1978: Mad as hell and refusing to take it anymore, taxpayers revolt. Led by a crotchety amateur politician named Howard Jarvis, California voters overwhelmingly enact Proposition 13 — the first major protest against the great government tax grab of the 1970s. Double-digit property-tax increases are rolled back, forcing the state and local governments to live within their means (at least for a while) — and setting the stage for the Reagan-Thatcher era.

The Wall Street Journal, November 28, 2001, pp. B1, B13

1934: The Securities Exchange Act — which creates the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and requires companies to file registration documents with stock exchanges and to file quarterly financial statements with the SEC — is signed into law by Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt. For the first time, financial disclosure is made a fundamental right for investors, and regulation and enforcement of financial rules becomes a Federal responsibility.

Museum of American Financial History;Joel Seligman, The Transformation of Wall Street: A History of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Modern Wall Street (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1982), pp. 99-100.

1925: Walter P. Chrysler founds the Chrysler Corp. as successor corporation to the failing Maxwell Motor Car Co. Its first original model, the Chrysler Four, astounds motorists with its blazing top speed of 58 mph.