The CAPM homework asks us to select 20 stocks from the Table D-1 ("Select 20 stocks from the list in QFA Table D-1"). However, Table D.1 on pg 585 is the Most Popular Stocks of 2017 and includes stocks like Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Chipotle, Facebook, etc. Given the analysis is supposed to be from 1970-Present, is this the correct list?

Yes the list is correct. The assignment only requires that you depict the beta over time back to 1970 for ONE stock of your choosing. If you are doing the minimum on this project, all you need is enough data to regress 100-200 observations (daily or weekly) for 21 stocks; most companies in table D-1 should have data going go back this far. If not, the assignment also suggests using table D-2. In this case, a very brief discussion of why you had to use table D-2 is all you need to provide.