Profile America
- Friday, March 19th. Banks hadn't
been around too long in young America
before someone figured out that
robbing one of them would net more
money than most people could earn in
a lifetime. So, on this day in 1831,
Edward Smith committed the first bank
robbery in the U.S. -- his target was
the City Bank on Wall Street in New
York City.
He entered the bank after it closed,
using a duplicate set of keys, and
got away with $245,000 -- a huge sum
at the time. But he was caught,
convicted, and spent five years in
New York's Sing Sing prison.
Now, across the nation, there are
9,000 bank robberies annually, which
works out to 25 each day. The average
robber gets away with about $4,200.
You can find these and more facts
about America from the U.S. Census
Bureau, conducting the 2010 Census
beginning April 1st.
Sources: America's Best History, U.S.
Timeline
Statistical Abstract of the United
States 2010, t. 310
http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2010edition.html
