1995: Less than a year-and-a-half after breaking the 800 barrier, the NASDAQ Composite Index closes above 900 for the first time, finishing the day at 902.68.

1979: Fidelity Investments drops the sales charges on many of its largest mutual funds, including Fidelity Fund, Magellan, and Puritan — giving a huge boost to the direct purchase of no-load funds by retail investors.

Fidelity Investments, Mutual Fund Guide, June, 1994. (Suggested by: Robert N. Veres, editor, Inside Information.)

1933: Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt takes almost single-handed control over the U.S. economy in a single day, signing a series of new Federal laws. The Glass-Steagall Act strictly limits the brokerage and underwriting activities of commercial banks. The National Industrial Recovery Act establishes a $3.3 billion public works program and gives the government unprecedented powers over railroads and other industries.

The New York Times, June 17, 1933, p. 1;reprinted in Floyd Norris and Christine Bockelmann, The New York Times Century of Business (McGraw-Hill, New York, 2000), pp. 88-91;Museum of American Financial History.

1911: Financier Charles Flint merges Tabulating Machine Co., run by U.S. Census Bureau statistician Herman Hollerith, with Computing Scale Co. of America and International Time Recording Co. to form Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co., the ancestor of IBM.

1910: Inspectors from the U.S. Post Office raid the headquarters of the United Wireless Telegraph Co. in New York, arresting its flamboyant president, Col. Christopher Columbus Wilson, and vice president Samuel Bogart, on charges of manipulating the stock price through mail fraud, fleecing the public of more than $20 million (over $365 million in today's money). Like today's Internet stock investors, yesterday's radio investors earned mostly heartbreak.

1215: King John of England signs the Magna Carta, enumerating the principles of limited government, free trade, private property, and the liquidation of assets to pay debts.