes were intended to circulate as currency and were of the same size as banknotes. During December 1861, economic conditions deteriorated and a suspension of specie payment caused the government to cease redeeming the Demand Notes as coins, the beginning of 1862 found the Unions expenses increasing, and the government was having trouble funding the escalating war. Demand Notes—which were used, among other things, to pay Union soldiers—were unredeemable, congressman and Buffalo banker Elbridge G. Spaulding prepared a bill, based on the Free Banking Law of New York, that eventually became the National Banking Act of 1863. This caused tremendous controversy in Congress, as hitherto the Constitution had been interpreted as not granting the government the power to issue a paper currency. Spaulding justified the action as a means of carrying into execution the powers granted in the Constitution to raise and support armies. Initially, the emission was limited to $150,000,000 total face value between the new Legal Tender Notes and the existing Demand Notes, the Act also intended for the new notes to be used to replace the Demand Notes as soon as practical. The Demand Notes had been issued in denominations of $5, $10, and $20, in addition, notes of entirely new design were introduced in denominations of $50, $100, $500 and $1000. The Demand Notes printed promise of payment On Demand was removed, Legal tender status guaranteed that creditors would have to accept the notes despite the fact that they were not backed by gold, bank deposits, or government reserves, and had no interest. The Act did provide that the notes be receivable by the government for short term deposits at 5% interest, the rationale for these terms was that the Union government would preserve its credit-worthiness by supporting the value of its bonds by paying their interest in gold. Lastly, by making the bonds available for purchase at par in United States Notes, the limitations of the legal tender status were quite controversial. This controversy would continue until the removal of the exceptions during 1933, the largest amount of greenbacks outstanding at any one time was calculated as $447,300,203.10
8.
Benjamin Franklin
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Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Franklin was a polymath and a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, freemason, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman. As a scientist, he was a figure in the American Enlightenment. As an inventor, he is known for the rod, bifocals. He facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphias fire department and the University of Pennsylvania, Franklin earned the title of The First American for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity, initially as an author and spokesman in London for several colonies. As the first United States Ambassador to France, he exemplified the emerging American nation, in the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, In a Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat. To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin the most accomplished American of his age, Franklin became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette at the age of 23. He became wealthy publishing this and Poor Richards Almanack, which he authored under the pseudonym Richard Saunders, after 1767, he was associated with the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies. He pioneered and was first president of The Academy and College of Philadelphia which opened in 1751 and he organized and was the first secretary of the American Philosophical Society and was elected president in 1769. Franklin became a hero in America as an agent for several colonies when he spearheaded an effort in London to have the Parliament of Great Britain repeal the unpopular Stamp Act. An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts proved vital for the American Revolution in securing shipments of crucial munitions from France, during the Revolution, he became the first US Postmaster General. He was active in community affairs and colonial and state politics, from 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. He initially owned and dealt in slaves but, by the 1750s, he argued against slavery from an economic perspective, Franklins father, Josiah Franklin, was a tallow chandler, a soap-maker and a candle-maker. Josiah was born at Ecton, Northamptonshire, England on December 23,1657, the son of Thomas Franklin, a blacksmith-farmer, and Jane White. His mother, Abiah Folger, was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on August 15,1667, to Peter Folger, a miller and schoolteacher, and his wife, Mary Morrill, Josiah Franklin had seventeen children with his two wives. He married his first wife, Anne Child, in about 1677 in Ecton and emigrated with her to Boston in 1683, after her death, Josiah was married to Abiah Folger on July 9,1689 in the Old South Meeting House by Samuel Willard. Benjamin, their child, was Josiah Franklins fifteenth child and tenth
9.
Denomination (currency)
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Denomination is a proper description of a currency amount, usually for coins or banknotes. Denominations may also be used other means of payment like gift cards. For example, five euros is the denomination of a five euro note, in a currency, there is usually a main unit, and a subunit that is a fraction of the main unit. In some countries, there are levels of subunits. In the former Ottoman Empire,1 lira =100 kuruş =4000 para =12000 akçe, today, only a few places have more than one subunit, notably Chinese speaking regions, the mainland China, the Hong Kong, and Republic of Chinas. In addition, the Jordanian dinar is divided into 10 dirham,100 qirsh/piastres, many countries where Western European languages are spoken currently have their main units divided into 100 subunits. Some currencies that previously had no longer do, because inflation has rendered the subunit useless. A prominent example is the Japanese yen, which was divided into 100 sen or 1000 rin. Both subunits were demonetized at the end of 1953, occasionally, a super unit is used as a multiple of the main unit. Examples include Korean won =5 yang in 1893, Iranian toman 10 rials, in the Ottoman Empire, lira and kuruş were super units at some point before becoming the main unit. A decimal currency is a currency where the ratio between the unit and the subunit is an integral power of 10. Non-decimal currencies are now rare but had advantages in daily life transactions. For example,1 South German Gulden =60 Kreuzer,60 can be divided into 2,3,4,5,6,10,12,15,20 or 30 parts that are still integers, making pricing easy. This advantage and the lack of widespread accurate weighing apparatus coupled with tradition were the reasons why non-decimal currencies were used, in theory, two countries currently use non-decimal currency, Mauritania and Madagascar. In practice, however, the value of the unit in each case is so low that the sub-unit is not of any practical use and is rarely seen in circulation. The last major countries to use non-decimal currencies in practice were the United Kingdom, Ireland, Malta, the average number of coins needed to make change. It is common to name a unit with a unit of weight, such as pound, lira, in most cases, these currencies were originally defined as that amount of some precious metal. Another choice of name is some form of derivative of the political entity, the Afghan afghani and European euro fall into this category
