Wikipedia:Today's featured article/March 11, 2016

The Morgan dollar coin was minted from 1878 to 1904, and again in 1921. It is named for its designer, U.S. Mint Assistant Engraver George T. Morgan. The obverse depicts a profile portrait representing Liberty, while the reverse depicts an eagle with wings outstretched. The Coinage Act of 1873, which stopped the minting of silver dollars, was reversed by a series of laws supporting production of the Morgan dollar. The Bland–Allison Act of 1878 required the Treasury to purchase between two and four million dollars' worth of silver at market value to be coined into dollars each month. In 1890 that act was repealed by the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required the Treasury to purchase 4500000 ozt of silver each month, but this act too was repealed, in 1893. An 1898 law required all remaining bullion to be coined into silver dollars, and when those reserves were depleted in 1904, production of the Morgan dollar ended. The Pittman Act, passed in 1918, authorized the melting and recoining of millions of silver dollars, and the Morgan dollar resumed mintage for one year in 1921, before its replacement by the Peace dollar later the same year.