The 'Dollar' is named after the grandfather of Jesus

Greenbacks', 'bucks',' moola ',' dough ',' bacon ' are slang words that are so popular in today's life that there is no need to know that there are more than twenty countries in the world Call their currency 'dollar'. But few know the origin of the name 'dollar' which is the relative name of Mary, grandfather of Jesus: St. Johnakim.

In order to understand why the dollar is named after St. Johnakim , it is necessary to know the context of the European economy at the end of the 15th century. Most of the European currency was devalued because of continuous wars across the continent and also because of trade, the precious metals flowed to the Far East in exchange for spices and silk. And so the European currency is poor, with very few precious metals.

The story begins in the city of Joachimsthal , named after St. Johnakim , in the Kingdom of Bohemia, today the Czech Republic. At a time when most European countries lacked precious metals, rich silver mines were discovered in this city. The earl of the city, Hieronymus Schlick, ordered the casting of new coins with silver from mines. These coins have the image of St. Johnakim on this side and the lion on the other side, first cast in 1518.

Copper "Joachimsthaler" was cast in 1525.

William Lyman Fawcett recounted in his book published in 1879 under the title ' Gold and Debt; an American Handbook of Finance ', he wrote that these new currencies ' have a homogeneous weight and age, because merchants at that time wanted something of international standard, soon after, those This coin is famous throughout Europe with the name of the silver coin of Schlicken (Schlicken thalers) or the silver coin of Saint Gioakim (Joachim's thalers) '.

Finally, the name Joachimsthaler gradually reduced to taler in German, and from that came from the daler to call the silver coin. In the mid-sixteenth century, English accepted this German word into its language as "dollar" : a word for many forms of currency throughout Europe, originating from the name of St. Johnakim.