On September 2, 1969, America’s first automatic teller
machine (ATM) makes its public debut, dispensing
cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville
Centre, New York. ATMs went on to revolutionize the
banking industry, eliminating the need to visit a bank
to conduct basic financial transactions.  

By the 1980s, these money machines had become
widely popular and handled many of the functions
previously performed by human tellers, such as
check deposits and  money transfers between
accounts. 

Today, ATMs are as indispensable to most people
as cell phones and e-mail.

Donald C. Wetzel (93) is an American businessman known
for holding the USA patent to the automatic teller machine.

On January 8, 1835, President Andrew Jackson achieves his goal of entirely paying off the United States’ national debt. It was the only
time in U.S. history that the national debt stood at zero, and it precipitated one of the worst financial crises in American history.

The elimination of the national debt was both a personal issue for Jackson and the culmination of a political project as old as the
nation itself. Since the time of the Revolution, American politicians
had argued over the wisdom of the nation carrying debt. After independence, the federal government agreed to take on individual states’ war debts as part of the unification of the former colonies. Federalists, those who favored a stronger central government, established a national bank and argued that debt could be a useful
way of fueling the new country’s economy. Their opponents, most notably Thomas Jefferson,  saw the debt as a source of national
shame.

Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845)

War bonds were debt securities issued by the government to finance military operations and other expenditure in times of war. They were
also a means to control inflation by removing money from circulation from a stimulated wartime economy.

America’s first automatic teller machine (ATM) made
made its public debut, dispensing cash at Chemical
Bank in Rockville Centre, New York. ATMs went on
to revolutionize the banking industry.

Donald Wetzel (center) demonstrates America’s first ATM in 1969 at
the former Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, LI.

Howard Robard Hughes Jr.
(December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976)

Howard Hughes was a business magnate and famed aviation
pioneer. He was one of the richest men to emerge from the
American West during the 20th century.

The largest wooden airplane ever constructed, and flown
only one time by Howard Hughes, the Spruce Goose.