Black Tuesday
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 in Stock Market history, in terms of percentage loss, the largest occurred on
December 12,
1914.
*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 28,
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 15,
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.
*
Robert Sobel The Great Bull Market: Wall Street in the 1920's (
1968)
*
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
