The Biggest Financial Story of the Past 50 Years

-After failing to finagle a government bailout, Lehman Brothers (NYSE: LEH) filed for bankruptcy.
-Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) spurned Lehman Brothers and instead agreed to acquire Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER).
-Insurer AIG (NYSE: AIG) begged the Fed for as much as $40 billion of assistance.

This is bigger than either JPMorgan Chase's (NYSE: JPM) buyout of Bear Stearns or the government bailout of Fannie Mae (NYSE: FNM) and Freddie Mac (NYSE: FRE). Our colleague Bill Mann, in fact, has deemed this weekend's credit-crunch-inspired string of bailouts, buyouts, and bankruptcies "the biggest financial story of the past half century."
Bigger than the dot-com bust? Yep. Bigger than Black Monday in 1987? Yep. Bigger than the oil shock of the 1970s? Mmmhmm.
NYU economics professor Nouriel Roubini, George Soros, and the International Monetary Fund have all called the overall credit crisis the worst since the Great Depression.