October 24 · This Day in America
The bottom drops out of the New York Stock Exchange. In the first minutes of trading, prices fall so fast that the ticker tape runs hours behind reality, and brokers across the country have no idea what anything is worth. Nearly thirteen million shares change hands in a single frantic day — a record. Crowds gather on the street outside the Exchange; bankers pool their money to buy stock and briefly steady the panic. It does not hold. Within five trading days the market gives up a quarter of its value, and the long slide into the Great Depression has begun: shuttered banks, breadlines, a third of the country out of work. It is a hard chapter, and it gets told straight. But it is also the chapter before the one where Americans, broke and frightened, build a new safety net and discover they can endure almost anything together.
Source: www.britannica.com
Also on this day · 1861
Crews stringing wire east and west meet at Salt Lake City, and for the first time a message can cross the entire United States in minutes instead of weeks. California's chief justice taps out the very first transcontinental telegram to President Lincoln, pledging the loyalty of the West to the Union. Two days later the Pony Express — its galloping riders suddenly obsolete — announces it is shutting down.
Source: ethw.org