This Day in History:
Stock Market Crashes.
October 29, 1929.
Black Tuesday — as the day came to
be known — was the final collapse of
a market that had experienced massive
losses over the course of a few weeks.
Billions of dollars were lost as
volatile trading led to the exchange
of more than 16 million shares on this day alone.
The United States was on the
threshold of the Great Depression,
an era of severe economic hardship that
would take nearly to two decades to reverse.
The collapse was
several years in the making.
It was fueled by unchecked
economic expansion and
speculation, as well as low wages
and poorly regulated lending practices. .
By 1933, almost half of all
banks in America had failed. U.S.
unemployment would reach a staggering 30%