GOLDEN GRATES,

BRIDGES GENERAL HISTORY

Heinrich Schliemann was the great German archaeologist who made most of his money in the California gold rush before going to excavate Troy and Mycenae. The Russians took these treasures of Troy from the Schliemann museum in Berlin in 1945.

Captain William Kidd is said to have buried a treasure on Gardiner’s Island (off of Long Island) in 1696.

In 1717, Britain’s master of the mint, Sir Isaac Newton, first established a fixed price of gold. This gold standard would (heavily) influence the importance of gold.

Art Buchwald, seeing the steady drain of gold from Fort Knox in the 1960's, suggested the U.S. declare itself on the junked car standard.  Americans would have thirty days in which to turn in their old cars to the Federal Reserve, where they would be squashed to the size of a shoebox by a giant press. Since Americans junk cars faster than any other nation, their reserves would inevitably be the largest. The Russians and the Chinese, who don't have many cars, would be nowhere in the "running".

In 1936, Italy made an appeal for all women to turn in their gold wedding rings to help the government pay for the war in Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

Goldbrick is a term of ridicule, usually meaning someone who is trying to get out of doing his share of the work. This usage developed because of greed and corruption. One can actually follow the logic of this words development, backwords. At one time, a gold brick was actually a solid brick of  gold. But, as is usually the case when a buck can be made, games will be played. Anyway, some con artists began to coat ordinary bricks with a gold finish and then sell them to unsuspecting "dupes".

Tonite was a term that actually meant a blasting explosion..."here's Johnny".

In Japan, some businessmen believe that sitting in a bathtub fashioned from 143 kilos of pure gold built in the shape of a Phoenix and filled from a hot spring, will increase longevity.

And of course, who can forget the Golden Gate Bridge... and if you take the "g" out of bridge, you get bride, who should always get a band of gold...