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Obverse

The Connecticut Tercentenary half dollar is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1935. The commemorative coin was designed by Henry Kreis and depicts the Charter Oak, where according to legend Connecticut's charter was hidden to save it from confiscation. An eagle appears on the coin's reverse side. The Connecticut Tercentenary Commission wanted a half dollar issued, with proceeds from its sale to further its projects. A bill passed through Congress without dissent and became law on June 21, 1935, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed it, providing for 25,000 half dollars. Kreis's design was a Public Works Administration project and technically in violation of the new law, which said the federal government was not to pay for its design. Nevertheless, the design was approved and the commission, setting a price of $1 per coin, exhausted the entire issue. Kreis's design has generally been praised by numismatic writers. (Full article...)

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On this day

April 12: Cosmonautics Day in Russia (1961); Education and Sharing Day in the United States (2022); Yuri's Night

The Massacre at Chios by Eugène Delacroix

1204 – Troops of the Fourth Crusade entered Constantinople and began a sack of the city, temporarily dissolving the Byzantine Empire.
1822 – Greek War of Independence: Ottoman troops began a massacre of tens of thousands of Greeks (depicted) on the island of Chios.
1961 – Aboard Vostok 1, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin performed the first human spaceflight, completing one orbit of Earth in 108 minutes.
1980 – Samuel Doe took control of Liberia in a coup d'etat, overthrowing President William Tolbert and ending over 130 years of national democratic presidential succession.
2014 – A fire broke out in the hills near Valparaíso, Chile, eventually destroying at least 2,500 homes and leaving approximately 11,000 people homeless.

Richeza of Poland, Queen of Sweden (b. 1116)
Nicola Amati (d. 1684)
Abbie Hoffman (d. 1989)

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Today's featured picture

Obverse and reverse of a Romanian 50-bani banknote

The Romanian leu is the currency of Romania. It is subdivided into 100 bani, a word that means 'money' in Romanian. Banknotes were first issued in 1877. The country left the gold standard in 1914, and the leu's value fell. This 50-bani Romanian banknote is an example of a "paper coin", very small banknotes issued in denominations of 10, 25 and 50 bani by the Ministry of Finance in 1917 during World War I. It depicts King Ferdinand I on the obverse and the Romanian coat of arms on the reverse, and now forms part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution.

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Banknote design credit: Ministry of Finance, Kingdom of Romania; photographed by Andrew Shiva

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