The Vienna Stock Exchange crash that helped trigger the Panic of 1873 began on 9 May 1873.
The date became known as Black Friday in Austria. A speculative boom had driven up prices of railway and real-estate companies, while banks and investors relied heavily on credit. When confidence broke, share prices collapsed and many firms failed.
The Vienna crash was not the only cause of the international crisis. Germany’s decision to restrict some speculative activity after the Franco-Prussian War, changing financial conditions, and weaknesses in railway finance also contributed. The shock spread through European markets and then reached the United States.
In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped intensify the panic. The resulting depression was especially severe in Europe and North America, although historians debate its exact boundaries and causes. Black Friday in Vienna is distinct from the better-known US Black Thursday of 1929.