Here is the chart of the Dollar Index (which measures the dollar against a basket of currencies like the pound sterling, euro, yen, Swiss franc, Australian dollar and Canadian dollar):
It only goes back to the 1970s because prior to that the dollar and other major currencies were in the Bretton Woods system which pegged them to gold.
There are two major spikes: the first in the early 80's when Fed chairman Paul Volcker raised interest rates to eye-watering levels to crush inflation. The second in the 90's when America was doing great but Europe was struggling with the costs of the reunification of Germany, Russia defaulted and south-east asia had a massive financial crisis.
Each spike resulted in a recession: the 1980/81 recession and the dot-com crash. Interestingly the great financial crash of 2008 was not preceded by a dollar spike - that recession was caused by mismanagement in the banks and not macroeconomics.
As you can see, the dollar isn't that strong at the moment. Probably because all central banks are raising interest rates in lockstep (with the exception of the European central bank, which incredibly still has negative interest rates despite raging inflation).
