What was the name of the 1992 United Kingdom currency-market crash?

The 1992 United Kingdom currency-market crash was called Black Wednesday.

Black Wednesday occurred on September 16, 1992, when the United Kingdom withdrew the pound sterling from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, or ERM. The ERM required participating currencies to remain within agreed exchange-rate bands.

Speculators, including George Soros, believed the British government could not maintain the pound’s required value without imposing damagingly high interest rates. Heavy selling forced the government to raise interest rates repeatedly and spend billions of pounds supporting sterling.

The policy failed, and the pound left the ERM. The event damaged the government’s economic credibility but later allowed the United Kingdom to cut interest rates and pursue a more flexible exchange rate. Black Wednesday is often discussed as a currency crash rather than a conventional share-market collapse, but it was a major financial-market crisis.