Vienna’s stock exchange was at the center of the 1873 financial panic that spread internationally.
The panic began with a stock-market crash in Vienna on May 9, 1873, a day remembered as Black Friday. Speculation had surged during an economic expansion, particularly in property and railway companies, and the market became vulnerable when confidence turned.
The crisis spread through financial connections to Germany, the United States, and other economies. In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped trigger a severe Wall Street crisis and a temporary exchange closure.
The resulting depression lasted for years in many countries and is sometimes called the Long Depression. It is distinct from the Great Depression of the 1930s, although the names can cause confusion. The Vienna crash was the opening shock of the broader 1873 crisis.