For the week ending May 22, 1970, the Dow fell over 40 points (-5.7%), the fourth largest post-war weekly drop to that date.  It was near the bottom (May 26) of the tech stock crash of 1970.

Corporate Benchmarks, at Five Year Intervals (1985-95)

On May 22, 1985, Fortune came out with their "Fortune 500" ratings.  Among the more dated references, Sears was named the nation's largest retailer, for the 21st year in a row.  GTE was named the largest utility.  General Motors & Exxon were the largest industrials in the 1980s. (In the 1990s, Microsoft dominated corporate news, while Walmart trumped Sears & GE beat GM.)

On May 22, 1990, Microsoft unveiled Windows 3.0 at gala a gala event, staged in 20 cities around the world, linked by satellite to a theater in New York City.  Bill Gates spoke, amid laser lights, videos, and surround-sound. Microsoft spent $10 in publicity for the release party. Industry experts praised 3.0 as a major improvement over earlier versions of Windows.  It was better, they said, because it looked more like an Apple, so Apple sued Microsoft for stealing its user-friendly interface.  On this news, the Dow Jones index hit another record high (2,852.23), May 22, 1990.

On May 22, 1995, Microsoft ended its effort to buy Intuit, owner of the popular Quicken financial software.  At the time, Microsoft Money held 22% of the personal-finance software market share, but Quicken held 70%.  The U.S. Justice Department didn't like the combination of those two numbers, so they filed an antitrust suit in April to block the Intuit acquisition, arguing that financial software was one of the few remaining sectors not already dominated by Microsoft.

Inventions, Patents & "Famous Firsts" on May 22

1761: The first life insurance policy issued in the U.S. was issued to the Corporation for the Relief of Poor and Distressed Presbyterian Ministers.

1841: Henry Kennedy of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania patented the first reclining chair.

1849: Abraham Lincoln received patent #6469 for his floating dry dock.

1891: The first motion picture show flickered before 147 ladies of the National Federation of Women's Clubs, at Thomas Edison's workshop in West Orange, New Jersey.   Edison showed a film consisting entirely of a polite man bowing, smiling, waving, and doffing his hat.

1900: Two notable patents were granted: A. DeVilbiss, Jr. of Toledo, Ohio, patented a pendulum-type computing scale; and Edwin S. Votey of Detroit, Michigan, patented a pianola, a pneumatic piano-playing device that could be attached to any piano.

On the same day, the Associated Press was incorporated in New York, a non-profit news agency.

More History >>