Three big Cs dominate the history of Romania and its capital city, Bucharest. You may know communism and Ceaușescu, but what about Cuza?

Luminaries from Agatha Christie to Walter Gropius gravitated to London’s “Lawn Road Flats.” So too did a far less conspicuous cohort: assets for the USSR.

Why, in the face of international economic ruin, did so many countries persist in maintaining the gold standard leading up to the Great Depression?