Here is link, that you will absolutely love, of the Dow from the very beginning:
http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ta?s=%5EDJI+Basic+Tech.+Analysis&t=my
It was super chaotic too; we tried short sales but there were too many random days w/ huge gains that nothing was predictable. iirc the manager of the Harvard endowment was a 'buy'n'hold' guy sweating out the drop but he finally caved selling everything --right in March '09! Lost $billions.
Something interesting is how the indexes tracked exactly Obama's popularity rating...