The 1873 financial panic that began in Vienna and spread through global markets was called the Panic of 1873.
The crisis erupted after the Vienna Stock Exchange crash in May 1873. Speculative investment in railways, property, and other ventures had expanded rapidly, supported by credit. When confidence broke, prices fell and financial institutions came under pressure. The failure of Jay Cooke & Company in the United States later that year intensified the American phase of the panic.
The disruption spread across Europe and North America, producing bank failures, business collapses, unemployment, and prolonged deflationary pressure. Historians often describe the extended economic downturn that followed as the Long Depression, although terminology and dating vary by country.
The panic is sometimes confused with a single stock-market crash. It was a broader international financial crisis involving banks, railways, credit, and industrial production. Its transatlantic reach made it an important early example of how increasingly connected capital markets could transmit financial distress.