Here are just a few of Inc.com's thought-provoking examples, altered or paraphrased. (Complete list here)

1873 — A stock market crash, the collapse of a major bank and a credit crisis lead to the Panic of 1873 and a deep six-year recession.

Coors: Seeing that the country desperately needs a drink, 26-year-old Adolph Coors opens what he calls the Golden Brewery near Denver. The area is growing fast as rail lines open the West, buoying the start-up. Coors is able to persevere; with $20,000 (in 1873 dollars) on hand, he is extremely well capitalized.

1929 — The great stock market crash commences on October 24.

Zippo Manufacturing Company: In 1932, George Blaisdell decides to sell refashioned Austrian-style lighters that cost $1.95. Manufacturing in a rented room over a garage in Pennsylvania, he comes up with a lighter that is elegant and easy to use. Application for the original Zippo patent was filed in May 1934 and granted in March 1936. The company thrives during World War II and, in 2006, Zippo production surpasses the milestone of 425 million lighters since the company crafted its first lighter.

1938 — In the final year of the Great Depression, Congress establishes a federal minimum wage of 25 cents an hour.

Hewlett-Packard: After both graduate in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1934, Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard launch a company in a garage in nearby Palo Alto during a fellowship they had with a past professor during the Great Depression. They start with $538 in capital and work from that now-famous garage. At launch, they have an order in hand for their first product, an audio oscillator, ensuring cash flow. Their first client, Disney, is itself a growing business, which goes on to use HP's products to test sound for Fantasia.

1975 — Stagflation. . .

Micro-Soft/Microsoft/Microsoft, Inc.: With the economy in the doldrums, Bill Gates leaves Harvard and strikes an informal partnership with his friend Paul Allen to launch the company in 1975. The company chugs along, making software using the BASIC programming language, until 1981 (during another recession, no less) when it incorporates and IBM introduces its personal computer with Microsoft's 16-bit operating systems MS-DOS, which catapults the company to the forefront of the industry.

1987-1991 — The market crashes on Black Monday, Oct. 19, 1987. In 1991, the savings-and-loan crisis reaches its peak.

Nantucket Allserve, Inc.: The sluggish economy doesn't deter Tom Scott and Tom First from creating an alternative-juice start-up in the early 1990s. After graduating from Brown University in 1989, Scott and First's company takes in $52,000 in its first year before switching gears and beginning to sell bottled beverages through grocery and convenience stores. Money is extremely tight for the self-proclaimed "Juice Guys," but the company refuses to quit and soon builds a killer field sales force, which ensures its success. Fruit beverages in 1995 account for $12.5 billion of the $169.5 billion beverage industry, which sells an average of 2.5 bottled drinks to each American each day.

2000 — The Nasdaq hits 5,132 on March 10, the top of the dot-com bubble.

Wikipedia: In 2001, the online user-based encyclopedia is shaped in two ways by its experiences during the dot-com meltdown. First, amid a dearth of venture capital funding for new Web-based enterprises, Wikipedia is set up as a nonprofit (and initially viewed as a side project). Second, founders Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger are able to expand quickly because they can borrow plenty of unused server capacity from other companies. Wikipedia goes on to change the way people collaborate online and get information.

2008 — Many people (analysts, consumers, political talking heads, Warren Buffett) are calling it a recession. Others disagree.

Does it really matter what technical name we give it? The fact is we're currently in an economic downturn, though to what extent remains unclear. Call it whatever you want, but let's do something about it that doesn't involve blaming others for it.

As Hal Foss recently wrote at Advertising Age (registration required; see "Innovate Through the Downturn"):

Recessionary times provide ripe opportunities for innovation, especially product innovation. If we are indeed entering into a recessionary cycle, remember it's just that: cyclical. There will be an end, and you'll want to be well positioned when times turn around.

The moral: Even in economic downturns, entrepreneurs should keep their heads up . . . and focus on the world population's vices and misdeeds: beer, cigarettes, cheap motels and popular entertainment.

Check out Inc.com's complete list by Ryan McCarthy here.