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William D. Leahy

William Daniel Leahy (6 May 1875 – 20 July 1959) was the most senior United States military officer on active duty during World War II, and the first to hold a five-star rank in the U.S. Armed Forces. An 1897 graduate of Annapolis, Leahy saw active service in the Spanish–American War, the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion in China, the Banana Wars in Central America, and World War I, and was Chief of Naval Operations from 1937 to 1939. After retiring from the Navy, he was appointed the governor of Puerto Rico. In his most controversial role, he served as the ambassador to France from 1940 to 1942. He was recalled to active duty as Chief of Staff to the President in 1942, and served in that capacity for the rest of the war. As the de facto first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he presided over the American delegation to the Combined Chiefs of Staff. He was a major decision-maker during the war and was second only to the president in authority and influence. (Full article...)

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Obverse and reverse of a 1953 five-dollar silver certificate

Silver certificates are a type of representative money issued between 1878 and 1964 in the United States as part of its circulation of paper currency. They were produced in response to silver agitation by citizens who were angered by the Coinage Act of 1873, which had effectively placed the United States on a gold standard. Since 1968 they have been redeemable only in Federal Reserve Notes and are thus obsolete, but they remain legal tender at their face value and hence are still an accepted form of currency. This five-dollar bill, a 1953 silver certificate bearing the first serial number of a printing of 339,600,000 banknotes, is part of the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History. It features a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln on the obverse and the facade of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on the reverse.

Banknote design credit: Bureau of Engraving and Printing; photographed by Andrew Shiva

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