react negatively to fears of contagion. 5 May – General nationwide strike and demonstrations in two major cities in Greece turned violent. Three people were killed when a group of masked people threw petrol bombs in a Marfin Egnatia Bank branch on Stadiou street. 6 May – Concerns about the ability of the Eurozone to deal with a spreading crisis effectively caused a severe market sell off, particularly in the United States where electronic trading glitches combined with a high volume sell off produced a nearly 1,000-point intra-day drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, before it recovered somewhat to close down 347. 7 May – Volatility continued to accelerate with an increasing CBOE VIX index and a major widening in currency spreads, particularly dollar-yen and dollar-euro. 8 May – Leaders of the Eurozone countries resolved in Brussels to take drastic action to protect the euro from further market turmoil after approving a bailout plan for Greece. 10 May: In the context of the Securities Markets Programme (SMP), ECB as well as the central banks of the Eurosystem started purchasing securities. 20 May – Fourth strike in Greece against wage cuts. 24 May – Greek government is announcing deficit reduction by 41.5% for the first four months. 27 May – Debate rages in UK House of Commons about the prospect of Great Britain entering a similar financial crisis. These exchanges become known as The Greek Defence. 29 May – Fitch downgrades Government of Spain bonds one notch from AAA to AA+. June 4 June – The Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán's spokesman said it was not an exaggeration that the prospect of a national default is very real, although Moody's still affirmed that Hungary had a good record of paying its obligations. The Euro fell to a four-year low and major American markets fell more than 3%. July 5 July – The central Bank of Greece announced a reduction of central government cash deficit by 41.8%, for the first half-year 2010. September 5 September – Spreads on longer-term Greek government debt have surged back to crisis levels of about 800 basis points, implying a high risk of default. 7 September – Finance Ministers of the EU countries approve the second of the bailout installments for Greece (€6.5 billion). 11 September – The IMF also approves the second installment of their bailout package for Greece (€2.57 billion). October 31 October – Angela