1998: Cendant, one of the great growth stocks of the 1990s, collapses as the firm discloses "potential accounting irregularities" resulting from its binge buying of other companies. The stock loses 46% of its value in a single day — right after leading analysts at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Goldman Sachs, BT Alex. Brown and Furman Selz had all recommended it as a "strong buy."

John Authers, "Cendant Price Plunges over 'Potential Irregularities,' " Financial Times, April 17, 1998, p. 1.

1991: The Warsaw Stock Exchange reopens for trading, after decades of closure under Communist rule.

Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (John Wiley & Sons, NY, 1996), p. 298

1867: Wilbur Wright is born in Millville, Ind. At age 11, he starts playing with a flying toy made of cork, bamboo and rubber bands; in 1903, he and his brother Orville make the world's first sustained airplane flight.

1835: It's a glorious day for insider trading. In Albany, New York State Senator Kemble earns $2,239 by opposing a bill permitting the Harlem Railroad to issue more shares — after he has sold the stock short. When the railroad's lobbyists board the steamboat to return to New York with the bad news, Kemble buys back the stock at its newly depressed price. Then he reverses his opposition, allowing the bill to pass, and sells when the good news of the bill's passage reaches New York. A few months later, Kemble is expelled from the State Senate.

James K. Medbery, Men and Mysteries of Wall Street (Fields, Osgood & Co., Boston, 1870;reprinted, Fraser Publishing Co., Wells, VT, 1968) pp. 295-296.