The austral was the currency of Argentina between June 15, 1985 and December 31, 1991. It was subdivided into 100 centavos. The symbol was an uppercase A with an extra horizontal line (see image). This symbol appeared on all coins issued in this currency (including centavos), to distinguish them from earlier currencies. The ISO 4217 code is ARA.

The austral replaced the peso argentino at a rate of 1 austral = 1000 pesos argentinos. It was itself replaced by the peso at a rate of 1 peso = 10,000 australes.

In 1985, coins were introduced for ½, 1, 5, 10 and 50 centavos. The ½ centavo was only issued in 1985, whilst production of the 1 centavo ceased in 1987, 5 centavo ceased in 1988, and that of the other centavo coins ended in 1989. In 1989, 1, 5 and 10 austral coins were issued, followed in 1990 and 1991 by 100, 500 and 1,000 austral denominations.

In 1985, provisional issues were made consisting of 1000, 5000 and 10,000 peso argentino notes over stamped with the values 1, 5 and 10 australes.

Jorge "George" Newbery, born Jorge Alejandro Newbery (Buenos Aires 29 May 1875 – Mendoza Province 1 March 1914), was an Argentine aviator, civil servant, engineer and scientist of North American descent. His father, Ralph Newbery (a dentist born in 1848), emigrated from Long Island, to Argentina after the American Civil War (in which he is said to have taken part in the Battle of Gettysburg). Along with Alberto Braniff and Jorge Chávez, Jorge Newbery was one of the first Latin American aircraft pilots. He was also an engineer, and is considered to be the architect and founder of the Argentinian Air Force.

Jorge Newbery was in the public eye between the 1890s and the first fifteen years of the 20th century, a very important time for Argentina which was characterised by an enormous immigration of primarily Europeans which multiplied the country’s demographic importance by a factor of five, and the expansion of an economy of agricultural export which increased the GDP per capita from $334 in 1875 to $1,151 in 1913.

Antonia Mercé y Luque (September 4, 1890 – July 18, 1936), stage name La Argentina, was a dancer known for her creation of the neoclassical style of Spanish dance as a theatrical art. She was one of the major influences on Japanese butoh dancer Kazuo Ohno.

It is given to few artists to incarnate in their art, at a given epoch, the distinct characteristics of their race and its conception of the beautiful, and this, in a manner so in complete and significant that their names get identified with a peculiar way of living and the story of their life becomes a page of history. It is to one such artist representative of her art, of her country, of her age that this short study is consecrated. The recent unexpected renaissance of Spanish dancing, an art whose creative power seemed to have been exhausted, is due primarily to the singular genius of one dancer, La Argentina. Alone she has epitomized and regenerated a form long cheapened and falsified by the music-hall gypsies turned out wholesale in Seville. And her indescribable success has loosened a new onslaught of Spanish dancing, the oldest and noblest of European exotics."