In short
On October 29, 1929, stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange collapsed in a single day of panic selling that wiped out fortunes and shattered confidence in American finance. What began as a market correction spiraled into the Great Depression-a decade-long economic catastrophe that triggered bank failures, mass unemployment, and global financial contagion.
How it unfolded.
The five-minute version
What actually happened.
The Wall Street crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major stock market crash in the United States which began in October 1929 with a sharp decline in prices on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). It triggered a rapid erosion of confidence in the U.S. banking system and marked what would later cascade into the worldwide Great Depression that lasted until the United States entered into World War II on December 8, 1941, making it the most devastating crash in the country's history. It is most associated with October 24, 1929, known as "Black Thursday", when a record 12.9 million shares were traded on the exchange, and October 29, 1929, or "Black Tuesday", when some 16.4 million shares were traded.
Day by day.
Across 6 years, 9 pivotal moments.
Timeline
How it actually unfolded.
Speculative bubble inflates
Stock prices surge on widespread buying on margin; investors borrow heavily to purchase shares, amplifying risk throughout the market.
Dow Jones peak
The Dow Jones Industrial Average reaches 381.17, the high point before the decline begins.
Selling pressure mounts
Stock prices fall sharply as doubt spreads; Black Wednesday sees heavy losses and the first panic among major investors.
Black Tuesday
Panic selling overwhelms the NYSE. Over 16 million shares trade (a record); prices plummet 12% in a single session. Fortunes evaporate.
Market stabilization attempts fail
Leading financiers including J.P. Morgan Jr. announce support for the market, but confidence remains shattered.
Smoot-Hawley Tariff enacted
Congress passes high protective tariffs, choking international trade and deepening the global economic crisis.
Bank runs accelerate
Depositors withdraw savings en masse; thousands of banks fail across the United States as panic spreads.
Bank Holiday declared
President Franklin D. Roosevelt closes all U.S. banks for four days to halt the crisis and stabilize the system.
Glass-Steagall Act signed
FDR enacts legislation separating commercial and investment banking, a cornerstone of financial regulation for decades.
The numbers.
5 numbers that anchor the scale.
By the numbers
The countable parts.
Dow Jones decline (Oct 1929)
0% from peak to trough over three years
Peak market value lost
$0 billion in the crash
Percentage drop on Black Tuesday
0% in one day
U.S. unemployment rate (1933)
0%
Years until market recovery
0 years (1954 to regain 1929 levels)
The visual record.
The chain begins -
The chain of consequence.
Impact
What followed.
The crash exposed the fragility of an economy built on unchecked speculation and insufficient regulation. It destroyed personal savings, toppled banks, and forced governments worldwide to rethink their approach to financial oversight and economic policy-lessons that would reshape markets for generations.
Captured in time.
Captured before it changed
The web as it looked, the day it happened.
Wayback Machine snapshots of the pages people actually loaded that day. Click any card to open the archive at full size.
Sources & citations.
Sources
Where this came from.
Every claim on this page traces to a public, license-clean source. We don't asterisk well.
Wikipedia
1 source- 1.Wall Street crash of 1929
en.wikipedia.org