London bankers created the first clearinghouse to process checks in 1770

Congress mandated that the Fed streamline check payments

When it was first created in the 1910s, the Federal Reserve System became a crucial link between the nation's regional banks. The increasing number of checks used by the thousands of banks across the nation required a central operator, and the Fed was uniquely positioned to help. Learn more about the role the Fed played in the history of checks.

The Medicis of Italy innovated 'bills of exchange,' precursors to checks

At the time, lending money for interest (also known as usury) was banned in much of the Christian world. The enterprising Medicis developed bills of exchange to allow merchants to promise payment without cash or coin (with some discrete means of earning interest woven in). Learn more about how this family laid the foundation for modern banking.

Credit reporting's earliest origins in the 1700s resemble a game of telephone, with rural merchants asking their most esteemed neighbors to vouch for them to sleuthing urban lenders

It would be decades before the system evolved into something more formulaic. For instance, New York City's Mercantile Agency—which was created to formalize information and rumors about borrowers, sorting the reports into enormous ledgers—wasn't started until 1841.

Hamilton founded what many regard as the first commercial bank in the United States

In 1784, Alexander Hamilton helped found the Bank of New York, which initially operated without a charter, financed early federal operations, provided what is considered the US government's first loan, and became the first stock traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

From bartering to banking, temples to electronic transactions, here’s banking has evolved significantly since ancient times

A few historical facts about banking (like that one day, not long ago, certificates of deposit were physical pieces of paper) may not surprise you. But did you know that the church was the original lender? And that Julius Caesar himself invented foreclosure?

American Express is credited with inventing the traveler's check

In the 1890s, then American Express President James C. Fargo was frustrated that he couldn't get cash while traveling in Europe outside of major cities. Marcellus Berry, an American Express employee, came up with the idea of a traveler's "cheque": a prepaid check, similar to cash, that requires the signature of both the customer and the receiving institution to be valid. American Express never modernized the spelling of the word "cheque" and stopped providing them at the end of 2020.

Paper check usage is down 83% over 25 years

At the start of the millennium, more than 68 million checks were processed daily. Amid the adoption of automated clearinghouse (ACH) payment systems, that number has sunk to 12 million a day.

The concept of CDs dates back to the 1600s in Europe

Banks in the US started issuing CDs in the early 1800s as the banking system began to take shape following the Revolutionary War. The federal government did not formally insure CDs until the FDIC was formed in 1933.

The first ATM—dubbed a 'cash dispenser'—was installed in 1967 in London

Specifically, the first ATM (which stands for “automatic teller machine”) made its debut at a Barclays bank in London. A timeline of ATM history can help illustrate and visualize other key events in ATM history.

How the checking account has evolved into a platform of features rather than a product

The accounts act as an anchor for customer relationships that banks need to retain said customers. As fintech companies unbundle the checking account without technically being chartered banks, traditional banks face pressure to innovate the checking account experience.

As technology evolved, so did Wall Street

Before the telephone was invented in the mid 1800s, people had to trade stocks in person. But once office telephones and computers became commonplace, banks and other financial institutions didn't necessarily need to have their headquarters near exchanges like Wall Street's New York Stock Exchange.

How JPMorgan Chase became America's biggest bank

From the railroad and steel consolidations brokered by John Pierpont Morgan on Wall Street more than a century ago, to the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the financial crisis, and Jamie Dimon’s leadership, J.P. Morgan Chase has been at the center of finance for more than a century.

Peruse a running sale of collectible checks

The George H. Labarre galleries hold regular auctions of collectible checks, along with other numismatic items (such as coins, paper money, and so on). See the antiquated iconography on old checks from railroads, regional banks, and businesses.

Before the US Mint, people made currency in private mints

Around the year 1652, New England coinage was created at private mints. Historically, private mints were often located in places where governments did not meet the demand for currency. This article dives into the history of private mints, including the ones people can still visit today.

The idea for the Federal Reserve was conceived in secret in 1910—with bankers donning duck hunt gear for disguise while traveling to a remote country club on Georgia's Jekyll Island

Investment banking giant Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy in September 2008 when it had $619B in debt, making it the largest bankruptcy ever in the US

Nearly all of its 26,000 employees immediately lost their jobs. But in London, a few hundred remained tucked away, working for another decade to wind down the bank’s European business.

British economist John Maynard Keynes originally proposed a global currency called the bancor

Keynes—one of the chief architects of the Bretton Woods system—proposed establishing a global central bank that would issue a new international currency, the bancor, to settle trade imbalances. The idea was rejected in favor of the US dollar serving as the main currency of the international system.

Delmonico's was the first American fine-dining restaurant

The steakhouse opened in 1837 in Manhattan, creating what is now considered the first fine-dining restaurant in the United States, introducing gloved waiters, white tablecloths, and an à la carte menu. The establishment also claims it invented a few American staples, including eggs Benedict, which was supposedly named after two loyal customers.

Dishonest brokers called ‘curbstoners’ once competed by placing signs on properties

In the 1910s, yards would be littered with dozens of signs representing competing and potentially dishonest salesmen. The concept of the “open house” developed during this period, as real estate agents would occupy a single home all day for what they called “open inspections.”

Railroads and long-distance communication led to the development of time zones

Noon had been determined independently at each location based on when the sun was highest in the sky, but this became impractical for standardizing transportation. British star-mapping and navigation advancements established Greenwich as the prime meridian through Greenwich Mean Time, or GMT.

Circulating libraries helped the novel's popularity surge

As literacy rates began to rise in the 19th century, so did the demand for reading materials. The only problem? Newspapers and books weren’t cheap, and newly literate middle-class families struggled to afford literature. That changed when booksellers began offering small fees for patrons who decided to borrow rather than purchase books. This was eventually called a circulating library, an innovation that would satisfy the burgeoning readership of novels and increase literacy rates further.

The origins of British pub names

An estimated 50,000 pubs dot the streets and countrysides of Britain, many of which have histories going back centuries. This deep dive traces the origins of some of the most common pub names to the medieval era, including favorites Red Lion, Crown, and Royal Oak. Learn why such names were originally chosen and how they have come to evolve in recent centuries in this comprehensive overview.

The wild, early history of the tunnel across the English Channel

Britain and France today are connected by the Chunnel—a tunnel bored roughly 120 feet under the seabed of the notoriously choppy English Channel, which opened in 1994. The dream of integrating Britain with the rest of the continent this way began much earlier, with daring, physically impossible plans proposed as early as the 19th century. Check out the earliest plans here.

The first private equity fund was launched in 1960

At the time, the industry—and the public's understanding of it—was rather limited, and few private equity firms existed until the 1980s. The first leveraged buyout is thought to have taken place in 1955.

Money laundering is a three-step process: placement, layering, and integration

"Placement" occurs when dirty money is introduced into the financial system. Then "layering" happens when the money is moved around to disguise where it actually came from. Finally, the money is placed in other assets or investments in a step called integration.

Guinness World Records was founded to settle drunken arguments

In the early 1950s, Hugh Beaver, Managing Director for Guinness Brewing, pitched a definitive record book as a way to resolve drunken arguments in pubs. In turn, the books would promote Guinness at the local watering hole.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

While the first exchange-traded fund (a 'basket' of different assets that can be bought and sold on a stock exchange) in the US only launched in 1993, the global ETF market has grown to more than $10T in the short time since.

Budweiser stores yeast derived from the original 1800s strain in a secret bunker, which only the Head of Yeast Management can access—not even the CEO

The rivalry between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson centered on federalism—the question of how much power the federal government should hold relative to the states.

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

Some coin denominations have ridges etched on their sides, partly to prevent counterfeiting, in a practice called 'reeding.'

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Venture capital is a form of funding provided to early-stage companies with high growth potential, typically in exchange for an equity (or ownership) stake

Elk Cloner, the first computer virus to spread in public, was written as a practical joke by Richard Skrenta, a Pittsburgh high school student.

Mark Twain spent decades feuding with the US Postal Service, convinced its costs and regulations were bureaucratic overreach.

The first horror movie is believed to be George Méliès' 1986 short 'The Haunted Castle,' which pioneered the use of special effects

The first steps to rebuilding your credit score include getting to know exactly what's on your credit report and figuring out how far you are from the '700 club,' or 'good score' range.

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, and became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

The term 'algorithm' originated from the Latinized name of al-Khwārizmī, a 9th-century mathematician whose works introduced Arabic numerals and the decimal-based numeral system to Europe and whose treatise 'Al-Jabr' gave algebra its name.

A century of Billboard issues documenting the evolution of popular music.

Sears sold DIY house kits starting at $600 in its famous catalog from 1908 through the 1940s, resulting in roughly 10,000 'Sears and Roebuck houses' being built.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

The Beatles' US label rejected the band's first two singles, 'Please Please Me' and 'From Me to You,' with one executive calling the band 'dead in the water.'

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

The most expensive ad of all time was for Chanel No. 5 perfume and cost roughly $33M to produce in 2004—about $57M in today's dollars.