2000: The NASDAQ has one of its worst days ever, plunging s 355.49 points, or 9.67%, to finish at 3321.29, down 25.3% for the week. But "tech stocks have largely gone through their valuation adjustment," says Lehman Bros. strategist Jeffrey Applegate, who urges investors to buy. Robert Froelich, chief executive of the Kemper Funds, scoffs that the drop is "the bear's brief day in the sun" and adds, "this is the greatest opportunity for individual investors in a long time." Thomas Galvin, strategist at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, pronounces that "there's only 200 or 300 points of downside for the NASDAQ and 2000 on the upside." It turns out there are no points on the upside and more than 2000 on the downside, as the NASDAQ ends the year at 2470.52, on the way to its trough of 1114.11 in October 2002.

The Wall Street Journal, April 17, 2000, pp. A20, C1, C4;USA Today, April 17, 2000, p. 6B;G. William Schwert, "Stock Volatility in the New Millennium: How Wacky Is NASDAQ?" Table 1A, at http://schwert.ssb.rochester.edu/papers.htm

1978: Total daily volume on the New York Stock Exchange exceeds 50 million for the first time, as 52,278,180 shares change hands.

1956: Engineers from Ampex Corp., including the young Ray Dolby, records a speech by CBS executive William Lodge at the annual meeting of the National Association of Broadcasters, then plays back the world's first workable videotape on a TV screen five minutes later. Roaring with cheers and applause, 250 attendees throng the podium, crushing the Ampex engineers against the TV monitor and besieging them with orders for the new device. It is Ampex's absolute peak; the company never capitalizes on its "first-mover advantage," letting U.S. and Japanese rivals push it aside.

1894: Thomas Alva Edison's new "peephole kinetoscope," later renamed the motion-picture camera, is displayed to the public for the first time by Holland Brothers at 1155 Broadway in New York City.

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1720: The first major secondary stock offering takes place, as the South Sea Co. reopens its subscription books in London, hoping to raise 2 million pounds sterling. The company raises half that amount by 10 o'clock in the morning, as mobs of eager buyers pour into the South Sea Co.'s headquarters. With ladies pawning jewelry and farmers selling livestock to raise the cash to buy shares, the offering is oversubscribed by more than 10%. It's even possible to "flip" the shares for an 8% profit on the first day.

John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (The Cresset Press, London, 1960), pp. 126, 132-133.