The October 24, 1929 panic day at the start of the Wall Street Crash was nicknamed Black Thursday.
On Black Thursday, unusually heavy selling hit the New York Stock Exchange and caused a steep fall in share prices. A group of leading bankers later met and attempted to restore confidence by buying heavily traded stocks. Their intervention temporarily stabilized the market, but it did not end the underlying weakness.
Further selling returned on Black Monday, October 28, followed by the even more dramatic Black Tuesday session on October 29. These labels describe successive days in the same 1929 crisis, rather than separate crashes. The episode became a landmark in financial history because it exposed how speculation and debt-financed stock purchases could amplify falling prices.
The crash is closely associated with the Great Depression, but the economic downturn cannot be explained by the stock market alone. Banking failures, falling production, reduced demand, and international financial problems also contributed. Black Thursday is therefore best understood as the opening major panic day of the crash sequence.