1971: Merrill Lynch & Co. goes public, becoming the first New York Stock Exchange firm to do its own initial public offering on the NYSE. Two things stand out: The brokerage industry has waited nearly 200 years to share their profits with the public. And Merrill Lynch — which is "bullish on America" — invites the public to own a piece of the bull less than a year-and-a-half before the onset of the worst stock market slump since 1929.

1866: Two weeks after setting out from Valentia, Ireland, with 2,700 nautical miles of steel cable wrapped around giant spools in her cargo hold, The Great Eastern reaches Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. The transatlantic cable has been successfully laid across the ocean floor, enabling telegraph messages to shoot instantly from the U.S. to Europe. In charge of the project: the great British physicist, Lord Kelvin, who is famous even today for his work in thermodynamics but forgotten for his key role in making intercontinental communication possible. For the first time in history, a Tuesday newspaper in New York can carry Monday's news from Europe, instead of the "news" from two or three weeks earlier.

1694: Amid choral chants of "Laus Deo" (Praise the Lord), the Bank of England opens for business in London to print currency and manage the national debt. It goes on to become one of the world's most effective central banks.

John Carswell, The South Sea Bubble (The Cresset Press, London, 1960), p. 27