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The dollar (represented by the in several countries, dependencies and other regions. The United States Dollar is the world's most widely circulated currency. HISTORY The name ''Thaler'' (from ''thal,'' or nowadays usually ''tal,'' "valley") came from the German coin ''Guldengroschen'' ("great gulden", being of Silver but equal in value to a Gold gulden), minted from the silver from a rich mine at Joachimsthal - Jáchymov (St. Joachim's Valley) in Bohemia (then part of the Holy Roman Empire , now part of the Czech Republic ). The name is related to the Tolar in Bohemia , Daalder in the Netherlands and Daler in Sweden , Denmark , and Norway . The name " Spanish Dollar " was used for a Spanish coin, the Peso , worth eight reals (hence the Nickname "pieces of eight"), which was widely circulated during the 18th Century in the Spanish Colonies In The New World . The use of the Spanish dollar and the Maria Theresa thaler as legal tender for the early United States are the reasons for the name of the nation's currency. However, the word ''dollar'' was in use in the English Language for the thaler for about 200 years before the American Revolution . Spanish dollars were in circulation in the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States, and were Legal Tender in Virginia . Coins known as dollars were also in use in Scotland during the 17th Century , and there is a claim that the use of the English word, and perhaps even the use of the coin, began at the University Of St Andrews . This explains why the sum of 'Ten thousand dollars' mentioned in Macbeth (Act I, Scene II) is not an Anachronism . In the early 19th century, a British five-shilling piece, or Crown , was sometimes called a dollar, probably because its appearance was similar to the Spanish dollar. This expression appeared again in the 1940s, when U.S. troops came to the UK during World War II . At the time a U.S. dollar was worth exactly 5s., so some of the U.S. soldiers started calling it a dollar. Consequently, they called the Half Crown "half a dollar", and the expression caught on among some locals and could be heard into the 1960s. In the early days of the United States, the dollar was a defined unit of trade equal to 412.5 grains of 90% silver. Today there is no definition of any weight or measure associated with its exchange. The silver content of U.S. coinage was mostly removed in 1965 and the dollar essentially became a baseless free-floating Fiat Currency . SYNONYMS AND SLANG
RELATED NAMES IN MODERN CURRENCIES
NATIONAL CURRENCIES CALLED "DOLLAR"
The name has also been applied to the International Dollar , a hypothetical unit of currency that has the same purchasing power that the U.S. dollar has in the United States at a given point in time. SEE ALSO SOURCES AND REFERENCES
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