Can you beat them?
Money and the Dollar Quiz
Ten questions on how people invented money, why gold ruled for centuries, where the word "dollar" and the dollar sign come from, and how the US dollar became the world's main currency.
- 10 questions
- About 3 minutes
- Medium
- Includes 3 photos
About this quiz
Money is so ordinary that most people never ask where it came from, or why a piece of paper with a dead president on it buys anything at all. This quiz follows the answers, from the first coins and China's invention of paper money to the gold standard and the 1944 deal at Bretton Woods that put the dollar at the center of world trade.
Several questions test stories most people think they already know, such as Germany's hyperinflation and Nixon's break with gold in 1971. Expect to learn something even from the answers you get right.
Read up first
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Encyclopedia
Bretton Woods System
The Bretton Woods system pegged world currencies to a gold-backed US dollar from 1944 to 1971 and created the IMF and World Bank.
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The petrodollar is the system, built in 1974, by which most of the world's oil is priced and sold in US dollars.
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