America's Great Depression of the late 1920s and early 1930s caused many financial problems. Thousands of banks failed between the stock market crash of October 1929 and March of 1933. Many people who had money in banks lost some or all of it when their banks failed.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress made several changes. In June of 1933, the FDIC was created to provide a federal government guarantee of deposits. The guarantee says a person's money, within certain limits, would be safe. Since the start of FDIC insurance, no one has lost a cent of insured money because of a bank failure.