1986: Sun Microsystems, Inc. goes public on NASDAQ at an initial price of $16 per share.

1957: Standard & Poor's Corp. introduces a new stock index, which it initially calls the "Standard '500' Index." Now known as the S&P 500, the index uses a "scientific weighting formula" that enables investors to measure the movement in the total value of most of America's major stocks.

S&P 500 1999/2000 Directory (Standard & Poor's, New York, 1999), p. 7.

1933: With the nation's banking system in shambles, Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt orders a nationwide bank holiday. On his first day in office, Roosevelt issues an executive decree under the Emergency War Powers Act. Banks must close to prevent a "run" on their deposits by frightened customers and to give government authorities a chance to reform their finances; the stock exchanges, the commodities exchanges, and the money markets are also closed. The stock exchanges are reopened on March 15, but 3,460 (out of some 18,000 total) banks stay closed for good.

Barrie A. Wigmore, The Crash and Its Aftermath: A History of Securities Markets in the United States, 1929-1933 (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, and London, 1985), pp. 433-445, 449, 537, 672.

1472: The world's oldest continually operating bank, the Monte della Pieta (now known as the Monte dei Paschi di Siena), is founded in Siena, Italy to lend money to "poor or wretched or needy persons" at 7.5% annual interest. Today the Monte dei Paschi, still headquartered in the same building, is one of the largest banks in Italy.

Dr. Carlo Pensa, corporate secretary, Monte dei Paschi di Siena S.p.A., Siena, Italy;Historical Notes (privately published by the Monte dei Paschi di Siena, n.d.), pp. 15-16.