How the Dollar Took Over the World: Bretton Woods to the Nixon Shock

On August 15, 1971, Richard Nixon went on live television and cut the link between the US dollar and gold. That link was the promise holding the world's money together. Many expected the dollar to collapse. Instead, it became more powerful than ever. This cinematic documentary tells the hidden history of the world's reserve currency, starting in 1944 at a mountain hotel in New Hampshire. There, 730 delegates from 44 nations tied global money to the dollar and tied the dollar to gold at 35 dollars an ounce. We follow the cracks as they grow. Economist Robert Triffin finds a flaw in the system's design. The London gold pool collapses. Charles de Gaulle's France openly turns against America's exorbitant privilege and ships its gold home. Then comes the secret weekend at Camp David, the Sunday night speech, and the end of Bretton Woods. After that we cover the 1973 oil shock and the petrodollar arrangement with Saudi Arabia, which made the dollar indispensable without gold. We close on today's de-dollarization debate: frozen reserves, record central bank gold buying, and the hunt for alternatives. This video is storytelling and historical analysis, not financial advice. Subscribe to Paper Empires for more hidden histories of money, power and the institutions that shape the world. #BrettonWoods #NixonShock #Petrodollar #Dedollarization #EconomicHistory ⏱ Chapters 0:00 Intro 1:07 The Hotel in the Mountains 3:06 Cracks in the Vault 4:57 France Calls the Bluff 6:29 Sunday Night at Camp David 8:28 The Petrodollar 10:29 The Throne Under Siege