October 24, 1929, was nicknamed Black Thursday because heavy selling began the Wall Street Crash that day.
The New York Stock Exchange experienced a huge volume of selling, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell sharply. Leading bankers attempted to restore confidence by buying shares, but the market remained unstable and selling intensified over the following week.
Black Thursday is part of a sequence of famous dates in the 1929 crash. Black Monday occurred on October 28, and Black Tuesday followed on October 29. The crash continued beyond those sessions and contributed to the wider economic crisis of the Great Depression.
The nickname is sometimes confused with Black Tuesday, but the dates and market events are distinct. Black Thursday marks the first dramatic break in the late-1920s U.S. stock-market boom.