1985: E.F. Hutton & Co. pleads guilty to 2,000 felony counts of Federal mail fraud and wire fraud, agreeing to pay over $10 million in fines and disgorged profits. Hutton — the prestigious Wall Street brokerage house whose TV ads intone, "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen" — systematically overdrafted its accounts at commercial banks to obtain interest-free money from 1980 through 1982. Hutton got to use up to $250 million per day without paying any interest. Justice is finally served: Its finances crippled by the settlement, its reputation in tatters, Hutton is bought up by Shearson Lehman Brothers in 1987.

The Wall Street Journal, May 3, 1985, p. 3;December 4, 1987, p. 3;February 17, 1988, p. A1.

1963: Edward C. Johnson II, the head of Fidelity Investments, starts a small mutual fund and gives it to his son, Ned, to run. He calls it the Magellan Fund.

Fidelity Investments, Mutual Fund Guide, March 2000, p. 52;Diana B. Henriques, Fidelity's World: The Secret Life and Public Power of the Mutual Fund Giant (Scribner, New York, 1995), p. 206;Joseph Nocera, A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class (Simon & Schuster, New York, 1994), p. 245.