1st October 1957: ‘In God We Trust’ appears on U.S. paper currency for the first time

In 1956 the U.S. Congress adopted the phrase ‘In God we trust’ as the country’s official motto, replacing the Latin E pluribus unum (‘Out of many, one’). The latter has featured on the Great Seal of the United States since 1776, but the joint resolution required the new phrase to appear on all American currency. References to similar phrases can be traced back to Francis Scott Key’s “The Star-Spangled Banner” which closes the final verse with ‘And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”’ However, there is little other reference to the phrase until the Civil War, when the U.S. Treasury claims public religious sentiment witnessed a dramatic increase. Public pressure to include ‘In God We Trust’ begin appearing from 1861, when Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase began to receive letters requesting that newly minted coins should make some reference to God. A capitalised version of the phrase subsequently appeared on newly-minted two-cent pieces from 1864. By the early twentieth century it ha