Black Tuesday is the common name for the catastrophic U.S. stock-market trading day of October 29, 1929. Heavy selling on the New York Stock Exchange pushed prices sharply lower and marked one of the most remembered moments of the Wall Street Crash.
The day followed Black Monday, October 28, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average had already fallen dramatically. On Black Tuesday, roughly 16 million shares changed hands, setting a trading-volume record that was not surpassed for decades.
The crash did not by itself cause every hardship of the Great Depression, but it exposed severe weaknesses in the economy and financial system. The terms Black Thursday, Black Monday, and Black Tuesday refer to different days during the October 1929 collapse.