This is Planet Money from NPR.

Hey everyone, there's a lot of attention on the Federal Reserve right now.

Jerome Powell, the chair of the Fed, is figuring out how to deal with rising prices.

This week, he signaled that there's a growing risk of persistence inflation, and that the

Fed could scale back its support for the economy more quickly than expected.

So with all eyes on the Fed, we figured this is a good time to look back at how America's

Central Bank came to be in the first place.

This episode first aired in December 2013.

Enjoy.

Here at Planet Money, we like to observe the big holidays.

There's April 15th, tax day.

There's January 11th, which I don't need to tell you, is Alexander Hamilton's birthday.

And of course, coming up December 23rd.

The day the Federal Reserve was created.

This is a particularly big one this year because the Fed is turning 100 years old.

And it's one of the most powerful institutions in the world.

Hey, you know what I'm going to say?

It is the most powerful institution in the world.

Today, we tell the story of its creation.

There is a 70 year old man with a bad cold and a bunch of mistresses.

There's a nation that's deeply ambivalent about the idea of a immensely powerful Central

Bank.

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