The Great Depression followed the 1929 Wall Street crash and became the longest global depression of the modern era.
The Great Depression began in the late 1920s and lasted through much of the 1930s. The Wall Street crash was a major trigger and symbol, but it was not the sole cause. Bank failures, falling prices, reduced international trade, debt problems and contractionary economic policies deepened and prolonged the downturn.
The United States experienced severe unemployment and industrial decline, while the crisis spread internationally through trade and financial connections. In the United States, real output fell dramatically and unemployment reached roughly 25% in 1933. Recovery was uneven and depended on country-specific policies.
The Great Depression is distinct from the Long Depression of the late nineteenth century and the Great Recession that began in 2007–08. The 1929 crash helped start the crisis, but the depression’s worldwide scale and duration resulted from several interacting economic failures.