The First Dumb Robbery in American History

History of Everything

Society & Culture, Education, History

4.8 • 691 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2026

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The man credited with the first big bank robbery in America was, frankly, bad at crime. Isaac Davis made off with $162,821 - or $3 million, in today's money - from the vault of the Bank of Pennsylvania sometime in the middle of the night on August 31st, 1798. This is the story of how everything fell apart. Watch the ⁠⁠⁠⁠podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠ Fight me at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠war of the barons⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Travel to Croatia with me ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Travel to Greece with me ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Travel to Thailand with me ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our sister podcast the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Mystery of Everything⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Coffee Collab With The Lore Lodge ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠COFFEE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bonus episodes as well as ad-free episodes on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Find us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Submit your relatives on our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast.
0:04.6	Everybody shush!
0:06.0	William Shatner has something to say.
0:07.9	Cat and Jethro, box of oddities.
0:10.7	The show examines weird things.
0:13.4	What do you do when the woman you love dies?
0:17.3	Well, of course you dig her up and you live with her.
0:19.4	Aw.
0:19.9	That is really mysterious.
0:22.4	The strange, the bizarre, the unexpected.
0:26.4	Cat and Jethro, Box of Oddities.
0:29.0	Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
0:32.5	The Box of Oddities.
0:34.5	Hello, my friends, Sucker, you here? And welcome back to the History of Everything podcast.
0:38.6	And oh my God, so many things have been happening.
0:40.7	Yeah, I know at this point, people are probably expecting an episode that it's going to be like, oh, yeah, hey, let's talk about the history of Iran and everything that's going on there because of the absolute insanity that is happening on that side. And of course I'm going to get accused of things because naturally the world decides to burn every single time it is that I travel abroad or go on even a little trip internally, which in this case, I was without my phone because I was in South Carolina doing a larping event this weekend when the entire world decided to set itself on fire again. Yeah, rest of sure, we are going to be doing an episode that is going to be talking about the stuff with Iran, but technically speaking, and I know that people are watching this on the History of Everything podcast, which is the actual history one when they're looking at that on Spotify and Apple and everything else like that. But if you look at the History of Everything podcast on YouTube, where it's like the channel name for that. That is the one that I do where it's like
1:27.6	the history of geopolitics leading up to certain events. So that's, I've covered that like three
1:32.6	separate times on there in like the last six months. It has been, it's been chaos and now I'm
1:38.9	going to have to do it again. It's so incredibly stupid. But you know what else is stupid?
1:45.1	Robbing a bank.
1:47.7	Yeah, at this point I didn't really know what it is that I was actually supposed to do for the transition going into all this.
1:52.3	But yes, my friends, hello, today's episode is about the first bank robbery in the United States.
	...

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