7 January 1782: America’s first central bank opens for business

On this day in 1782, the Bank of North America, created to help pay for the American war of independence, opened for business.

The USA's split from Great Britain was a fairly long drawn out and bloody affair. It was also an expensive one. The Continental Congress had experimented with issuing paper money to finance the revolution, but these efforts soon collapsed. So it turned to Richard Morris, a wealthy Liverpool-born Philadelphia merchant.

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Ben Judge

Ben studied modern languages at London University's Queen Mary College. After dabbling unhappily in local government finance for a while, he went to work for The Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh. The launch of the paper's website, scotsman.com, in the early years of the dotcom craze, saw Ben move online to manage the Business and Motors channels before becoming deputy editor with responsibility for all aspects of online production for The Scotsman, Scotland on Sunday and the Edinburgh Evening News websites, along with the papers' Edinburgh Festivals website.

Ben joined MoneyWeek as website editor in 2008, just as the Great Financial Crisis was brewing. He has written extensively for the website and magazine, with a particular emphasis on alternative finance and fintech, including blockchain and bitcoin. 

As an early adopter of bitcoin, Ben bought when the price was under $200, but went on to spend it all on foolish fripperies.