The Illinois Centennial half dollar is a commemorative fifty-cent piece struck by the United States Bureau of the Mint in 1918. The obverse side, depicting Abraham Lincoln, was designed by Chief Engraver George T. Morgan; the reverse image, based on the Seal of Illinois, was done by his assistant and successor, John R. Sinnock. Morgan's design is based on a statue by Andrew O'Connor. The State of Illinois asked for a commemorative to mark the centennial of its 1818 statehood. In 1918, after legislation was enacted, the two engravers produced designs, but Treasury Secretary William G. McAdoo required changes, not all of which were made. The coins were minted in August 1918, and were sold to the public for one dollar each. Though many were held by a bank until 1933, all were sold, and profits were used to cover the cost of local centennial celebrations or to help those in need because of World War I. Later writers have generally admired the coin, considering it one of the more handsome American commemoratives. It is valued in the hundreds of dollars today, and occasionally trades for more.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_Centennial_half_dollar> _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1809: Peninsular War: French forces under Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult attacked the amphibious evacuation of the British under Sir John Moore in Corunna, Galicia, Spain. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Corunna> 1862: The beam of a pumping engine broke at the Hartley Colliery in Northumberland, England, and fell down the shaft, trapping the men below and resulting in the deaths of 204. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartley_Colliery_disaster> 1945: World War II: Adolf Hitler and his staff moved into the Führerbunker (entrance pictured), where he would eventually commit suicide. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F%C3%BChrerbunker> 1986: The Internet Engineering Task Force, a standards organization that develops and promotes Internet standards, held its first meeting, consisting of twenty-one United States-government-funded researchers. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Engineering_Task_Force> 2016: After gunmen took hostages the previous night at a restaurant in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, government commandos stormed the premises to bring the situation to an end. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Ouagadougou_attacks> _____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day: serac: 1. Often sérac: a hard, cone-shaped, pale green, strongly flavoured cheese from Switzerland made from skimmed cowmilk and blue fenugreek (Trigonella caerulea); Schabziger, Sapsago. It is usually eaten grated, mixed with butter, or in a fondue. 2. (geography (glaciology)) A sharp tower of ice formed by intersecting crevasses of a glacier. <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/serac> ___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day: Authoritarian political ideologies have a vested interest in promoting fear, a sense of the imminence of takeover by aliens — and real diseases are useful material. Epidemic diseases usually elicit a call to ban the entry of foreigners, immigrants. And xenophobic propaganda has always depicted immigrants as bearers of disease… Such is the extraordinary potency and efficacy of the plague metaphor: it allows a disease to be regarded both as something incurred by vulnerable "others" and as (potentially) everyone's disease. --Susan Sontag <https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Susan_Sontag> _______________________________________________ Wikipedia Daily Article mailing list. To unsubscribe, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/daily-article-l Questions or comments? Contact [email protected]
