Previous Terror on Wall Street -- A Look at a 1920 Bombing

Last week, two hijacked planes pierced the heart of New York's financial world, but inspired an outpouring of heroic and patriotic responses. To many observers, the events recalled the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

To this history-minded financial journalist, the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers and the reaction to it calls to mind a September 1920 tragedy that took place just across the street from TheStreet.com's headquarters. Until last week, that event stood as the deadliest terror attack in New York City's long history.

On Thursday, Sept. 16, 1920, a simple wagon, pulled by an old, dark bay horse, made its way through a crowded Wall Street. At about noon, it came to a stop about 100 feet west of the corner of Wall and Broad streets, the section of Lower Manhattan cobblestone that had recently emerged, in the words of the author John Brooks, as "the precise center, geographical as well as metaphorical, of financial America and even of the financial world." ...