The Panic of 1907

A failed attempt to corner the copper market brought down the bank that financed it, depositors ran on the trust companies of New York, and the stock exchange nearly closed for lack of cash. The United States had no central bank. What stopped it was J. P. Morgan, aged seventy, locking the city's bankers in his library overnight and refusing to let them out until they agreed to put up their own money. A private citizen personally halted a national bank run, which was precisely the argument for never being in that position again — the Federal Reserve was created six years later.