Picture this: It’s 1944, World War II is still raging, and 44 countries send their smartest money people to a sleepy little town in New Hampshire called Bretton Woods. They’re there to figure out one thing: How the hell do we rebuild the world economy once the shooting stops?

They could have argued for weeks (and they did), but one thing was obvious: The U.S. was loaded. We had more than half of the world’s gold, a booming industrial machine, and—small detail—the only economy not reduced to rubble. If the world economy was going to have a backbone, it was going to be green and say “In God We Trust.”

So they made a deal: Every major currency would be tied to the U.S. dollar, and the dollar itself would be tied to gold at $35 an ounce. That meant if you had dollars, you basically had gold—without having to lug a bunch of shiny rocks around.

Why the Dollar Stayed on Top

After Bretton Woods, the dollar wasn’t just America’s problem anymore—it was the world’s problem. Countries held dollars as “reserves” to trade and settle debts. Oil was priced in dollars. International loans were made in dollars. Basically, the dollar became the global referee.

Read all about it here – How the U.S. Dollar Became the World’s Boss