Ponzi (Charles Bianchi) is born in Luo, Italy.

Charles Ponzi arrives in Boston on board the Vancouver on November 17, 1903. He leaves the next day and is subsequently convicted of forgery and smuggling aliens in other cities. Ponzi subsequently returns to Boston and opens an office at 27 School Street in 1919*, where he begins to operate the kind of pyramid scheme that is later named for him. He lives initially in Somerville and then in Lexington. Arrested for fraud in 1920,* Ponzi convicted, serves time in federal and state prison, and is deported from Boston to Italy in 1934.* He dies in a hospital for paupers in Rio de Janeiro on January 17, 1949. (1/18-TDIH)