WASHINGTON, July 6, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Following is the daily "Profile America" feature from the U.S. Census Bureau:
POWERS OF TEN
Profile America - Sunday, July 6th. The Constitution of the United States, ratified in 1788, somewhat famously made this nation the first in the world to conduct a census of population on a regular basis - every 10 years, on years ending in zero, in fact. Divisibility by tens had still more and earlier attraction for the Continental Congress, as on this date in 1785, for the first time in history, a nation adopted a decimal coinage system, founded on the dollar we know today. At the time, money systems around the world were a chaos of fractions and units. Today, following America's lead, only two of the 190-plus countries in our world do not have decimal-based currency. The median income in America's .115 billion households is $.053 million per year. Profile America is in its 17th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Sources:
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~hillger/currency.htm
http://www.bankersnotes.com/2013/07/jul-6-1785-happy-bday-us-dollar-surely.html
http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0709/on-this-day-in-finance-july-6---the-united-states-adopts-the-dollar.aspx
http://www.worldatlas.com/nations.htm
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/00000.html
Profile America is produced by the Center for New Media and Promotions of the U.S. Census Bureau. These daily features are available as produced segments, ready to air, on the Internet at http://www.census.gov (look for "Multimedia Gallery" by the "Newsroom" button).
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SOURCE U.S. Census Bureau
