Tuesday, the Dow was down 6.72 points (0.03%) at 20,651.30, the NASDAQ decreased 14.15 points (0.24%) to 5,866.77, and the S&P 500 slipped 3.38 points (0.14%) to 2,353.78. The Russell 2000 increased 9.86 points (0.72%) to 1,376.94, and the Wilshire 5000 was virtually unchanged at 24,559.69.

On the NYSE, 3.1 billion shares traded with 1.6 advancing issues for every declining issue. On the NASDAQ, 3.0 billion shares changed hands, with a 1.3 to 1 ratio of advancers to decliners.

The price of the 10-year Treasury note increased 19/32, bringing its yield down to 2.300%. The price of the 30-year Treasury bond climbed 1 6/32, decreasing its yield to 2.935%.

ON THIS DATE: In 1861, Fort Sumter was shelled by the Confederacy, starting America’s Civil War. In 1877, a catcher’s mask was used in a baseball game for the first time by James Alexander Tyng. In 1892, voters in Lockport, New York, became the first in the U.S. to use voting machines. In 1944, the U.S. Twentieth Air Force was activated to begin the strategic bombing of Japan. In 1945, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Spring, Georgia. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 63. Harry S. Truman became president. In 1955, the University of Michigan Polio Vaccine Evaluation Center announced that the polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was “safe, effective and potent.”

WEDNESDAY WISDOM: “Men, for the sake of getting a living, forget to live.”—Margaret Fuller, American journalist