On which day did the 1929 Wall Street Crash begin with a record wave of stock selling?

The 1929 Wall Street Crash began with its first record wave of selling on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929.

On that day, roughly 12.9 million shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, then an extraordinary volume. Prices fell sharply as investors rushed to sell, and the decline intensified fears that the speculative boom of the 1920s had ended.

A group of major bankers tried to restore confidence by purchasing large blocks of leading stocks. Their intervention produced a temporary rebound, but it did not resolve the underlying problems of excessive margin borrowing, weak investment practices, and inflated share prices.

The market suffered even more dramatic sessions on October 28 and 29, commonly called Black Monday and Black Tuesday. The crash did not single-handedly cause the Great Depression, but it helped destroy wealth and confidence. The resulting economic downturn became international as banking failures, falling trade, and unemployment spread during the early 1930s.