Silver Coins in Popular Culture
A silver coin or coins sometimes are placed under the mast or in the keel of a ship as a good luck charm. This tradition probably originated with the Romans. The tradition continues in modern times, for example, officers of USS New Orleans placed 33 coins heads up under her foremast and mainmast before she was launched in 1933 and USS Higgins, commissioned in 1999, had 11 coins specially selected for her mast stepping.
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Famous quotes containing the words silver, coins, popular and/or culture:
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house
Against the envy of less happier lands;
This blessèd plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“A war undertaken without sufficient monies has but a wisp of force. Coins are the very sinews of battles.”
—François Rabelais (1494–1553)
“We live under continual threat of two equally fearful, but seemingly opposed, destinies: unremitting banality and inconceivable terror. It is fantasy, served out in large rations by the popular arts, which allows most people to cope with these twin specters.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“The future is built on brains, not prom court, as most people can tell you after attending their high school reunion. But you’d never know it by talking to kids or listening to the messages they get from the culture and even from their schools.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)