History

• An organized monetary system was introduced in 1792.Library of Congress image by dwight9592 from Fotolia.com
  
  Paper notes were used in the colonies that existed on the territory of what has been the United States since 1690. Then, in 1775, the Continental Congress introduced the Continental currency, which did not last long as there was insufficient financial backing for it. The dollar was chosen to become the monetary unit for the United States in 1785, and the Coinage Act of 1792 created an organized monetary system that introduced coinage in gold, silver, and copper. Paper notes were introduced in 1861 to help finance the Civil War.
  
  

Name

• The name dollar is thought to come from the European thaler coin.icon,dollar, $, currency, us dollar image by creative from Fotolia.com
  
  The word dollar is much older than the American unit of currency. Roy Davies, from the University of Exeter, U.K., writes that dollar is an Anglicised form of "thaler," (pronounced taler, with a long "a"), the name given to coins first minted in 1519 in Bohemia, which is today's Czech Republic. The English version of the name was later also applied to similar coins, such as the Spanish peso and the Portuguese eight-real piece. Those coins, particularly the Spanish peso, circulated widely in Britain's North American colonies because of a shortage of official British coins. That is why, after the United States gained its independence, the new nation chose "dollar" as the name of its currency instead of keeping the pound.
  
  

Design

• Dollar notes are composed of 75 percent cotton and 25 percent linen.reverse dollar note image by Simon Bradley from Fotolia.com
  
  Since the beginning, the dollar notes used several different techniques including a treasury seal and engraved signatures to help prevent counterfeiting. In order to lower manufacturing costs, the Fed decided in 1929 to reduce the size of the notes by 30 percent, and to print the same designs on all denominations. The designs of the notes were changed again in 1996 when a series of improvements were carried out over a 10-year period, again to prevent counterfeiting. The motto "In God We Trust" first appeared on U.S. coins in 1864.
  
  

The Dollar Sign

• Various theories try to explain the origin of the dollar sign.dollar symbol 3d sign image by onlinebewerbung.de from Fotolia.com
  
  One popular theory says that the sign $ is actually a narrow "U" superimposed over a wide "S. However, it is probably wrong because the sign had existed before the country called the United States was born. Another theory states that the sign came from the plural for the Spanish peso, because it was common to write abbreviated endings of words with superscript, in this case "S." If you write ps fast, you get (something like) $. A third theory has it that $ is a slashed 8, again coming from pesos, or pieces of eight.
  
  

International Significance

• The U.S. dollar is a global reserve currency.map of the world image by Cristina Cazan from Fotolia.com
  
  The U.S. dollar is the currency most used in international transactions. The Federal Reserve says that the dollar constitutes more than half of other countries' official foreign exchange reserves. Prices of main commodities, such as oil, are expressed in dollars. Also, several countries have adopted the U.S. dollar as their own official currency. They include the British Virgin Islands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador and Panama.