May 17, 1792 –
24 drunken stock brokers got together outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street which earlier was the site of a stockade fence and signed an agreement with two provisions:
1) the brokers were to deal only with each other. Thereby eliminating the auctioneers, and
2) the commissions were to be .25%.
Thus the New York Stock Exchange was born (and none of it involved cocaine, snuff perhaps, but no cocaine.)
The Haus of Dcaligari 