On This Day - July 6th

On this date in 1785, the dollar was chosen as the monetary unit of the United States.  The word "dollar" actually predates this event by more than 250 years; it's an Anglicized form of "thaler" [TAH-ler], a silver coin that was first minted in Bohemia in 1519. "Dollar" came to be used as a sort of generic term for any large silver coin, like the Spanish eight-real piece, also known as "pieces of eight." There was a shortage of British currency in the American colonies, and Spanish dollars were widely circulated in their place — as were Indian wampum and certificates for tobacco held in Virginia warehouses. During the Revolutionary War, colonists printed their own paper bills, called Continentals, in a variety of denominations; some were in British pounds, others were in dollars. When we won our independence, we rejected the British units in favor of the dollar.

Louis Pasteur successfully tested his rabies vaccine on this day in 1885.

On this date in 1942, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in a secret warehouse apartment in Amsterdam to avoid being sent to a Jewish "work camp" by the Nazis.

Source: The Writer's Almanac with Garrison Keillor