1985: The New York Stock Exchange moves up the opening of the trading day from 10 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.

Fact Book for the Year 1997 (New York Stock Exchange, 1998), p. 91.

1981: Uncle Sam issues new 20-year Treasury bonds at a 15.78% yield, an all-time record-high interest rate for any U.S. government issue. Analysts say they expect that yields will have to go higher "to attract stronger demand." Yields promptly begin going down, and keep going down for the next twelve years.

Daniel Fuss, manager, Loomis Sayles Bond Fund;Sidney Homer and Richard Sylla, A History of Interest Rates (Rutgers Univ. Press, New Brunswick, NJ, 1991 ed.), p. 384;New York Times, Oct. 1, 1981, p. D12.

1958: The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index closes above 50 for the first time, finishing the day at 50.06.

David M. Blitzer, chief investment strategist, Standard & Poor's Corp.

1882: The first hydroelectric power plant goes into service in Appleton, Wisc., turning the falling water of the Fox River into electricity that powers H.F. Rogers' paper mill and lights up two neighboring buildings.

1720: After hitting nearly 1,000 in the summer, the price of South Sea Co. stock plunges to 180 a share on the London stock market. The first great speculative stock boom has collapsed–and hundreds of the smartest and most powerful people in England are left with losses of up to 80% in a matter of weeks. One legislator proposes tying each South Sea director up in a sack with a monkey and a snake, and throwing him into the river; angry mobs assault and nearly lynch stockbrokers in the streets; and an investor who laughs at a joke is knocked off his feet in Exchange Alley.

John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (The Cresset Press, London, 1960), pp. 185, 187, 201, 210.