1998: The Russian government devalues the ruble and declares a moratorium on paying its foreign debt, a de facto default that sends the global bond markets crashing, triggers the collapse of the giant U.S. hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management and sends shockwaves through the world's financial system.

1982: Salomon Bros.' chief economist, Henry Kaufman — known as "Dr. Doom" for his bearish forecasts — suddenly turns bullish, declaring that interest rates are likely to fall significantly. Wall Street goes bonkers, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average gaining 38.81 points, or 4.9%, one of its largest daily leaps ever. Trading volume is a near-record 92.86 million shares, and winners outnumber losers on the New York Stock Exchange by ten to one. Just two days after The New York Times reported that Wall Street was in a state of despair, the great bull market of the 1980s is underway in high spirits and at dazzling speed.

Henry Kaufman, On Money and Markets (McGraw-Hill, New York, 2000), p. 155;William G. Shepherd, "Dark Days on Wall Street," The New York Times, August 15, 1982, Section 3, p. 1

1896: Two Tagish Indians named Skookum Jim and Tagish Charlie, along with a Californian named George Carmack, are scrabbling for gold in Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River near Skagway, Alaska. They suddenly come up with a pan chock-full of gold nuggets and rechristen the stream "Bonanza Creek." The Alaska Gold Rush is on.

1802: In one of history's greatest acts of inventive daring, Robert Fulton launches his new steamboat from the north shore of Manhattan. The craft, nicknamed "Fulton's Folly," is unfinished, since Fulton has run out of money. With its Boulton & Watt steam engine belching smoke, it looks like "a backwoods sawmill mounted on a scow and set on fire." Fulton has tested it on just a single two-mile run, but he lures 40 friends and relatives on board and chugs all the way to Albany and back, covering 300 miles in 62 hours — an astounding pace of nearly 5 mph. By March, 1850, the Scientific American declares: "Where the steamboat goes, there the wilderness disappears."

"50, 100 and 150 Years Ago," Scientific American, March, 2000, p. 12