Thank you for downloading this episode of A History of the World in 100 Objects from BBC Radio 4.
If the children believe in fairies...
It's the famous moment where Peter Pan asks the audience to save Tinkerbell by joining him in believing in fairies.
Just say it in your heart: "I believe, I believe," and clap your hands.
And somewhere who hears me will believe and clap your hands.
And it's an unfailing winner.
That ability to convince others to believe in something they can't see
but wish to be true is a terrific trick.
Take the first paper money.
Someone in China printed a value on a piece of paper
and asked everyone else to agree with them
that that paper was actually worth what it said it was.
The paper notes, you could say like the darling children in Peter Pan,
were supposed to be as good as gold—or, in this case, as good as copper.
Literally worth the number of copper coins printed on the note.
The whole modern banking system of paper and credit is built on this one simple act of faith.
Paper money is truly one of the revolutionary inventions of human history.
Today's object is one of those early paper money notes.
The Chinese call them fei qian, "flying cash."
And the object comes from China at the time of the Ming, around 1400.