1962: The Self-Employed Individual Retirement Tax Act of 1962 becomes Federal law, creating the Keogh plan, the first retirement account that an individual can control and determine for himself.

1839: The Bank of United States of Pennsylvania suspends specie payments (meaning that it will no longer pay depositors in gold or silver). Like banks ever since, the B.U.S. couldn't leave well enough alone — overextending itself with merchant banking, investments in other bank stocks, and speculation on foreign currency and cotton futures. When it's forced to cut back, the B.U.S. triggers a financial panic that produces one of the deepest recessions in American history.

John Joseph Wallis, "What Caused the Crisis of 1839?" National Bureau of Economic Research Historical Paper 133 (National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, April, 2001), pp. 19-25.