This Day in History: <br />Stock Market Crashes.<br />October 29, 1929.<br />Black Tuesday — as the day came to <br />be known — was the final collapse of <br />a market that had experienced massive <br />losses over the course of a few weeks.<br />Billions of dollars were lost as <br />volatile trading led to the exchange <br />of more than 16 million shares on this day alone.<br />The United States was on the <br />threshold of the Great Depression, <br />an era of severe economic hardship that <br />would take nearly to two decades to reverse.<br />The collapse was <br />several years in the making.<br />It was fueled by unchecked <br />economic expansion and <br />speculation, as well as low wages <br />and poorly regulated lending practices. .<br />By 1933, almost half of all <br />banks in America had failed. U.S. <br />unemployment would reach a staggering 30%
