S3, Ep : 55. The Spanish Dollar: The Coin That Ruled Global Trade
You know what I love about history? Sometimes you discover something that makes you think, “Wait… how did I never know this?”
So, imagine we’re having a beer together, and I tell you this:
The mighty American dollar has a Spanish ancestor.
Yep. Seriously.
Long before the dollar became the currency we all know today, there was a Spanish coin called the Real de a Ocho, the famous Piece of Eight.
And this little piece of silver was everywhere.
It was minted in the Spanish Empire, using enormous quantities of silver coming from the Americas, and people were using it to buy and sell things across…
The skinny
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