Black Tuesday
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black Tuesday refers to a number of different things:
- The phrase Black Tuesday refers to October 29, 1929, five days after the United States stock market crash of Black Thursday, when general panic set in that everyone with investments in the market tried to pull out of the market at once. This week and its aftermath marked the start of the Great Depression in the United States. While Black Tuesday is often cited as the worst day for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, in terms of percentage loss, the largest occurred on December 12, 1914 (after the outbreak of World War I and the subsequent five-month close of the market), while the greatest point loss occurred on September 17, 2001 (after 9/11 and the subsequent four-day close of the market).
- The phrase Black Tuesday also refers to September 29, 1931 when Estevan miners protesting were fired upon by RCMP officers.
- The phrase Black Tuesday has also been used to refer to September 11, 2001, the date of the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center.
- Black Tuesday has also come into use as a reference to the day Microsoft releases bundles of patches for its Windows operating systems: the second Tuesday of each month. These patches represent new software vulnerabilities, and the bulk release of patches is often followed closely by new viruses which exploit the holes the patches fix. See Patch Tuesday.
- Black Tuesday can also refer to November 29, 1939, the date of the climax of a period of extreme smoke cover in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. The pollution was due primarily to the widespread use of bituminous coal, and resulted in near zero visibility and the use of streetlights at midday.
- Black Tuesday also refers to a day in Bahamian history April 27, 1965 when then-Opposition Leader and former Prime Minister of the Bahamas, Sir Lynden Pindling threw the Speaker's Mace out of the House of Assembly window in protest against the unfair gerrymandering of constituency boundaries by the then ruling United Bahamian Party (UBP) government.
- In Australia, February 7, 1967 was referred to as Black Tuesday because it was the day of the 1967 Tasmanian fires. A total of 62 lives were lost and more than 1300 homes destroyed by the fires.
- Black Tuesday was a 1954 film starring Edward G. Robinson and Peter Graves.
- More recently, Black Tuesday refers to January 11, 2005, when bushfires killed 9 people in South Australia. They were the worst bushfires seen in Australia since Ash Wednesday in 1983, and may bring out massive changes in the way the Country Fire Service handle incidents.
[edit] References
- Robert Sobel The Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920's (1968)
[edit] External links
- Eye Witness Interviews PBS Documentary
- About.com: Black Tuesday - 1929
- About.com: 1929 Stock Market Crash
- Slashdot.org: "Black Tuesday" Used to Reference Microsoft Patch Release Tuesdays
- Geoscience Australia: Eyre Peninsula bushfires
| Black days of the week | |
| Black Sunday | Black Monday | Black Tuesday | Black Wednesday | Black Thursday | Black Friday | Black Saturday |
