The financial panic that began in Vienna in 1873 and helped start a long global depression was the Panic of 1873.
The Vienna Stock Exchange crashed on 9 May 1873, a date known as Black Friday in Austria. Speculative investment in railways, property, and other ventures had expanded rapidly during the preceding boom. When confidence broke, prices fell and financial failures spread.
The panic crossed the Atlantic and contributed to the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in the United States in September 1873. The resulting downturn is often called the Long Depression, although economists and historians debate its duration and severity across different countries.
The crisis revealed the risks of credit-fueled speculation and interconnected capital markets. It also differed from a modern single-day stock crash: the panic developed through banking failures, falling asset prices, and prolonged industrial weakness rather than one universally dominant session.