The Dow Jones Industrial Average was created in 1896.
Charles Dow introduced the average on May 26, 1896, as a measure of leading U.S. industrial companies. It initially contained 12 stocks and was calculated by adding their prices and dividing by the number of companies, unlike the modern divisor-adjusted calculation.
The average grew out of Dow Jones & Company's earlier transportation average, created in 1884. It became one of the most recognizable indicators of U.S. share prices and is frequently used when discussing market crashes, even though it covers only a small group of companies.
The year 1929 is associated with the Wall Street Crash, not the Dow's creation. The index also differed from the S&P 500, which was introduced decades later and uses a much broader set of companies.