1778 - Commerce

Commerce

The Continental Congress invites British moral philosopher and finance expert Richard Price to help it with financial advice.

Irish-born New Orleans merchant Oliver Pollock, 41, creates the dollar sign ($) April 1 by some accounts. Pollock has prospered as a land speculator and slave trader but will lose his fortune financing the Revolution in the lower Mississippi Valley.

Scottish coal miners gain freedom from the conditions of virtual slavery under which they have worked until now (see 1775), but they will not have complete freedom until 1799.