Vienna gave its name to the Panic of 1873 because the crisis began with a stock-market crash there.
On May 9, 1873, the Vienna Stock Exchange collapsed in the event known as the Gründerkrach, or founders' crash. Speculation had surged during a period of rapid industrial expansion and easy credit. When confidence broke, investors rushed to sell shares in banks and companies linked to the boom.
The panic spread internationally, reaching Germany and the United States. In the United States, the failure of the banking firm Jay Cooke & Company in September 1873 helped trigger a major financial crisis. The resulting downturn is often associated with the Long Depression, although historians debate the precise boundaries and causes of that period. Vienna is therefore the specific city in the panic's standard name, not the later American center of turmoil.