1991: More than four years after it closed above 2000, the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaks through the 3000 mark for the first time, finishing the day at 3004.46.

John A. Prestbo, ed., The Market's Measure: An Illustrated History of America Told through the Dow Jones Industrial Average (Dow Jones, New York, 1999), p. 96

1989: An all-financial-news TV service premieres, as CNBC airs its first market broadcast.

Amy Zelvin, CNBC media relations department, interview with Jason Zweig, January 4, 2001.

1930: The stock market hits its post-Crash high, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average closes at 294.07, up an astonishing 48% in the five months since the Crash bottomed on November 13, 1929. Over the coming two years, however, the Dow will lose another 85.99% of its value, scraping rock-bottom at 41.22 on July 8, 1932.

Barrie A. Wigmore, The Crash and Its Aftermath: A History of Securities Markets in the United States, 1929-1933 (Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, and London, 1985), p. 137

1837: Three weeks before the stock market crashes in the Panic of 1837, John Pierpont Morgan is born in Hartford, Ct., to Juliet Pierpont and Junius Spencer Morgan, a merchant and stockbroker. The sickly baby, whom his parents call "Bub" and his friends call "Pip," grows up to become the most powerful financier in American history.

Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (Random House, New York, 1999), pp. 24-25.