Collapse · 1929–1939
Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression
New York Stock Exchange, Wall Street, New York City
After a speculative boom, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 13 percent on Black Monday, 28 October 1929, and nearly 12 percent the next day, and had lost almost half its value by mid-November. The crash opened the Great Depression: between 1929 and 1932 world GDP fell by an estimated 15 percent, US unemployment reached 25 percent by 1933 and about 9,000 of the country's 25,000 banks failed, while tariffs such as the 1930 Smoot–Hawley Act helped collapse world trade.
Why it mattered
The Depression brought new government intervention in the economy, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, and helped fascist movements, including the Nazis in Germany, rise to power.
Related
- The world in 1920: A Peace of Exhaustion chapter
- Penicillin and the age of antibiotics previous moment · 1928–1945
- World War II next moment · 1939–1945