Korean War
Battle of Britain
Roosevelt Elected to Third Term
Selective Service Act
Univac - First Business Computer
First U.S. Transcontinental Television Transmission
Arizona Securities Act
The Arizona Securities Act was passed two years after its State Securities Commission, headed by future SEC Commissioner Earl Hastings, was founded. The Act was in response to the 1940s mining frauds perpetrated by Constantino Riccardi, and among the first state laws to explicitly coordinate with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on enforcement and exemptions.
Loss on Securities Regulation
Louis Loss, SEC Associate General Counsel, published the first academic treatise on the regulation of securities while teaching part-time at Yale Law School.
Dwight Eisenhower Elected President
Queen Elizabeth II Accession
DNA Double Helix Discovered
Regions Receive Autonomy
Lauding the benefits of “desirable decentralization,” this yearSEC Chairman Ralph Demmler instituteda formal policy of autonomy for the regions. Subsequently, the divisions in Washington D.C. were able to suggest, but not mandate,policies for the regional offices. The regions also received permission for the first time to share their case files with state regulators.
Private Offering Exemption
In SEC v. Ralston Purina, the U.S. Supreme Court laid down the critical tests for the availability of the “private offering” exemption under what is now Section 4(2) of the Securities Act of 1933.
Wilko v. Swan
The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Wilko v. Swan established that a pre-dispute agreement to arbitrate claims under the Securities Act of 1933 was unenforceable. The ruling stood until 1989.
First GAAP Codification
The Committee on Accounting Procedure of the American Institute of Accountants codified all its pronouncements on generally accepted accounting principles in Accounting Research Bulletin 43.
McCarthy Hearings
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
Vietnam Divided
Polio Vaccine Introduced
USS Nautilus – First Atomic Submarine
The Uranium Stock Boom
The U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race inspired unscrupulous brokers to begin promoting uranium mine penny stocks, many of them worthless. In 1954, as boiler rooms sprang up and sales of these dubious issues skyrocketed, the Denver Regional Office made uranium issues a specialty and opened a branch office in Salt Lake City.
Proxy Rule Amendments
"Own Your Share of American Business"
The New York Stock Exchange’s “Own Your Share of American Business” campaign launched efforts by major stock exchanges to attract a broadened shareholding public. Promising greater power over corporate behavior to investors, exchanges added to their listing standards quorums for shareholder meetings and mandatory independent directors.
Montgomery Bus Boycott
AFL-CIO Merger
Warsaw Pact Formed
SEC Staff Shortage
Hungarian Uprising
TIME Criticizes SEC
Uniform Securities Act
The Uniform Securities Act was adopted either in whole or in part in 37 states. It attempted to balance the need to protect investors from fraud with the need of states and businesses to raise capital efficiently. One innovation was a provision for “registration by coordination,” which allowed securities already registered under the federal securities laws to be exempt from further registration requirements, unless they were subject to a stop order by federal regulators.
Sputnik Launched
Little Rock Integration
NYSE Rule 394
Paul Windels and Enforcement in New York
On August 6, New York U.S. Attorney Paul Windels, who had recently won conviction of penny stock promoter Walter Tellier, became administrator of the New York Regional Office. Windels initiated aseries of newsworthy busts of high-pressure sales operations. By the close of his tenure in 1961, most boiler rooms were closed, and the Commission wished the New York Regional Office to broaden its focus to include broker-dealers and exchanges.
Pooling-of-Interests Accounting Sanctioned
NASA Project Mercury
China’s Great Leap Forward
Nikita Krushchev Becomes Soviet Premier
European Economic Community (Common Market)
BOAC Introduces Transatlantic Jetliner Service
Deferred Taxes Ruling
Utility companies sought to enjoin the AICPA Committee on Accounting Procedure from issuing a requirement that deferred taxes be included among liabilities, at variance with industry practice of including them in equity. After the U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari, the committee clarified that deferred taxes should be shown as a liability or deferred credit. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission confirmed this requirement in Accounting Standards Release No. 85.
General Code of Ethics for Government Service
Castro Takes Power in Cuba
Alaska and Hawaii Become States
St. Lawrence Seaway Opens
Congress Rebukes SEC
In 1957, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had brought Crowell-Collier, an administrative action against American Stock Exchange members, but failed to uncover the breadth of fraudulent activity in which AMEX members engaged. In 1959, the U.S. House of Representatives Special Subcommittee on Legislative Oversight issued a report criticizing the SEC for its delay in investigating investor complaints and imposing minimal penalties in the AMEX case.