The U.S. financial panic of September 24, 1869, was nicknamed Black Friday.
The panic followed an attempt by financiers Jay Gould and James Fisk to corner the U.S. gold market. They hoped to drive up gold prices while the government refrained from selling gold. Their scheme pushed the gold premium sharply higher, affecting financial markets and commodity prices.
President Ulysses S. Grant eventually ordered the Treasury to sell gold. The intervention broke the attempted corner, and gold prices plunged on September 24, 1869. Investors rushed to sell, producing a severe market disruption, although the wider economy did not experience a collapse on the scale of 1929.
Black Friday is sometimes confused with Black Friday shopping, the retail term associated with the day after U.S. Thanksgiving. The 1869 event predates that usage by many decades. A related fact often asked is that Gould and Fisk were central figures in the gold-market speculation, while Grant authorized the Treasury response.