Vienna’s stock exchange crash marked the beginning of the Panic of 1873.
The collapse occurred on May 9, 1873, a day remembered in German-speaking Europe as Black Friday. A speculative boom in property and railway companies had developed in Austria-Hungary, and investor confidence broke after the Vienna stock market plunged.
Financial distress spread through European markets and later reached the United States. In America, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped trigger a major panic and contributed to the closure of the New York Stock Exchange for more than a week.
The resulting depression was international and lasted for years, although its timing and severity varied by country. The phrase “Panic of 1873” can therefore refer to interconnected events rather than one isolated exchange session.