Throughout history, gold, a symbol of wealth and power, has always been revered. From the incredible treasures of Tutankhamen and the reign of the Roman empires to the gold rush in the 1800s, gold played a huge part in the culture and development of many great nations. Gold, the global currency was used as a medium of exchange. In 1900, the Gold Standard Act was passed in The United States, and this established gold as the only standard for redeeming paper money and it also established a fixed exchange rate among nations. During World War I, the warring nations went into fractional gold standard in order to inflate their currencies to finance their war efforts.