Search Results: Roman currency

Colonial American currency was a work in progress from the time of the earliest English settlements of the 1600s until the United States of America minted its own money in 1783. The monetary system was far from standardized, and trade within...

A cast brass manilla from Nigeria, used as a currency in the kingdom of Benin (13th-19th century CE) and other West African states. Width: 6 cms. (British Museum, London)

Where did paper money come from? Despite it seeming like a modern invention, its origins go back to Ancient China. And, despite it now being hard to think of a world without paper money, in 1968, Americans could still redeem their U.S. bills...

The assignat was a paper bill issued by France between 1789 and 1796, during the French Revolution (1789-1799). First issued in the form of bonds, the assignat was meant to stimulate France's economy as a quick means to pay off national debt...

Shays' Rebellion (1786-87) was an armed insurrection by rural farmers in western and central Massachusetts, sparked by the state government's unpopular response to a debt crisis. The insurrection reached its climax when the rebels, referred...

The Parson's Cause was a legal and political controversy that arose in the British colony of Virginia in the early 1760s. In response to the royal veto of the Two Penny Act, a policy passed by Virginia's House of Burgesses, a young lawyer...

Ptolemaic Egypt rapidly established itself as an economic powerhouse of the ancient world at the end of the 4th century BCE. The wealth of Egypt was owed in large part to the unrivalled fertility of the Nile, which served as the breadbasket...

A 13th century CE wooden printing plate and paper bank note from the Chinese Yuan dynasty (1271-1368 CE). (Tokyo Currency Museum)

The Roman Empire, at its height (c. 117), was the most extensive political and social structure in western civilization. Building upon the foundation laid by the Roman Republic, the empire became the largest and most powerful political and...

The coinage of the Byzantine Empire continued that of its more ancient predecessors and functioned as a convenient method of payment for goods and services, especially to soldiers and officials, and as a means for people to pay their taxes...