Geschichte
18 cards from across every topic, each citing a source. Tap one to open it in the feed.
- 1.95583 and 166.386: two numbers a whole generation knows by heart.
The conversion rates to the euro were fixed irrevocably on 31 December 1998: 1 euro = 1.95583 Deutsche Marks and …
- A steel box changed the world economy more than the internet.
In 1956 trucking entrepreneur Malcom McLean loaded 58 containers onto a converted tanker. Before that, dockworkers …
- Bad money drives out good – but only at a forced rate.
When two kinds of money circulate at a legally fixed ratio, the more valuable one leaves circulation: debtors pay with …
- Half the nitrogen in your body came out of a factory.
Since 1913 the Haber-Bosch process has squeezed nitrogen from air at 250 to 350 bar and around 500 °C into ammonia, the …
- How a 500-year-old technique catches its own errors.
In double-entry bookkeeping every transaction hits at least two accounts: once as a debit, once as a credit. The two …
- How a rumour can kill a healthy bank.
Because banks hold only a fraction of deposits as cash, a bank can become insolvent when many customers withdraw at …
- In 1637 a flower bulb cost ten years of a craftsman's wages.
In the Netherlands, rare tulip bulbs became objects of speculation in 1636/37. Single bulbs changed hands for more than …
- In 1712, Sweden had a 30th of February.
From 1700 Sweden tried to ease from Julian to Gregorian by skipping every leap day for 40 years. Then the Great …
- In 1923 a loaf cost billions. More in the afternoon than the morning.
In November 1923 one US dollar cost 4.2 trillion marks. Wages were paid daily because money lost value by evening. The …
- Isaac Newton lost a fortune. Not to physics, to stocks.
In 1720 shares of the South Sea Company in London rose eightfold within months, driven by rumours of trade monopolies. …
- Jittering pollen proved that atoms exist.
In 1827 the botanist Robert Brown watched pollen particles twitch in water under his microscope, with nothing alive …
- Since one Sunday evening in 1971, money is backed by nothing.
On 15 August 1971, US President Nixon announced on television that dollars would no longer be exchanged for gold. The …
- Spain has lived in the wrong time zone since 1940.
Geographically, mainland Spain belongs to Greenwich time like Portugal and Britain. On 16 March 1940 Franco moved the …
- Ten workers, 48,000 pins – alone they managed barely twenty.
In 1776 Adam Smith described a pin factory: the process was split into about 18 distinct operations, and ten people …
- The euro was three years old before anyone could touch it.
On 1 January 1999 the euro was introduced in eleven countries as book money: accounts, transfers and stock prices ran …
- The return comes from the next investor, not from a business.
In a Ponzi scheme, payouts come from new customers' deposits, not from earnings. As long as inflows beat outflows …
- Why the world counts in dollars: a hotel in New Hampshire, 1944.
In July 1944, 44 nations at Bretton Woods agreed on a monetary system: the dollar was pegged to gold at 35 dollars per …
- Your letter A used to be an ox head.
Around 1050 BC, Phoenician traders used an alphabet of 22 consonant signs. The first letter, 'aleph', meant ox and …