1652: Wall Street as a Wooden Wall. During the Anglo-Dutch Wars, hostilities between England and the Netherlands spilled over into North America. The Dutch settlers of Manhattan Island, called New Amsterdam at the time, feared England was planning to attack and constructed a wooden wall as defense. Constructed from 15-foot planks and dirt, the wall was 2,340 feet long and nine feet tall. It featured cannons and spanned between two gates, one located at what is now the corner of Wall Street and Pearl Street, and the other on Wall Street. and Broadway. Called “de Waal Straat,” the earthen part of the structure came from earlier fortifications built to defend against possible attacks by Native Americans and pirates. The labor on the wall is believed to have been performed by slaves.

The stock ticker was introduced on Wall Street in 1867. A creation of Edward A. Calahan of the American Telegraph company, the bulky machines featured wheels of narrow paper strips detailing transactions. The reports were dispensed to clerks, who delivered them to typists via pneumatic tube. The typists sent the information to brokers through the telegraph.

In 1903 after two years of construction, the new New York Stock Exchange building opened at 18 Broad Street. Designed by architect George B. Post, the building boasted grand Corinthian pillars, statues by John Quincy Adams Ward, a marble trading floor and a 70-foot high ceiling. The building was the earliest in America to feature air conditioning, with a system designed by engineer Alfred Wolff. Beneath the building were hundreds of underground vaults where stock certificates were kept.

The stock market crashed on October 24, 1929. The stock market had surged as high as 50 percent starting in 1928, despite indications that the economy was on the wane and predictions of stock market collapse by economist Roger Babson. It came to an end on what is now called Black Thursday, when the market dropped 11 percent.

By October 28, known as Black Tuesday, a panic ensued with 16 million shares traded away, and the over the next day, the market lost $30 billion. There was immediate recovery, but the damage was done and the market continued to slide until 1932, when it reached its lowest level ever.

It took all of the 1930s for the market to recover, a period called the Great Depression, which was defined by mass unemployment and poverty.

Wall Street experienced one of the largest single-day crashes on October 19, 1987 with a $500 billion loss as markets plummeted worldwide. The computers of Wall Street were programmed to sell stock at specific price thresholds. A domino effect of computers liquidating thousands of stocks ensued, with clerks unable to stop the transactions. The automated program also prevented buying, which wiped away any bids. After this, special rules were implemented to allow automated protocols to be overridden and prevent future disasters.

In September 2008, Wall Street was at the center of the worst financial crash since the Great Depression. Largely the result of mishandling of subprime mortgages, the crisis resulted in Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae being taken over by the government and Lehmann Brothers filing for bankruptcy.

With many other banks expected to follow, a federal bailout for trillions of dollars was announced. A crash in housing prices followed and across the country, there were massive foreclosures and seizures of homes.