The origin of the dollar
A silver coin struck here from about 1520 gave its name to the world's best-known currency.
Miloš Hlávka 09:25, 11 October 2007 (UTC) — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jan Helebrant — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Palickap — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Lubor Ferenc — CC BY-SA 4.0
A museum in a sixteenth-century mint building in the mountain town of Jáchymov, and the origin of the word dollar. The story runs like this: silver was found here in 1516 and a large mining town grew within years. A big silver coin was struck and called the Joachimsthaler after the valley, then shortened to thaler, which became the Dutch daalder and then the dollar. The world's best-known currency carries the name of this valley. The town has a second, heavier history: after the silver was exhausted, uranium was mined here, and it was from this ore that Marie Curie isolated radium. In the 1950s forced-labour camps were built here in which political prisoners worked the uranium mines in lethal conditions. The museum covers both layers: the silver boom and the uranium era with what came with it. The site is about twenty kilometres north of Karlovy Vary and is reached by bus.
A silver coin struck here from about 1520 gave its name to the world's best-known currency.
The radium she isolated came from the ore of these mines.
Political prisoners worked these uranium mines in lethal conditions.
Jáchymov, about twenty kilometres north of Karlovy Vary
The coin was struck here as the Joachimsthaler, the thaler of Joachim's valley, then shortened to thaler and spread across Europe as a standard silver coin. The Dutch pronounced it daalder and carried it to their American colonies, and from there it became the dollar. The name travelled from a small Czech valley to the world's currency.
If history interests you, yes; few places combine the origin of the dollar, the origin of radium and forced-labour camps in one town. The journey is half an hour and the museum small, so allow half a day in total. Check the hours first, since they are seasonal.