All American money was backed by gold — or alternately, before 1900, by silver. The gold standard guaranteed every holder of U.S. dollars to be able to convert it into corresponding amount of gold, at fixed prices. This had the advantage of keeping prices steady, but the disadvantage of transmitting financial shocks from country to country. Even a bigger disadvantage was discovered by Franklin Roosevelt when foreign creditors, chief among them Britain, began demanding payments in gold. With tons of the precious metal outbound on ships to Europe, and the Great Depression at home, Roosevelt acted fast to take the U.S. off the gold standard.

On this day, April 19, in 1933, Roosevelt called a press conference to announce he was suspending shipments of gold, except in designated cases, for payment on debt.

With that unilateral announcement, Roosevelt sunk the value of the dollar abroad, but did stabilize the money supply at home. No longer tied to gold, Roosevelt was free to manipulate the value of dollars in circulation to help farmers dig out of the deflationary spiral that was causing them to earn less and less on their crops.