50 Dollars - Elizabeth II Pedro Alvares Cabral

Cabral's 1500 landfall in Brazil was almost certainly accidental — his fleet was swinging wide into the Atlantic to avoid Gulf of Guinea doldrums en route to India when it made continental contact. Portugal spent years afterward debating internally whether to publicize the discovery at all, wary of triggering Spanish territorial claims under the Treaty of Tordesillas. Cook Islands issued a wave of commemorative silver in this period largely as a revenue mechanism, with the numismatic program generating more income than most of the islands' traditional exports.