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The history of the United States dollar began with moves by the Founding Fathers of the United States of America to establish a national currency based on the Spanish silver dollar, which had been in use in the North American colonies of the Kingdom of Great Britain for over 100 years prior to the United States Declaration of Independence.
Early American currency went through several stages of development during the colonial and post-Revolutionary history of the United States. John Hull was authorized by the Massachusetts legislature to make the earliest coinage of the colony (the willow, the oak, and the pine tree shilling ) in 1652.
Time dollars; Fictional currencies ... British Shinplaster 1870s; United States silver coins 1868–1869; ... Old Taiwan dollar; Tibet
The crown coin was nicknamed the dollar. In 1940, an agreement with the US pegged the Pound sterling to the US dollar at a rate of £1 = US$4.03. This meaning of "dollar" is not to be confused with the British trade dollar that circulated in East Asia. In 2014, a new world record price was achieved for a milled silver crown.
The United States of America was among the first to drop the £sd system and adopt a decimal currency in 1792, 10 years after independence from the British Empire, but retains many other aspects of the customary units for length and weight. Australia, on the other hand, only changed to using a decimal currency on 14 February 1966, 65 years ...
In the US, the bit is equal to 12 + 1 ⁄ 2 ¢, a designation which dates from the colonial period, when the most common unit of currency used was the Spanish dollar, also known as "piece of eight", which was worth 8 Spanish silver reales. $ 1 ⁄ 8 or 1 silver real was 1 "bit". [1] [2]
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Calling the US dollar a piastre is still common among speakers of Cajun French and New England French. Modern French uses dollar for this unit of currency as well. The term is still used as slang for US dollars in the French-speaking Caribbean islands, most notably Haiti. Piastre is another name for kuruş, 1 ⁄ 100 of the Turkish lira.