On October 7, 1966, the Dow reached a bear market bottom of 744.32, down 25% since early 1966, in what was called the "credit crunch" of 1966.  The market then rose 32.4% in two years.

On Monday October 7, 1974, the Dow rose 23 points (+4%) in one day, from 587 to 607, and after resting for a day, the Dow rose another 28.4 points (+4.7%) on October 9, from 603 to 631.  

For the lucky week of October 7-11 ("7 come 11"), 1974, the Dow rose by a total of 12.6%. It was a false alarm.  The Dow continued down, later in October, to hit 577.60 in December. 

On October 7-8, 1982, the Dow rose more than 2% each day, to soar over 1,000, from a base of 777 just 10 weeks earlier.  On October 7, 1982, the Dow gained 21.71, and it added another 20.88 points the next day, soon to close at a new record of 1059, on October 21 (+36% in 10 weeks).

Nations in Protest

On October 7, 1765, 28 delegates from nine American colonies met at the Stamp Act Congress in New York City, to protest the British Parliament's Stamp Act. Delegates passed a "Declaration of Rights and Grievances," a series of protest resolutions sent to Parliament and King George III. 

On October 7, 1950, United Nations forces crossed the 38th parallel into North Korea, thus ignoring China's threat to enter the war if the Allies crossed that line.  Within eight weeks, U.N. forces reached the Yalu River on the Manchurian border, but at the end of November, true to their threat, several hundred thousand Chinese Communist troops poured over the border into North Korea and U.N. troops began a desperate retreat out of North Korea, in winter weather, at a cost of nearly 100,000 casualties.   The Chinese then pushed into South Korea in early 1951.

On October 7, 1985, four heavily-armed Palestinian terrorists hijacked the Achille Lauro, an Italian cruise ship carrying about 440 passengers, off the coast of Egypt.  The terrorists killed 69-year-old Leon Klinghoffer, a disabled American tourist, throwing him overboard while still in his wheelchair. After a two-day standoff, the terrorists surrendered, in exchange for a pledge of safe passage, but as an Egyptian jet attempted to fly the hijackers to freedom, U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercepted the plane and forced it to land in Sicily, where the terrorists were taken into custody by Italian authorities.  The F-14 operation was run by Lt. Col. Oliver North, on his 42nd birthday.

Cosmic Events on October 7

• 1737: 40 foot waves sank over 20,000 small craft and killed 300,000 people, in Bengal, India.
• 1958: After crashing too many rockets the U.S. space-flight effort was renamed Project Mercury.
• 1959: The far side of the moon was seen for the first time, via the USSR's Luna 3.  
• 1963: Hurricane Flora hit Haiti and the Dominican Republic, killing 7,190 + 1,500 missing.

…And Some Relatively Trivial Events

• 1915: Georgia Tech defeated Cumberland College 222-0 in football (a scoring record)
• 1957: Dick Clark's American Bandstand premiered, in Philadelphia
• 1968: The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) adopted the first film rating system

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