The Vienna Stock Exchange crash that marked the start of the Panic of 1873 occurred on May 9, 1873.
The crash followed a period of rapid borrowing, railway construction, and property speculation in Austria-Hungary and Germany. On the Vienna exchange, falling confidence caused a sharp sell-off known as the Gründerkrach, or “founders’ crash.”
Financial stress soon crossed borders. The collapse of the Jay Cooke & Company banking house in the United States in September 1873 helped turn the turmoil into a wider international depression. Stock exchanges, banks, and railway companies faced severe pressure.
The Panic of 1873 is often treated as the beginning of the Long Depression, although historians debate how to define that later period. The Vienna crash is distinct from the later American railroad panic, even though both belonged to the same international financial crisis.