US President Richard Nixon made history less than 52 years ago. On 15 August 1971, he decided to break the link between the US currency and gold. Nixon said on television: "I have instructed Secretary of the Treasury John Connally to temporarily suspend the convertibility of the dollar into gold. The Bretton Woods international financial system, established at the US resort of Bretton Woods, was thus rendered obsolete, as was the concept of a gold standard. The 1971 decision is known as the "Nixon shock", but the gold standard had been in decline for a long time before that.
