Thursday, the Dow dropped by 200.23 points (0.78%) to 25,473.23, the NASDAQ gave up 84.46 points (1.13%) to finish at 7,421.46, and the S&P fell by 22.52 points (0.81%) to 2,748.93. The Russell 2000 lost 13.19 points (0.86%) to end at 1,523.63, and the Wilshire 5000 fell by 223.55 points (0.78%) to close at 28,463.00.

ON THIS DATE: In 1853, the first bronze statue of Andrew Jackson was unveiled in Washington, D.C. In 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes declared that the United States would have jurisdiction over any canal built across the isthmus of Panama. In 1943, Japanese forces attacked American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville. The battle lasted five days. In 1945, Phyllis Mae Daley received a commission in the U.S. Navy Nurse Corps. She later became the first African-American nurse to serve duty in World War II. In 1948, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that religious instruction in public schools was unconstitutional. In 1959, Groucho, Chico and Harpo Marx made their final TV appearance together. In 1961, Max Conrad circled the globe in a record time of eight days, 18 hours and 49 minutes in the Piper Aztec. In 1965, the U.S. landed about 3,500 Marines in South Vietnam. They were the first U.S. combat troops to land in Vietnam. In 1999, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the conviction of Timothy McVeigh for the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

In North Tonawanda, New York, a man sponsored a $50,000 Super Bowl pool and put fake names in some of the squares hoping to win himself. However, that didn’t work and he found himself short of money to pay winners. So, what did he do? He staged his own kidnapping. Police were called by someone who said they saw him tied up in the back of a pickup truck. He claimed two people to whom he owed money kidnapped him for three days, took $16,000 from him and left him there. However, police said they were suspicious because the man didn’t show any signs of being upset and was very well-groomed.

An experience in Georgia, gives us all a lesson about reading the fine print. A teacher there read the fine print in a travel insurance policy she recently purchased and won $10,000. St. Petersburg-based Squaremouth says it launched the secret contest February 11. Buried in the fine print was a promise of $10,000 for the first person to send an email to a specific address. Squaremouth says it’s giving another $10,000 to a children’s literacy charity, plus $5,000 each to the two schools where the winner teaches consumer economics. The teacher says the prize will fund a trip to Scotland with her husband to celebrate their 35th wedding anniversary.

In Silver Spring, Maryland, a pickup truck smashed backwards through a 7-11 storefront, then three masked men climbed over the debris and tried to load an ATM onto a hand truck they brought with them. They struggled with the ATM, and one suspect appeared less than helpful, drawing a punch in the arm from his partner, a video shows, according to station WTOP. They finally got the ATM out the door, but it fell off the hand truck onto one of the suspects. They also realized their get-away driver left them. So, they ran, but returned to get their hand truck.