The Gold Standard 

This speech was delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on July 9, 1896.

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The international monetary conference of 1944 was held at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. The conference founded the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. The fixed exchange rate system created at the conference came under increasing strain in the 1960s and was ended unilaterally by President Nixon in 1971.

FDR's first fireside chat taking us off the domestic gold standard, the logical bookend to Nixon taking us off the international gold standard.

President Nixon announced a dramatic change in monetary policy. Nixon ends the Bretton Woods International monetary system with the gold standard.

I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, except in amounts and conditions determined to be in the interest of monetary stability and in the best interest of the United States.

—President Nixon, August 15, 1971