Gold has captivated humans for millennia. The earliest known gold artefacts are 6,700 years old, from the Neolithic period, and include crowns and brooches. The Lydian empire struck the first coins from a gold-silver alloy in the seventh century BC. Alexander the Great secured Persia's gold-supplying regions and established 26 mints across Europe, Asia and Africa, with some coins reaching 98% purity.
Today gold accounts for over 80% of America's foreign-exchange reserves. America abandoned the international gold standard in 1971. America's weaponisation of the dollar through sanctions on Russia and Iran has prompted a race for alternatives, with China, Saudi Arabia and Thailand among the biggest gold buyers.
A kilogram of gold worth around $15,000 in the 1980s (when Lloyd Blankfein bought one as a conversation piece) would now fetch around $150,000. John Maynard Keynes called the gold standard "a barbarous relic" in 1924.
There are three things I always forget. Names, faces -- the third I can't remember.