Black Tuesday, the 1929 U.S. stock-market crash’s most infamous trading day, occurred on October 29, 1929.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 11.7% that day, as investors sold roughly 16 million shares on the New York Stock Exchange. The selling followed Black Thursday on October 24 and Black Monday on October 28, creating a sequence of panic-driven declines.
Black Tuesday did not by itself cause the Great Depression, but it became its best-known financial symbol. The crash followed years of rising share prices, widespread speculation, buying on margin, and an economy with important weaknesses in agriculture, industry, and consumer credit.
A common mix-up is treating Black Tuesday as the entire crash. The market continued falling after October 29, and the Dow did not reach its pre-crash peak again until 1954. The October date identifies the historic panic day, not the beginning or end of the wider downturn.