Christopher Long, age 8, of Redwood City, California, for his question:

Why is a dime called a dime?

The first American dimes were made in 1796; 172 years ago. They were molded and stamped in the government's money making mint in Philadelphia. The new coins were made of silver and named dismes. Later the word "disme" lost a letter and became dime. The old word “disme” was borrowed from an older word for ten. There are, as you already know, ten dimes in one dollar. A dime, then, is a tenth of a dollar. Silver coins called half dismes were made at the same time as the first dismes. We still have a coin that is worth half a dime, though we call it a nickel.

There was not much silver around to make these early coins. So the President's family came to the rescue. The President, of course, was George Washington. The silver tableware from his home at Mount Vernon was sent to the new mint in Philadelphia. There it was milted down, molded and stamped into our country's very first coins.