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Wednesday, January 3, 2018

The Exchequer is a government department of the United Kingdom probably originating in the Anglo-Saxon period lasting until 1834, responsible for the management and collection of taxation and other government revenues.

The chief finance minister in the United Kingdom is referred to as the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

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Today's Random Fact:

The name Exchequer derives from the counting table used by the crown treasurer in medieval England. The table resembled a giant chess board. The French word for chessboard being echiquier.




Bonus Fact:

In the early medieval period, before the Norman conquest of England, the counting board was simply a flat surface inscribed with horizontal lines representing various denominations. Small stones or pebbles were used as counters. In fact, our word calculate comes from the Latin word calculus meaning small stone.

It would be well into the sixteenth century before the Hindu-Arabic numbering system that we use today, with its concept of decimal places and the introduction of zero, came into general use in Europe, making counting boards obsolete.