The market broke on October 24, 1929. Prices had been falling for weeks, and on that Thursday the selling turned into a panic, with brokers overwhelmed by orders to sell at any price. The day became known as Black Thursday.
The boom had been enormous. Through the 1920s stock prices had climbed far beyond the earnings of the companies behind them, and ordinary people had borrowed money to buy shares, betting that the rise would never stop. It stopped.
The ticker fell behind. So many trades poured in that the machines could not keep up, and the delay fed the fear, because no one knew what prices actually were. The panic fed on itself, and fortunes that had existed on paper vanished in hours.
The bankers stepped in. A group of financiers led by J. P. Morgan pooled money to buy stocks and steady the market, and the worst of the day was checked, but the reprieve did not hold. The following Tuesday, called Black Tuesday, the bottom fell out for good.
The crash led to the Depression. Banks failed, factories closed, and millions lost their jobs in the decade that followed, and the damage spread around the world. A boom built on borrowed money and blind faith collapsed in a single autumn, and the world paid for it for years.