The dollar became the official currency of the United States on this day in 1785. A national currency was increasingly seen as the bedrock of a sturdy economy, and the newly independent country was ready to join the club. It had actually been preceded a decade earlier by the “Continental,” a Revolutionary War-era currency issued by the Continental Congress in $2 notes. That effort collapsed quickly without any sort of official backing of its value, though. The dollar was take two.
The name came from the Spanish silver dollar, which had been one of the most commonly used currencies throughout the colonies. The dollar sign itself was an adaptation of the Spanish peso symbol.
One innovation was its base-10 system. The British pound operated on a base-12 system, so 12 of a small unit of currency equaled one of the next-largest units; had that been applied, 12 cents would make a dime, and 12 dimes would make a dollar. By making it base-10, the mental math was made a whole lot easier.
That American ingenuity was not fully appreciated by the colonists; it took decades for people to actually adopt the dollar nationwide, as it wasn’t illegal yet to use other forms of currency. Finally, the dollar was made the official national form of money in 1863.
