What was the name of the 1929 crash day on 24 October, when panic selling first surged?

Black Thursday was the name given to 24 October 1929, when panic selling first surged in the Wall Street crash.

The New York Stock Exchange experienced intense selling that morning, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell sharply. A group of leading bankers later attempted to restore confidence by buying heavily traded stocks, helping prices recover before the session ended. The intervention delayed, but did not prevent, further losses.

Selling returned with greater force on Black Monday and Black Tuesday. Those later sessions made the crash more severe and more memorable, while Black Thursday marked the first major panic day of the sequence. The episode exposed the dangers of speculative borrowing and fragile investor confidence.

The crash is often treated as the start of the Great Depression, but historians describe the relationship more carefully. Economic weakness, banking problems, deflation, and policy choices also shaped the depression that followed. Black Thursday is therefore a specific date within a wider financial and economic crisis.