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"On this day in 1803, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, under which the U.S. paid France less than 3 cents an acre for 828,000 square miles of territory."
This land included the entirety of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma. Most of the land in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota was also included.
On this day in 1929, William Peter Hamilton, editor of The Wall Street Journal and one of the leading advocates of the "Dow Theory" of technical analysis, correctly predicted the coming demise of the bull market. But since Hamilton had already predicted the death of the bull market in January, 1927, June, 1928, and July, 1928, nobody listened.
On this day in 1929, Yale professor Irving Fisher, one of the nation’s foremost economists, said: “The breaks of the past few days have driven stocks down to hard rock. I believe that we will have a ragged market for a few weeks and then the beginning of a mild bull movement that will gain momentum next year.” The Great Crash was days away and stocks stayed ragged for years.
Note: Mr. Fisher famously stated that "stock prices have reached 'what looks like a permanently high plateau.'"¹
¹ Fisher's quote appeared in the October 16, 1929 edition of the New York Times. He made the comment in a speech at a monthly dinner for the Purchasing Agents Association.
On this day the Panic of 1907 deepened. Hundreds of nervous depositors besieged New York’s biggest trust companies, demanding their money back, after a crash in speculative copper stocks. J.P. Morgan, acting as the country’s unofficial central banker, lent $3 million to the Trust Co. of America, helping to calm the panicky public.
On this day in 1861, the first U.S. transcontinental telegraph line was activated, enabling messages to be transmitted almost instantly from New York to California. News would have taken two or three months to go from coast to coast just 10 years earlier.
That's really interesting. I would have thought that the routing of the telegraph would have been along the transcontinental railroad right-of-way, in 1869. So the telegraph guys found their own way across. Of course there were stagecoach routes over the Sierra, so perhaps the telegraph guys followed those.
Western Union linked the eastern and western telegraph networks in Salt Lake City, Utah. Two days later the Pony Express, previously the fastest means of communication between the eastern and western U.S., officially closed. The first transcontinental telegram was sent from Stephen J. Field, chief justice of California, to President Abraham Lincoln.
"The obstacles to building the line over the isolated western plains and mountains were huge. Wire and glass insulators had to be shipped by sea to San Francisco and carried eastward by horse-drawn wagons over the Sierra Nevada. Supplying the thousands of telegraph poles needed was an equally daunting challenge in the largely treeless Plains country, and these too had to be shipped from the western mountains."
Comments
"On this day in 1803, the U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase Treaty,
under which the U.S. paid France less than 3 cents an acre for 828,000 square miles of territory."
This land included the entirety of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas,
Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.
Most of the land in Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota was also included.
On this day in 1929, William Peter Hamilton, editor of The Wall Street Journal
and one of the leading advocates of the "Dow Theory" of technical analysis,
correctly predicted the coming demise of the bull market.
But since Hamilton had already predicted the death of the bull market
in January, 1927, June, 1928, and July, 1928, nobody listened.
On this day in 1929, Yale professor Irving Fisher, one of the nation’s foremost economists, said:
“The breaks of the past few days have driven stocks down to hard rock.
I believe that we will have a ragged market for a few weeks
and then the beginning of a mild bull movement that will gain momentum next year.”
The Great Crash was days away and stocks stayed ragged for years.
Note: Mr. Fisher famously stated that "stock prices have reached 'what looks like a permanently high plateau.'"¹
¹ Fisher's quote appeared in the October 16, 1929 edition of the New York Times.
He made the comment in a speech at a monthly dinner for the Purchasing Agents Association.
On this day the Panic of 1907 deepened.
Hundreds of nervous depositors besieged New York’s biggest trust companies,
demanding their money back, after a crash in speculative copper stocks.
J.P. Morgan, acting as the country’s unofficial central banker,
lent $3 million to the Trust Co. of America, helping to calm the panicky public.
On this day in 1861, the first U.S. transcontinental telegraph line was activated,
enabling messages to be transmitted almost instantly from New York to California.
News would have taken two or three months to go from coast to coast just 10 years earlier.
Two days later the Pony Express, previously the fastest means of communication
between the eastern and western U.S., officially closed.
The first transcontinental telegram was sent from Stephen J. Field, chief justice of California,
to President Abraham Lincoln.
"The obstacles to building the line over the isolated western plains and mountains were huge.
Wire and glass insulators had to be shipped by sea to San Francisco and carried eastward
by horse-drawn wagons over the Sierra Nevada.
Supplying the thousands of telegraph poles needed was an equally daunting challenge
in the largely treeless Plains country, and these too had to be shipped from the western mountains."
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/October-24/western-union-completes-the-first-transcontinental-telegraph-line
OJ