The Gold Standard Explained in 8 Minutes (Brief History)

For nearly a century, every dollar, pound, and franc in circulation was backed by real gold sitting in a vault. Then in 1971, President Nixon went on television and ended that system forever — in a speech that lasted fifteen minutes and changed the global economy permanently. This is the full story of the gold standard: how it was built, why it worked, and why it ultimately couldn't survive the modern world. We trace the complete history from Britain's accidental adoption of the gold standard in 1717 — thanks to a miscalculation by Isaac Newton — through the Classical Gold Standard's golden age of global trade, the chaos of two World Wars, the Bretton Woods system that made the US dollar the world's reserve currency, and Nixon's 1971 decision that unleashed the era of fiat money we still live in today. This is part of The Money Chronicles — the full history of how global money was built: → Why Every Country Needs US Dollars (Petrodollars):    • Why Every Country on Earth Needs US Dollar...   → Is the US Dollar Losing Its Power?:    • Why the US Dollar is Quietly Losing Its Po...   Next watch: Why Printing Money Makes the Rich Richer (Cantillon Effect):    • Why Printing Money Makes The Rich  Richer ...   Time Stamp: 00:00 - 00:30 - Why gold became money 00:31 - 01:26 - Bimetallism and why it failed 01:27 - 01:39 - How Gold Standard was created 01:40 - 03:16 - Gold Standard in Britain 03:17 - 04:22 - How the US adopted the gold standard 04:23 - 06:09 - The Golden Age of Global Trade (1870s - 1914) 06:10 - 06:34 - How World War One destroyed the gold standard 06:35 - 07:32 - Bretton Woods System and the dollar's rise to dominance 07:33 - 08:28 - Nixon's 1971 decision that changed everything #goldstandard #economichistory #brettonwoods #nixonshock #historyofmoney #fiatmoney #reservecurrency #goldhistory #monetaryhistory #britisheconomy #useconomichistory #isaacnewton #globaleconomy #financialeducation #economics #currencyhistory #goldprice #centralbanking #moneysupply DISCLAIMER: This video is made for educational entertainment purposes. Please do not use this video as the only source of information. Please do your own thorough research for detailed information on the subject. REFERENCES: https://www.gold.org/history-gold/the... https://www.goldmoney.com/research/a-... https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/ba... https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/end-go... https://www.federalreservehistory.org... Image Sources: Richard Nixon image: "Richard Nixon" by History In An Hour is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.... English Florin: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... English Noble: https://www.svcollector.com/ English Guinea: https://www.royalmint.com/ English Sovereign: https://londoncoins.co.uk/