[gwbas1c]

Ray Dalio explains this history in his books "How Countries Go Broke" and "Big Debt Crises".

His theory is that governments have a debt cycle, and printing money is just one point in that cycle.

[IAmBroom]

You're just parroting the phrase "printing money". I'm asking if governments ever literally do (except in extremely defective examples).

[gwbas1c]

Yes, they do.

The first part of "Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith gives many historical examples.

And in Ray Dalio's book, he explains how the US government did it in the past, and will need to do it again in the future.