• The Great Depression was the greatest and longest economic recession in modern world history, which lasted from 1929 to 1941.

  • Investment in the speculative market in the 1920s led to the stock market crash of 1929, which wiped out much of the nominal wealth.
  • Most historians and economists agree that the stock market crash of 1929 was not the only cause of the Great Depression.
  • Other factors, including inaction followed by excessive Fed action, also contributed to the Great Depression.
  • Both Presidents Hoover and Roosevelt tried to alleviate the effects of the Depression through public policy.