October 29, 1929, is known as Black Tuesday, the day the New York Stock Exchange suffered extraordinary panic selling.
About 16 million shares changed hands on the New York Stock Exchange, a record at the time. Prices plunged as investors rushed to sell, following the earlier collapse on Black Thursday, October 24, and another severe decline on Black Monday, October 28.
Black Tuesday is often treated as the symbolic climax of the Wall Street Crash of 1929, although the market continued falling afterward. The crash helped intensify the Great Depression, but it was not its sole cause: weakened banks, falling consumer demand, excessive speculation, and international economic problems also mattered. A common mix-up is calling the entire 1929 crash “Black Tuesday”; that name properly refers to one especially disastrous trading day.