1946: Akio Morita and Masaru Ibuka co-found Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo, or Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corp. to "bring radio communications and similar devices into common households and to promote the use of home electric appliances." One such appliance the founders imagine: "a device which prints the contents of a newspaper that it receives over the radio." Morita and Ibuka later rename their company Sony Corp.

1825: One of the earliest buying frenzies for an American IPO is reported, as the Bank of Southwark goes public in Philadelphia. Investors hire muscular goons to sign their names into the subscription books that confer the right to buy shares, and "noses were smashed, hats jammed in, and the police court was at work over the wounded for weeks after."

Walter Werner and Steven Smith, Wall Street (Columbia University Press, New York, 1991), p. 223;James K. Medbery, Men and Mysteries of Wall Street (Fields, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1870;reprinted, Fraser Publishing Co., Wells, VT, 1968) p. 291.