The 1873 financial crisis that began in Vienna was the Panic of 1873.
The collapse of the Vienna Stock Exchange in May 1873 followed years of speculative investment in railways, property, and construction. The panic spread to other financial centers, including Berlin and New York, where the failure of the investment bank Jay Cooke & Company helped intensify the crisis.
The downturn contributed to the Long Depression, a period of falling prices and weak economic activity that affected much of Europe and North America. The exact length and definition of the Long Depression vary by country, so it should not be treated as a single identical experience everywhere.
The Panic of 1873 is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1893 because both involved banking failures and railroad problems in the United States. They were two decades apart. The 1873 panic also helped end a major era of railway speculation.