ShopDollar
January 22, 2009 by The Judge
Filed under Words and Phrases
In the 16th century, the present day town of Jachymov, situated in the Erzgebirge Mountains, Czechoslavakia, was known as Sankt Joachimsthal and was in Bohemia.
In 1519, under the direction of the Count of Schlick, large coins were minted there using silver from a nearby mine.
A single coin was known as Joachimstaler. This was soon shortened to taler or thaler in High German which became daler in Low German and Dutch.
16th century English used daler (also spelt as dalder, dallor or dolor) when referring to these foreign currencies and the English settlers in North America used the term to refer to the Spanish peso.
By the time Thomas Jefferson was considering a monetary unit for the United States the term DOLLAR (by this time this spelling had become fairly standard) was a known coin and familiar in the minds of most people.
Consequently, on July 6, 1785, the Continental Congress formally adopted the DOLLAR as the main unit of currency for the United States of America.
Since then, over 30 countries have adopted the term.
