1974: Pres. Gerald R. Ford signs into law the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), which regulates employee benefits, defines "fiduciary duty" for pension-fund managers, creates a limited Individual Retirement Account (IRA), and ultimately opens the door to the creation of 401(k) plans in 1981.

1930: New, high-speed stock tickers are introduced at the New York Stock Exchange, with a printing capacity of 500 characters per minute, up from the old machines' speed of 275 characters per minute. Unfortunately, there is almost no trading volume to report-or, as the NYSE delicately puts it a year later, "the volume of stock transactions since the inauguration of the system has not been sufficient to give the machines any extended or exhaustive test."

New York Stock Exchange Report of the President, May 1, 1930-May 1, 1931 (New York Stock Exchange, 1931), p. 82

1789: The U.S. Congress creates the Department of the Treasury "to digest and prepare plans for the improvement and management of the revenue, and for the support of public credit?to superintend the collection of revenue; to decide on the forms of keeping and stating accounts and making returns?and?to receive and keep the monies of the United States."

1776: A committee led by Thomas Jefferson recommends to the Continental Congress that the U.S. create a basic unit of currency called the "dollar." The U.S. dollar derives its name from a Spanish and Austrian coin originally called the "thaler" (named for Joachimsthal, a silver-mining town in Bohemia).