There is a certain moment when you first dip your face into the water, the world above instantly muted, the horizon erased, and suddenly everything changes. The chaos of the surface falls away, replaced by silence punctuated only by the sound of your own breath echoing through the snorkel. And then, as your eyes adjust …
On September 24, 1869, Wall Street descended into madness. It was a Friday morning like no other, a day when fortunes evaporated, when brokers screamed themselves hoarse on the trading floor, when the very foundation of America’s post–Civil War economy seemed to crack under the weight of raw speculation. The newspapers would forever call it …
