The first modern payday lending store opened in Tennessee

North Carolina was the first state to ban payday lending

In 2001, the North Carolina state legislature let a 1997 law that permitted the small-dollar loans expire—effectively banning payday loans. In 2005, the NC bank commissioner ruled that Advance America, a payday lending company, had been operating in the state illegally.

Modern payday lending came about in the late 1990s

In the early 1900s, unlicensed "salary lenders" used to give consumers one-week loans at annualized percentage rates of more than 100%. But wage garnishment and financially abusive practices led some states to create special licenses for lenders and implement rate caps to protect consumers. In the 1990s, a series of deregulations in various states opened the door for the modern payday lending industry to take off.

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.

eCash paved the way for today’s popular crypto investments

Bitcoin is typically cited as the first decentralized cryptocurrency. But some argue that back in the 1990s, eCash was technically the first cryptocurrency, although it wasn't decentralized.

In 1955, the first Dollar General store was opened in Kentucky

It was created by a father and son, Cal Turner Sr. and JL Turner. At the time, no item in the store cost more than one dollar, although that has since changed.

The idea of a check—or promissory note—goes back to antiquity

As long as traders have looked to pay in cash or coin, the idea of an IOU has been close behind. Clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia (roughly modern Iraq) and Persia (Iran) suggest proto-checks were used at the time. Islamic traders innovated "sakks" in the 9th century, leading to the broader adoption during the Middle Ages in Europe.

Meet Alphonse Desjardins, a credit union pioneer

The first credit union opened in Germany in 1864, but the bank alternative didn’t reach North America until 1901. That’s when Canadian journalist Alphonse Desjardins introduced the concept to his hometown with a starter 10-cent deposit. Desjardins helped launch the first US credit union just eight years later. This engaging timeline highlights Desjardins, his contributions to credit unions, and how the institutions have evolved over the last 100-plus years. Scroll through the timeline 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.

Benjamin Franklin founded America's first lending library in 1731

Franklin convinced members of his intellectual club to pool resources and purchase books none could afford individually. The Library Company of Philadelphia was founded with 50 shareholders, each contributing 40 shillings, and served as the unofficial, de facto Library of Congress from the Revolutionary War until 1800.

The three major credit bureaus were created in the mid-1900s to sort local credit reporting into national databases

In the 1800s, credit bureaus went into business to help lenders make decisions. But today's three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion, didn't become the industry leaders they are today until the 20th century, around the same time FICO was founded.

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.

Read about the history of gift cards

The first retailer to sell gift cards was Neiman Marcus, but Blockbuster popularized them by selling them via in-store displays in 1994. Starbucks then started selling gift cards that could be reloaded in 2001.

Hear how the Piggly Wiggly grocery store founder attempted to squeeze short sellers by cornering the grocery store's stock

Founded in 1916 in Memphis, TN by Clarence Saunders, Piggly Wiggly was the first modern grocery store with aisles for customers to shop for themselves. In 1922, investors placed short positions, sensing that the stock may be overvalued after several Piggly Wiggly franchises in the Northeast went bankrupt. Saunders attempted to squeeze short sellers by taking out $10M and buying up nearly 99% of all available Piggly Wiggly stock. Ultimately, the fiasco ended with Piggly Wiggly's stock being permanently banned from the New York Stock Exchange and Saunders leaving Piggly Wiggly and filing for bankruptcy.

US women got the right to open a credit card in their own name in 1974

Before that year, banks in the US were legally allowed to deny women credit or charge them higher interest if they failed to get a male cosigner.

The first American roller coaster was built at Coney Island

LaMarcus Thompson was an inventor and businessman who developed the first US amusement park ride in the 19th century and sparked a booming business. Customers spent a nickel to coast on wheeled benches over gentle hills, leaving Thompson with around $600 per day in profits.

The Dow Jones & Company began as a small news service in 1882

Founded in 1882 by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser, Dow Jones & Company started with hand-delivered market bulletins. Today it’s a global financial news giant, best known for publishing The Wall Street Journal.

Elon Musk's first company was an online business directory called 'Zip2'

Musk started the online alternative to Yellow Pages in 1995 with his younger brother. Musk sold the company for $305M in 1999.

An explanation of hard credit checks vs. soft credit checks

Some buy now, pay later services do a soft credit check rather than a hard credit check, like credit card companies would do when someone applies for a card. While hard credit checks can impact your credit score, soft pulls typically do not.

Watch the Super Bowl commercial that launched Discover

A Sears subsidiary, the financial services company Dean Witter, launched Discover Card through a Super Bowl commercial during Super Bowl XX.

There's a myth that Al Capone coined the term 'money laundering'

Al Capone owned multiple dry cleaning businesses in Chicago that were believed to be a front for his extensive bootlegging empire, but that's most likely not where the term "money laundering" actually came from. The word didn't appear in popular lexicon until the 1970s, and there aren't recorded references to Al Capone as a money launderer until much later.

In 2001, a $20M ticket officially kicked off space tourism

On that day, American businessman Dennis Tito became the first paying passenger to visit space, spending a week aboard the International Space Station. Since then, space participants have been members of suborbital flights, which do not require intensive training to prepare for.

Natural food stores began sprouting up in the US in the 1960s and 1970s

Health food stores began opening in the ‘50s, though they were primarily focused on vitamins and holistic supplements. Natural food stores, however, provided pesticide-free produce and often relied on local farmers for their products. One of the first was New Age Natural Foods, in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, which opened in 1965.

How Nashville became Music City

Nashville didn’t just earn the nickname “Music City”—it grew into it. From early settlers and the Fisk Jubilee Singers to the Grand Ole Opry and Jefferson Street’s R&B scene, this breakdown looks at how a city on the Cumberland River became a global center for music across every genre.

Pizza Hut helped pioneer online food delivery

The company's PizzaNet website launched in 1994, allowing users to order pizza online for the first time. The service launched in select areas of Santa Cruz, California, though its servers were located in Kansas. Every order was relayed to the preferred branch in California, who would then call the user to confirm the order.

'9 to 5' was Dolly Parton's first No. 1 pop hit

1977’s “Here You Come Again” reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, but “9 to 5,” the 1980 song for a film of the same name (starring Parton alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin) was the first to reach the top.

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.

Roughly 43 million US borrowers owe roughly $1.7T in student debt, the second-largest source of consumer debt behind mortgages.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

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.

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

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

The first line of 'immortal' human cells, which can divide indefinitely and are used in scientific research, was nonconsensually taken from a Black woman.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

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 first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

A small portion of The Winstons' 'Amen, Brother,' an obscure '60s gospel record, is the basis for thousands of hip-hop tracks, making it one of the most sampled records ever that's informally known as 'the Amen break.'

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

44% of Americans say they pray at least once a day—discover how your state's religiosity stacks up against the rest of the country.

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.

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.

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

The distributor behind 'Rocky Horror' pulled the film from its scheduled national release, believing it would be a failure, though it eventually amassed a dedicated fanbase through midnight showings, a trend that continues over 50 years later.

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

Prince's sexually explicit 1984 track 'Darling Nikki' attracted the ire of the Parents Music Resource Center, an advocacy group that inspired the Parental Advisory sticker, even though the song ends with a Christian message.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

Brandi Chastain, the star of the 1999 US victory over China in the 1999 Women's World Cup, was a last-second choice to take the penalty kick that sealed the victory.

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