Faces People, Places, and World Culture for Kids and Children March 2015

1 Ancient Mesopotamians were using pieces of silver currency some 4,500 years ago. It wasn’t long before other ancient societies followed suit. Paper money was used in China beginning in the 11th century and Marco Polo introduced the concept to Europe after his travels in Asia in the 13th century, but it didn’t gain acceptance for hundreds of years. You might keep your money in your wallet or in piggy bank, but for the people of Yap Island, money is often on display in the front yard. Their traditional form of currency is called rai. These large stone disks can weigh more than 100 pounds! O 36 Ý B are used in sushi, are becoming increasingly rare, driving the price of it to astronomical numbers. Once, most people used coins…

The Pyramid At the top of a pyramid, an all-seeing eye looks to the future. The Latin phrase, Annuit coeptis, around the eye translates as “Providence favors our undertaking.” The men who founded our country believed that our nation was under the protection of God (Providence). The pyramid has 13 layers for the original 13 colonies. The pyramid is unfinished and can continue to grow, just as the nation has grown. (You will see many more references to the number 13 as you look closely at the bill.) At the base of the pyramid is the Roman numeral MDCCLXXVI (1776), the year our nation was born. Below the pyramid is Novus ordo seclorum, Latin for “A new order of the ages” — another reference to the birth of our nation.…

How much would you pay for a fish In January 2012, a 593-pound bluefin tuna sold at a Japanese fish market for a whopping 736,000.00. At more than 1241.00 per pound, thats some expensive sushi! The Atlantic bluefin tuna is one of the largest, fastest, and most beautifully colored fish in the world. It can grow to 12 feet in length, weigh 1,500 pounds, and live for up to 40 years. In ancient times, this giant fish migrated by the millions throughout the Atlantic cean and Mediterranean Sea. Its esh was so important to early people that they painted the tunas likeness on cave walls and minted coins with its image. It is still valued today as an unsurpassed delicacy (or rare treat) by fish lovers around the world. The…

It’s hard to imagine a world without money, but the South American Incas figured out how to live without it. They built a vast and wealthy empire during the 15th and 16th centuries without ever using money or bartering. The Incan people had to provide a certain amount of labor to the government each year. In return, the government took care of all of their needs. The Incas may have been able to live without money, but other societies have been using it for thousands of years. In fact, the ancient Mesopotamians were using pieces of silver as currency 4,500 years ago. It wasn’t long before the ancient Greeks, Persians, Macedonians and others followed their lead and began using silver, gold, bronze, and other metals as money. Before that, most…

The Hunts were not the first to make counterfeit money. In fact, the practice is as old as money itself. In ancient Greece, counterfeit coins started popping up very shortly after coins were first introduced. By the 6th century B.C., the Greek government threatened counterfeiters with the death penalty. The ancient Romans cut off the ears and revoked the citizenship of anyone who made or distributed fake coins. This did little to stop the crime, so the punishment was made more severe. Counterfeiters had their ears, hands, and feet cut off, and their bodies were thrown into a den of lions. While some people were making their own coins, others trimmed the precious metals from around the edges of government-issued coins. The metal was melted down and used to make…

Candy bars are made of many different ingredients, such as cocoa beans, sugar, and nuts. These ingredients are called commodities or primary goods. A commodity may be an agricultural product (soft commodity) like wheat, cotton, sugar, coffee, or cocoa or a raw material (hard commodity) like crude oil, silver, or gold that may have been partially processed. People all over the world use commodities. A country can grow or produce commodities for use there or in another country. The world’s leading producer of cocoa beans is the Ivory Coast in Africa. Africa ships most of its cocoa beans to other countries where they are processed and consumed. How does a candy company in the United States obtain cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast? Cocoa beans, like commodities all over the…