The Lafayette dollar was an American silver coin issued to raise money for a statue of Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolution. The statue was dedicated at the Paris World's Fair of 1900. President William McKinley chose Chicago businessman Ferdinand Peck as commissioner-general for the American exhibit at the Paris exposition, and Peck approved the monument for the exhibit. The coin was designed by the Mint's Chief Engraver, Charles E. Barber, and features conjoined busts of George Washington and Lafayette on the obverse. The images are based on a sculpture of Washington by Jean-Antoine Houdon and a medal of Lafayette by François-Augustin Caunois. The reverse depicts an early sketch of the planned monument. All the coins were struck at the Philadelphia Mint on December 14, 1899, the centennial of Washington's death. They did not sell out, and 14,000 were later melted by the Treasury. The coins are valued from several hundred dollars to tens of thousands, depending on condition. The Lafayette dollar was the only U.S. silver dollar commemorative prior to 1983, and the first U.S. coin to depict an American citizen.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lafayette_dollar
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1800:
War of the Second Coalition: French forces under General Jean Moreau defeated the Austrians and Bavarians under Archduke John in Hohenlinden, near Munich, forcing the Austrians to sign an armistice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hohenlinden
1834:
The German Customs Union instituted the first regular census in Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Census_in_Germany
1927:
Putting Pants on Philip, the first official film featuring the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, was released. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_and_Hardy
1979:
Per the results of a two-day referendum, the current Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_Islamic_Republic_of_Iran
2009:
A suicide bombing in Mogadishu, Somalia, claimed the lives of 25 people, including three ministers of the Transitional Federal Government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Hotel_Shamo_bombing
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
vacillation: 1. Indecision in speech or action. 2. Changing location by moving back and forth. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/vacillation
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The last word is not said, — probably shall never be said. Are not our lives too short for that full utterance which through all our stammerings is of course our only and abiding intention? I have given up expecting those last words, whose ring, if they could only be pronounced, would shake both heaven and earth. There is never time to say our last word — the last word of our love, of our desire, faith, remorse, submissions, revolt. The heaven and the earth must not be shaken, I suppose — at least, not by us who know so many truths about either. My last words about Jim shall be few. I affirm he had achieved greatness; but the thing would be dwarfed in the telling, or rather in the hearing. Frankly, it is not my words that I mistrust but your minds. I could be eloquent were I not afraid you fellows had starved your imaginations to feed your bodies. I do not mean to be offensive; it is respectable to have no illusions — and safe — and profitable — and dull. Yet you, too, in your time must have known the intensity of life, that light of glamour created in the shock of trifles, as amazing as the glow of sparks struck from a cold stone — and as short-lived, alas! --Lord Jim https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lord_Jim