The American twenty-cent piece was a coin struck from 1875 to 1878, but only for collectors in the final two years. In 1874 Nevada's newly elected senator, John P. Jones, began promoting his bill for a twenty- cent piece to alleviate the shortage of small change in the Far West. The bill passed Congress the following year, and Mint Director Henry Linderman ordered pattern coins struck. Although the new coin's edge was smooth rather than reeded, as with other silver coins, the new piece was close to the size of, and immediately confused with, the quarter. Adding to the bewilderment, the obverses (front faces) of the coins were almost identical. After the first year, in which over a million were minted, there was little demand, and the denomination was abolished in 1878. At least a third of the total mintage was later melted by the government. Numismatist Mark Benvenuto called the twenty-cent piece "a chapter of U.S. coinage history that closed almost before it began".

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-cent_piece_(United_States_coin)

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1850:

German composer Richard Wagner's romantic opera Lohengrin (2015 production pictured), containing the Bridal Chorus, was first performed under the direction of Franz Liszt in Weimar, present-day Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohengrin_(opera)

1861:

American Civil War: The Union Army successfully extended its blockage strategy by capturing two Confederate forts on North Carolina's Outer Banks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hatteras_Inlet_Batteries

1909:

A military coup d'etat against the government of Dimitrios Rallis began in the Goudi neighbourhood of Athens, Greece. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goudi_coup

1955:

African American teenager Emmett Till was murdered near Money, Mississippi, for flirting with a white woman, energizing the nascent American Civil Rights Movement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till

1973:

Swedish police used gas bombs to end a seven-day hostage situation in Stockholm; during the incident the hostages had bonded with their captors, leading to the term "Stockholm syndrome". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

manumission: Release from slavery or other legally sanctioned servitude; the giving of freedom; the act of manumitting. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/manumission

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

⨀ My name is Harrison Bergeron. I am a fugitive, and a public threat. I am an abomination of the able. I am an exception to the accepted. I am the greatest man you have never known. And for the last six years, I have been held prisoner by the state — sentenced, without trial, to torture without end. They… had hoped to destroy in me any trace of the extraordinary … but the extraordinary, it seems, was simply out of their reach. So now I stand before you today, beaten, hobbled, and sickened … but, sadly, not broken. And I say to you, that if it is greatness we must destroy, then let us drag our enemy out of the darkness, where it has been hiding. Let us shine a light so, at last, all the world can see!   --2081 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/2081_(film)