This new historical souvenir token (HalfDollar) is a stunning piece of history. This token shows Liberty with flowing hair.This token is a must-have for any collector of American and Colonial memorabilia. Add it to your collection of historical memorabilia or display it as a stunning piece of art. Ideal for show display or LARP & Reanactment.
Historical Souvenir Token bronze 32.5 mm 13 g like pictured
The Liberty Cap large cent was a type of large cent struck by the United States Mint from 1793 until 1796, when it was replaced by the Draped Bust large cent. The coin features an image of the goddess of Liberty and her accompanying Phrygian cap.
The Liberty Cap large cent, designed by Joseph Wright, was issued by the Mint from 1793 to 1796. The Mint created this type of cent in an attempt to satisfy the public objections to the Chain cent and Wreath cent. It appears to have been a little more successful than its precedents, as it was continued into 1796, unlike the previous two issues, which were each issued for less than a year. In 1795, the planchets became too thin for the use of edge lettering on the coins, so coins from late-1795 onward have no edge lettering.[citation needed]
The Liberty Cap half cent was designed not by Wright, however, but by Chief Engraver of the United States Mint, Robert Scot.
The Phrygian cap (/ˈfrɪdʒ(iː)ən/ ⓘFRIJ-(ee)-ən), also known as Thracian cap[1][2][3] and liberty cap, is a soft conical cap with the apex bent over, associated in antiquity with several peoples in Eastern Europe, Anatolia and Asia. The Phrygian cap was worn by Thracians, Dacians, Persians, Medes, Scythians, Trojans, Amazons and Phrygians after whom it is named.[4] The oldest known depiction of the Phrygian cap is from Persepolis in Iran.
Although Phrygian caps did not originally function as liberty caps, they came to signify freedom and the pursuit of liberty first in the American Revolution and then in the French Revolution,[5] particularly as a symbol of Jacobinism (in which context it has been also called a Jacobin cap). The original cap of liberty was the Roman pileus, the felt cap of emancipated slaves of ancient Rome, which was an attribute of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty. In the 16th century, the Roman iconography of liberty was revived in emblem books and numismatic handbooks where the figure of Libertas is usually depicted with a pileus.[6] The most extensive use of headgear as a symbol of freedom in the first two centuries after the revival of the Roman iconography was made in the Netherlands, where the cap of liberty was adopted in the form of a contemporary hat.[7] In the 18th century, the traditional liberty cap was widely used in English prints, and from 1789 also in French prints; by the early 1790s, it was regularly used in the Phrygian form.
It is used in the coat of arms of certain republics or of republican state institutions in the place where otherwise a crown would be used (in the heraldry of monarchies). It thus came to be identified as a symbol of republican government. A number of national personifications, in particular France's Marianne, are commonly depicted wearing the Phrygian cap. Scientists pointed to the cultural and historical relationship of the Phrygian cap with the kurkhars—the national female headdress of the Ingush people.[8] The protagonists of the Belgian comic series The Smurfs wear white phrygian caps.
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was an American Founding Father, politician, military officer, and farmer who served as the first president of the United Statesfrom 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Second Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army in 1775, Washington led Patriotforces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and then served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which drafted the current Constitution of the United States. Washington has thus become commonly known as the "Father of his Country".
Washington's first public office, from 1749 to 1750, was as surveyor of Culpeper County in the Colony of Virginia. In 1752, he received military training and was granted the rank of major in the Virginia Regiment. During the French and Indian War, Washington was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1754 and subsequently became head of the Virginia Regiment in 1755. He was later elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which appointed him commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. Washington led American forces to a decisive victory over the British in the Revolutionary War, leading the British to sign the Treaty of Paris, which acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States. He resigned his commission in 1783 after the conclusion of the Revolutionary War.
Washington played an indispensable role in adopting and ratifying the Constitution, which replaced the Articles of Confederation in 1789. He was then twice elected president unanimously by the Electoral College in 1788 and 1792. As the first U.S. president, Washington implemented a strong, well-financed national government while remaining impartial in a fierce rivalry that emerged between cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During the French Revolution, he proclaimed a policy of neutralitywhile additionally sanctioning the Jay Treaty. He set enduring precedents for the office of president, including republicanism, a peaceful transfer of power, the use of the title "Mr. President", and the two-term tradition. His 1796 farewell address became a preeminent statement on republicanism in which he wrote about the importance of national unity and the dangers that regionalism, partisanship, and foreign influence pose to it.
Washington's image is an icon of American culture. He has been memorialized by monuments, a federal holiday, various media depictions, geographical locations including the national capital, the State of Washington, stamps, and currency. In 1976, Washington was posthumously promoted to the rank of general of the Armies, the highest rank in the U.S. Army. Washington consistently ranks in both popular and scholarly polls as one of the greatest presidents in American history.
On the evening of 9th July 1792, two of America’s founding fathers, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson arrived at the home of a man called John Harper on Sixth and Cherry Street in Philadelphia. With them was David Rittenhouse, appointed by President Washington just nine days earlier as the first Director of the United States Mint. Land for the new mint had already been identified on Seventh Street, and Rittenhouse would lay the cornerstone for the new building later that month. However, the coin presses that had been ordered from England wouldn’t arrive until September, and so the first coins wouldn’t be struck at the new premises until December. No one wanted to wait that long to see what the first official coins produced at the US Mint would look like.
The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was an armed conflict that was part of the broader American Revolution, in which American Patriot forces organized as the Continental Army and commanded by George Washington defeated the British Army.
During the war, North American Patriot forces had the support of France, Spain and the Dutch Republic, while the British and Loyalist forces hired Hessian soldiers from Germany for assistance. The conflict was fought in North America, the Caribbean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The war ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which resulted in Great Britain ultimately recognizing the independence and sovereignty of the United States.
The American colonies were established by royal charter in the 17th and 18th centuries. After the British Empire gained dominance in North America with victory over the French in the Seven Years' War in 1763, tensions and disputes arose between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies over a variety of issues, including the Stamp and Townshend Acts. The resulting British military occupation led to the Boston Massacre in 1770, which strengthened North American Patriots' desire for independence from Great Britain. Among further tensions, the British Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts in mid-1774. A British attempt to disarm the Americans and the resulting Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775 ignited the war. In June, the Second Continental Congress formalized Patriot militias into the Continental Army and appointed Washington its commander-in-chief. The British Parliament declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion in August 1775. The stakes of the war were formalized with passage of the Lee Resolution by the Congress in Philadelphia on July 2, 1776, and the unanimous ratification of the Declaration of Independence two days later, on July 4, 1776.
After a successful siege, Washington's forces drove the British Army out of Boston in March 1776, and British commander in chief William Howe responded by launching the New York and New Jersey campaign. Howe captured New York City in November. Washington responded by clandestinely crossing the Delaware River and winning small but significant victories at Trentonand Princeton, which restored Patriot confidence. In the summer of 1777, as Howe was poised to capture Philadelphia, the Continental Congress fled to Baltimore. In October 1777, a separate northern British force under the command of John Burgoyne was forced to surrender at Saratoga in an American victory that proved crucial in convincing France and Spain that an independent United States was a viable possibility. After Saratoga, France signed a commercial agreementwith the rebels, followed by a Treaty of Alliance in February 1778. In 1779, the Sullivan Expeditionundertook a scorched earth campaign against the Iroquois who were largely allied with the British. Indian raids on the American frontier, however, continued to be a problem. Also, in 1779, Spain allied with France against Great Britain in the Treaty of Aranjuez, though Spain did not formally ally with the Americans.
Howe's replacement Henry Clinton intended to take the war against the Americans into the Southern Colonies. Despite some initial success, British general Cornwallis was besieged by a Franco-American force in Yorktown in September and October 1781. Cornwallis was forced to surrender in October. The British wars with France and Spain continued for another two years, but fighting largely ceased in North America. In April 1782, the North ministry was replaced by a new British government, which accepted American independence and began negotiating the Treaty of Paris, ratified on September 3, 1783. Great Britain acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States of America, bringing the American Revolutionary War to an end. The Treaties of Versailles resolved Great Britain's conflicts with France and Spain and forced Great Britain to cede Tobago, Senegal, and small territories in India to France, and Menorca, West Florida and East Florida to Spain.
The colonial history of the United States covers the period of European colonization of North America from the early 16th century until the incorporation of the Thirteen Colonies into the United States in 1776 during the Revolutionary War. In the late 16th century, England, France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic launched major colonization expeditions in North America.[1] The death rate was very high among early immigrants, and some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Nevertheless, successful colonies were established within several decades.
European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups, including adventurers, farmers, indentured servants, tradesmen, and a very few from the aristocracy. Settlers included the Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the English Quakers of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English Puritans of New England, the Virginian Cavaliers, the English Catholics and Protestant Nonconformists of the Province of Maryland, the "worthy poor" of the Province of Georgia, the Germans who settled the mid-Atlantic colonies, and the Ulster Scots of the Appalachian Mountains. These groups all became part of the United States when it gained its independence in 1776. Russian America and parts of New France and New Spain were also incorporated into the United States at later times. The diverse colonists from these various regions built colonies of distinctive social, religious, political, and economic style.
Over time, non-British colonies East of the Mississippi River were taken over and most of the inhabitants were assimilated. In Nova Scotia, however, the British expelled the French Acadians, and many relocated to Louisiana. The two chief armed rebellions were short-lived failures in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–1691. Some of the colonies developed legalized systems of slavery,[2] centered largely around the Atlantic slave trade. Wars were recurrent between the French and the British during the French and Indian Wars. By 1760, France was defeated and its colonies were seized by Britain.
On the eastern seaboard, the four distinct English regions were New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake Bay Colonies (Upper South), and the Southern Colonies (Lower South). Some historians add a fifth region of the "Frontier", which was never separately organized.[1] The colonization of the United States resulted in a large decline of the Native American populationprimarily because of newly introduced diseases.[3] A significant percentage of the Native Americans living in the eastern region had been ravaged by disease before 1620, possibly introduced to them decades before by explorers and sailors (although no conclusive cause has been established).