<div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>A surveillance photo of a </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-april-16-what-happened-on-this-day-chinese-lottery/5f8b5664-b13a-4178-92d4-d65a7461aa93" rel="" target="" title="bank robber"><span>bank robber</span></a><span> was broadcast on the 11pm television news in the United States on </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/today-in-history" rel="" target="" title="April 19, 1995"><span>April 19, 1995</span></a><span>.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Then, less than an hour later, the man responsible was arrested.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Police were stunned McArthur Wheeler had robbed a bank at gunpoint making no effort to cover his face.</span></div></div><div><div id="adspot-mobile-medium"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-april-17-what-happened-on-this-day-kiteman/ce990119-c137-4a93-ae54-920cbcbe3706" rel="" target="" title="Crowd boos as stuntman nearly killed in baseball stadium"><strong><span>Crowd boos as stuntman nearly killed in baseball stadium</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Wheeler's masterplan to avoid being identified had a remarkably stupid logic.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>If you can use lemon juice to make invisible ink, then surely lemon juice would make your own face invisible.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>"But I wore the lemon juice. I wore the lemon juice," Wheeler exclaimed as he was arrested.</span></div></div><div><div class="OUTBRAIN" data-reactroot="" data-src="//www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-april-19-what-happened-on-this-day-lemon-juice-bank-robbery/0e8259a0-a779-4d5b-bf53-c9b0f4696125" data-widget-id="AR_5"></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Before the robbery, Wheeler and his accomplice Clifton Earl Johnson had tested the theory with a Polaroid camera.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>When Wheeler did not show up in the photograph, they were convinced it had worked.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Police theorised the photo test was flawed because Wheeler may have unintentionally pointed the camera at the ceiling.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Johnson received a five-year prison sentence. Wheeler was handed a 24 and-a-half-year prison term.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The sheer stupidity of the robbery attempt inspired psychologists David Dunning and Jim Kruger to define a type of cognitive bias.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>The Dunning-Kruger effect argued that people with a low capacity to do something well would also have bad judgement in their own ability.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Or in other words, if you are too stupid to rob a bank, you are also too stupid to know you are too stupid to rob a bank.</span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><span>Dunning and Kruger's research was published in 1999. The following year they would be awarded the Ig Nobel Prize. </span></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><strong><span>READ MORE:</span></strong><span> </span><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-april-16-what-happened-on-this-day-chinese-lottery/5f8b5664-b13a-4178-92d4-d65a7461aa93" rel="" target="" title=""><strong><span>The bank robbery lottery scheme that worked until it didn't</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/world/today-in-history-march-21-what-happened-on-this-day-collyer-brothers/d420209f-80bc-49c4-8745-b09ffc292bb8" target="" title="Brother starves to death after hoarder killed by own booby trap"><strong><span></span></strong></a><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/today-in-history" rel="" target="" title="For more from our Today in History archive, click here."><strong><span>For more from our Today in History archive, click here</span></strong></a></div></div><div class="block-content"><div class="styles__Container-sc-1ylecsg-0 goULFa"><a href="https://www.9news.com.au/national/how-to-follow-9news-digital/29855bb1-ad3d-4c38-bc25-3cb52af1216f" target="_blank"><strong><em><span>DOWNLOAD THE 9NEWS APP</span></em></strong></a><strong><em><span>: Stay across all the latest in breaking news, sport, politics and the weather via our news app and get notifications sent straight to your smartphone. 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