The Lexington-Concord Sesquicentennial half dollar is a fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1925 as a commemorative coin in honor of the 150th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. It was designed by Chester Beach. Members of the Massachusetts congressional delegation introduced legislation in 1924 to authorize a commemorative half dollar for the anniversary. The bill passed both houses of Congress and was signed by President Calvin Coolidge. Beach had to satisfy committees from both Lexington and Concord, and the Commission of Fine Arts passed the design only reluctantly, feeling he had been given poor materials to work with. The coins were sold for $1, and were vended at the anniversary celebrations in Lexington and in Concord; they were sold at banks across New England. Although just over half of the authorized mintage of 300,000 was struck, almost all the coins that were minted were sold. Depending on condition, they are catalogued in the hundreds of dollars.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexington-Concord_Sesquicentennial_half_dollar

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1693:

The most powerful earthquake in Italian history, registering 7.4 Mw, struck the island of Sicily. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1693_Sicily_earthquake

1943:

Italian-American journalist and trade-union activist Carlo Tresca, a leading public opponent of the Mafia infiltration of unions, was assassinated in New York City. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Tresca

1986:

The Gateway Bridge was opened in Brisbane, Australia, as the largest prestressed concrete, single-box bridge in the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Leo_Hielscher_Bridges

2013:

French special forces failed in an attempted rescue of a DGSE agent, who had been taken hostage in 2009 by Al-Shabaab, in Buulo Mareer, Somalia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulo_Marer_hostage_rescue_attempt

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

blotto: (informal) (Very) drunk or intoxicated. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/blotto

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

An avaricious man might be tempted to betray the interests of the State to the acquisition of wealth. An ambitious man might make his own aggrandizement, by the aid of a foreign power, the price of his treachery to his constituents. The history of human conduct does not warrant that exalted opinion of human virtue, which would make it wise in a Nation to commit interests of so delicate and momentous a kind, as those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the world, to the sole disposal of a Magistrate created and circumstanced as would be a President of the United States.   --Alexander Hamilton https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alexander_Hamilton