In Greenbacks We Trust

The U.S. dollar, as we know it today, was born in terror. On April 18, 1906, the Pacific tectonic plate, which extends under the ocean from Japan to central California, darted northward about 20 feet in just under a minute; in San Francisco, buildings that were not shattered by the earthquake burned, and within two days, 80 percent of the city was gone. At the time, American companies and governments still bought insurance from the old British firms, and the payouts to San Francisco were enormous. As was standard practice, the insurers paid in gold, shipping $65 million worth of bars — an estimated 107 tons, representing 14 percent of all British gold reserves — to the Bay Area. Afraid that all that gold leaving its vaults would permanently impoverish the kingdom, the Bank of England doubled interest rates on British bonds. In response, so many wealthy Americans sent money to England that, a few months after the gold came west from London, $30 million in U.S. gold traveled east. The British vaults were replenished, while the U.S. stock fell by 10 percent in two months.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/magazine/in-greenbacks-we-trust.html?_r=1