The dramatic October 24, 1929, U.S. stock-market sell-off was called Black Thursday.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell sharply that day as heavy selling overwhelmed the New York Stock Exchange. Although the decline was severe, leading bankers and financiers publicly tried to reassure investors that the market remained fundamentally sound.
Black Thursday preceded even larger selling sessions on October 28 and October 29, 1929. October 29 became known as Black Tuesday and is often treated as the crash’s most famous day. The market’s collapse continued after October 1929, with the Dow eventually reaching a low in July 1932.
A common mix-up is treating Black Thursday as the entire 1929 crash. It was one especially important session within a much longer collapse. The 1929 crash also differed from the 1987 crash, whose best-known day was Black Monday.