Decade-long financial- depression in the US from 1930 through 1940. Its devastating worldwide impact resides as the worst in living memory. Its precise causes are disputed. However, its beginning occurred on Black Monday, October 28, 1929, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) fell 13 percent. The Federal Reserve System (The Fed) raised interest rates, discouraging stock speculation in the stock market, booming through the 1920s. Stock prices declined 40 percent between October 29 and November 13. Over $30 billion flushed from the US economy. 9,000 banks went bankrupt. This destroyed 9 million savings accounts. 86,000 businesses withered. Wages fell 60 percent on average. 15 million jobless Americans was 25 percent unemployment . Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany and World War Two rose from the financial devastation in Europe.
Black’s Law Online Dictionary
