1965: In a boardroom on Cove St. in New Bedford, MA, a young, crew-cut Warren Buffett takes control of decrepit textile maker Berkshire Hathaway Inc., whose stock closes that day at $18 a share. Over the next thirty-three years, the stock price rises to $84,000 a share.

Roger Lowenstein, Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist (Random House, New York, 1995), p. 130.

1954: The Digital Age takes another huge leap forward as Texas Instruments announces that it has perfected a silicon transistor at a resale cost of just $2.50. TI declares, "Electronic 'brains' approaching the human brain in scope and reliability came much closer to reality today with the announcement by Texas Instruments Incorporated of the first commercial production of silicon transistors, kernel-sized substitutes for vacuum tubes." Soon, the first gizmo incorporating TI's breakthrough appears — Regency Electronics' transistor radio, weighing only a few ounces and costing just $50. Suddenly, you can hold a world of news and music in your hand.

1950: The Digital Age takes a huge leap forward. At the National Physical Laboratory in the British village of Teddington, Alan Turing's Pilot Model Advanced Computing Engine (ACE), one of the world's earliest general-purpose electronic computers, runs its first program.

1928: The no-load mutual fund is born as Scudder, Stevens & Clark of Boston launches its First Investment Counsel Corp. (later known as Scudder Income Fund), the first fund that does not charge a sales commission.

Jason Zweig, "Risks and Riches," Money Magazine, April, 1999, p. 96.

1869: At Promontory Point, Utah, workers from the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads drive home the Golden Spike. For the first time, the United States is truly united, as the transcontinental railroad finally stretches continuously from coast to coast — and cuts the travel time for goods and people alike from weeks to days.

1837: As New York banks suspend payment of loans in specie (gold coins), the Panic of 1837 begins — setting off the deepest economic depression the United States will suffer until 1929.

Henry Clews, Twenty -Eight Years in Wall Street (Irving Publishing, New York, 1888), p. 503