House vote fails; the Dow falls 777 points, the worst one-day point drop on record

Two weeks after Lehman Brothers went bankrupt, Congress had a rescue plan on the floor and no guarantee it would pass. On September 29, 2008, the House voted 205 to 228 against the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, the $700 billion plan Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke had pushed as essential to keeping the financial system standing. Traders did not wait for a second vote. The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged 777.68 points that afternoon, the largest single-day point drop the market had ever recorded…