The Wall Street Crash
October 24th, 1929 was the beginning of the most devastating stock market crash in US history – the Wall Street Crash. Over 30 billion US dollars were wiped out of the economy and it took nearly 25 years for many of the stocks to recover.

After a five-year high on the Dow Jones index, share prices began to fall in September 1929. On Black Thursday (October 24th) a record number of 12.9 million shares were traded, wiping out any gains made in the entire previous year and causing panic and chaos on the trading floor. This escalated on Black Monday and Tuesday (October 28 and 29) and the stock market collapsed under the strain. This photo shows people gathering on Wall Street during the crisis.