On October 29, 1929, Black Tuesday hit wall street as investors traded some 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Billions of dollars were lost, wiping out thousands of investors. In the aftermath of Black Tuesday, America and the rest of the world spiraled downward into the Great Depression (1929-1939), the deepest and longest- lasting economic downturn in the history of the Western industrialized world up to that time.

During this period the (1920's), the U.S. stock market underwent rapid expansion (growth), reaching it's peak in August 1929, after a period of wild speculation. By then the production had already declined and unemployment had risen, leaving stocks in great excess of their real value. Among other causes of the eventual market collapse were low wages, the proliferation of debt, a struggling agricultural sector and an excess of large bank loans that could not be liquidated.

Stock prices begun to decline in September and early October 1929, and on October 18 the fall begun. Panic set in, and on October 24, Black Thursday, a record 12,894,650 shares were traded.

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