LEAD: From the trading floors of the big brokerage firms to the stock exchanges to the shoeshine stands in the heart of the financial district, it was clear that yesterday would be a day etched in people's memories for years to come.

Day to Remember In Financial District

LEAD: The Tokyo stock market suffered record losses today and the Hong Kong market suspended trading for the week as Asian investors reacted in fright to the historic collapse on Wall Street.

Japanese Stocks Plummet

LEAD: New York State has begun phasing in a revamped social studies program that stresses 20th-century American history at the high school level and abandons the topical methods of the 1970's in favor of a more chronological approach.

New York Revamps Social Studies

LEAD: Stock market prices plunged in a tumultuous wave of selling yesterday, giving Wall Street its worst day in history and raising fears of a recession.

604 MILLION VOLUME NEARLY DOUBLES RECORD

LEAD: ''It's a crash - there's no other word to describe what's happening today,'' Errol Rothschild said as he stood in his broker's office in Bal Harbour, Fla., watching stock prices pass by in a continuous stream. ''Something's going on in the world that we don't know about. Otherwise this couldn't be happening.

Upheaval in the Financial World: Investors' Hopes Sink As Stocks Slip

LEAD: THE STOCK MARKET PLUNGE  The stock market had its worst day in history. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged an estimated 508 points, to 1,738.74, on trading so heavy that reporting was delayed for hours. More than 604 million shares changed hands, dwarfing Friday's record of 338.5 million shares, and the decline of 22.6 percent was far greater than the drop of 12.82 percent on Black Monday in 1929, which ignited the Great Depression.

BUSINESS DIGEST: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1987

LEAD: The Treasury securities market benefited tremendously from the steep drop in stock prices yesterday as the inflow of money from investors who sold stocks and prospects for a weaker economy helped raise prices and lower interest rates in all maturities.

U.S. Debt Issues Rise Strongly

LEAD: Under a barrage of hostile questions and sarcastic comments by a defense lawyer, a young black man said to have been attacked by white youths in Howard Beach, Queens, exploded twice with anger and frustration yesterday and refused to continue testifying.

Witness in Howard Beach Case Erupts During Relentless Cross-Examination

LEAD: USING new techniques of molecular biology, medical scientists are starting to develop precise ways of determining the prognoses of women with breast cancer. As a result, experts say, the process of deciding how to treat breast cancer patients is rapidly changing from an art to a precise science.

Doctors Try to Refine Breast Cancer Diagnosis

LEAD: Bernhard H. Goetz, who ignited a nationwide debate about self-defense when he shot four teen-agers on a Manhattan subway train, was sentenced yesterday to six months in jail for carrying an unlicensed concealed pistol.

Goetz Sentenced to Six Months on Gun Charge

LEAD: United States naval forces struck back at Iran today for attacks on American-registered vessels and other Persian Gulf shipping by shelling two connected offshore platforms that American officials said were a base for Iranian gunboats.

U.S. Ships Shell Iran Installation In Gulf Reprisal

LEAD: Turnaround on Schools  A week after adopting a year-round term, the Los Angeles Board of Education reversed itself. A new vote was set for March 1. Page A17.  Senator Stennis to Retire  John C. Stennis, Democrat of Mississippi, will leave the Senate at the end of this term, when he will have served more than 41 years.

INSIDE

LEAD: AFTER a lifetime of finding unexpected paths into the mind, Jerome Bruner has embarked on a new tangent; as usual, he is discovering it as he goes.

Leading Psychologist Expands the Boundaries

LEAD: Unless the stock market bounces back quickly and substantially, most Americans are likely to be hurt by the dramatic decline in stock values -even those who own no stock at all.

604 MILLION VOLUME NEARLY DOUBLES RECORD; Who Gets Hurt?

LEAD: Bonn and the United States agreed that the dollar should be stabilized near current levels. Disagreement on currency levels and interest rates had contributed to unrest in the markets. Page D1.

604 MILLION VOLUME NEARLY DOUBLES RECORD; More About the Markets

LEAD: INFECTION with papilloma viruses, long thought to cause nothing more serious than common warts, is now increasingly viewed as a major venereal threat that carries the risk of several kinds of cancer.

Venereal Virus Strongly Implicated In Several Cancers

LEAD: With the tower of the Shoreham Nuclear Power Station as his backdrop, Michael A. LoGrande, the Republican candidate for Suffolk County Executive, accepted the endorsements last week of two prominent anti-Shoreham organizations.

A-Plant Plays Major Role In L.I. Race

LEAD: EVEREST is still king of the mountains.

Everest, the Old Champion, Is Crowned Anew

LEAD: As stock prices soared this year, a chorus of pessimists warned that 1987 was looking more like 1929, when a stock market crash helped to usher in the Great Depression. Yesterday, after a plunge reminiscent of the worst days of 1929, one pressing question was whether the aftershocks would be as devastating to individuals and the nation.

604 MILLION VOLUME NEARLY DOUBLES RECORD; Does 1987 Equal 1929?

LEAD: Against the backdrop of sinking stock markets and a bitter dispute with West Germany, Treasury Secretary James A. Baker 3d met today with top German economic officials in Frankfurt and, according to a statement from his office, agreed to work with other countries to keep currency rates ''around current levels.

Upheaval in the Financial World: Baker Talks To Germans About Dollar

Goetz Given 6-Month Term on Gun Charge

LEAD: You think it's easy being gifted? ''When you get anything more than a B,'' said Sam Park, a fifth grader, ''they suspect you.''

Our Towns; Young and Gifted And Thankful For the F.D.A.

LEAD: Sun Microsystems Inc., a Silicon Valley computer company, got a prestigious boost yesterday when it reached agreement with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company to share technology. For the five-year-old company's young founders, the deal is only the latest step in a sustained climb toward recognition as a leading technology company.

Sun Wins Prestige With A.T.&T. Deal

LEAD: IN the 1970's, new health maintenance organizations boasted that they could provide medical care for up to 40 percent less than traditional insurance plans. The savings would be enormous, H.M.O. officials assured benefit managers like Bruce I. Taylor of the GTE Corporation.

Business and Health; Overpayments On H.M.O.'s

LEAD:  The Market Plunge D32-34  In a collapse that rippled worldwide, the stock market suffered its worst reverse in history. The Dow Jones industrial average plunged a record 508.00 points, raising fears of an economic recession. Page A1  Most Americans are likely to be hurt by the dramatic decline in stock values, even those who own no stock at all, unless the market bounces back quickly and substantially, economists say.

NEW SUMMARY: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1987

Raphael Hackl is a German international rugby union player, playing for the Berliner RC in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team.

Raphael Hackl, German rugby player

Raphael_Hackl

Marie Sophie Hingst was a German historian and blogger who falsely claimed to be descended from Holocaust survivors. Born in Wittenberg to a Protestant family, she fabricated a Jewish background and sent documentation for 22 misrepresented or non-existent relatives, who she claimed were Holocaust victims, to the official Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem.

Marie Sophie Hingst, German historian and blogger who falsely claimed to be descended from Holocaust survivors

Marie_Sophie_Hingst

Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov was a Soviet mathematician who played a central role in the creation of modern probability theory. He also contributed to the mathematics of topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics, algorithmic information theory and computational complexity.

October 20, 1987

Headlines from October 20, 1987

Day to Remember In Financial District

Japanese Stocks Plummet

New York Revamps Social Studies

604 MILLION VOLUME NEARLY DOUBLES RECORD

Upheaval in the Financial World: Investors' Hopes Sink As Stocks Slip

Billboard 200

Bad

Whitesnake

Whitney

Hysteria

A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

Notable Births

Notable Deaths

Historical Context for October 20, 1987