The euro is launched

On 1 January 1999 the euro became the official currency of eleven European Union countries for electronic and accounting use, with exchange rates fixed irrevocably, and a European Central Bank in Frankfurt took charge of monetary policy. Euro notes and coins went into circulation on 1 January 2002 in twelve countries, replacing the French franc, German mark, Italian lira and others in what was the largest currency changeover in history. By the 2020s, twenty or more countries, with some 350 million people, used it. The euro became the second most widely held reserve currency after the dollar, but the eurozone debt crisis of 2010 to 2012 tested its survival.

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