Viola Desmond $10 bill named international banknote of the year

The international bank note society has chosen Canada’s new $10 bill as the banknote of the year.

The purple polymer bill features Nova Scotia human rights icon Viola Desmond, a map of Halifax’s historic north end and the Canadian museum for human rights in Winnipeg.

It’s Canada’s first vertically-oriented banknote and the first to feature a black person and a non-royal woman. Desmond was arrested in 1946, after refusing to leave the whites-only section of a movie theatre in Nova Scotia.

The bank note society also honoured notes from Switzerland, Norway, Russia and Solomon Islands.