1997: Just days after Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh defiantly declares, "We will never devalue the baht," the Bank of Thailand announces that it will cease to support the value of the baht against foreign currencies. Never say "never": the baht drops 15% in a day, and by year-end the Thai stock market has lost three-quarters of its value. Back in the U.S.A., the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index closes above 900 for the first time, finishing the day at 904.03.

Mark L. Clifford and Pete Engardio, Meltdown: Asia's Boom, Bust and Beyond (Prentice Hall, Paramus, NJ, 2000), pp. 190-191;David M. Blitzer, chief investment strategist, Standard & Poor's Corp.

1962: A struggling retailer from Kingfisher, Okla., opens an 18,000-sq.-ft. discount store in Rogers, Ark. His name is Sam Walton, and he calls his store Wal-Mart.

Sam Walton with John Huey, Sam Walton: Made in America (Bantam Books, New York, 1993), pp. 4, 56, 57, 59.

1890: In a backlash against the monopolistic excesses of the "robber barons," the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, authorizing the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate and break up giant industrial monopolies, becomes law.

Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (Random House, New York, 1999), p. 303

1864: The U.S. Congress passes the law that authorizes creation of the Northern Pacific Railroad, the second great belt of steel track to cross the continent. Eventually the Northern Pacific will reach from St. Paul, along the Mississippi, to Tacoma, near the mouth of the Pacific.

John F. Stover, The Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads (Routledge, New York and London, 1999), pp. 92-93.