83 notes &
life:
As the global financial markets continue their rollicking ride and investors look for a glimmer of good news amid the doom-and-gloom predictions, LIFE.com recalls a forgotten economic crisis from 50 years ago.
From LIFE’s feature on the 1962 “flash crash”:
The signs, like the rumblings of an Alpine ice pack at the time of thaw, had been heard. The glacial heights of the stock boom suddenly began to melt in a thaw of sell-off. More and more stocks went up for sale, with fewer and fewer takers at the asking price. Then suddenly, around lunchtime on Monday, May 28, the sell-off swelled to an avalanche. In one frenzied day in brokerage houses and stock exchanges across the U.S., stock values — glamor and blue-chip alike — took their sharpest drop since 1929.
Memory of the great crash, and the depression that followed, has haunted America’s subconscious. Now, after all these years, was that nightmare to happen again?
Read more here.
