The origin of the dollar
A mining hole in the mountains of Bohemia produced so much silver it became the official source of coinage for the entire Holy Roman Empire.
The mine was in a valley called Joachimsthal, and the coins came to have the same name: “Joachimstalers.” Over time this became shortened to “Talers” and over more time, the American pronunciation of the word became the name for the currency that you would like to have in your pocket.
The above image is the silver coin first struck as a “Guldiner” in 1486 in Tyrol. The name “Taler” was first given to the silver coin of the same size struck in Joachimstal in Bohemia.
The $ sign
The $ sign was designed in 1788 by Oliver Pollock, a New Orleans businessman, using a combination of Spanish money symbols.
The $ sign is used in many countries other than the United States, including the use for the Argentine peso, Brazilian real, Cape Verde escudo, Chilean peso, Colombian peso, Cuban peso, Dominican peso, Mexican peso, Tongan pa’anga and Uruguayan peso.
Some countries trade their currency as dollars but with different symbols: Australia, Bahamas, Canada, Liberia and others.
Weight of $1 million
If you stack one million US$1 bills, it would be 361 ft (110 m) high and weight exactly 1 ton.
A million dollars’ worth of $100 bills weighs only 22 lb (10 kg).
One million dollars’ worth of once-cent coins (100 million coins) weighs 246 tons.
