On this day: ‘Black Tuesday’ stock market crash

Crowds gather on Wall Street in New York following 'Black Tuesday', the stock market crash that occurred on this day in 1929 and which lead to the Great Depression. Picture: Getty

National Day of Turkey.

1618: English explorer and courtier Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded at the Palace of Westminster for allegedly conspiring against King James I of England (James VI of Scotland).

1682: William Pernn landed at Chester, Pennsylvania.

1787: Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni was first performed, in Prague.

1859: Spain declared war on Morocco.

1863: Swiss philanthropist Henri Dunant founded the International Red Cross.

1889: Queen Victoria granted Cecil Rhodes the rights to Zambezia, a province of Mozambique.

1929: “Black Tuesday” - so-called when Wall Street crashed, leading to the Great Depression.

1945: The first ballpoint pen went on sale – 45 years after it was patented.

1947: The Benelux union was formed by Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.

1956: Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and troops pushed on towards the Suez Canal, just 20 miles away.

1958: Boris Pasternak refused to accept the Nobel Prize for literature.

1960: Cassius Clay, who would later change his name to Muhammad Ali, won his first professional fight against Tunney Hunsacker.

1964: A collection of gems, including the 565 carat (113g) Star of India, were stolen by thieves from the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

1967: London criminal Jack McVitie was murdered by the Kray twins, leading to their eventual imprisonment.

1969: The first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the internet.

1983: More than half-a-million people demonstrated against cruise missiles in The Hague, Netherlands.

1985: Lester Piggott rode Full Choke at Nottingham to record his 4,349th winner. This was thought to be the end of his career in Britain - he eventually retired in 1995.

1986: The final section of the M25 motorway around London was opened by prime minister Margaret Thatcher.

1987: Thomas “Hit Man” Hearns won the world middleweight title, making him the first boxer to win a world title at four different weights.

1991: The American Galileo spacecraft made its closest approach to 951 Gaspra, becoming the first probe to visit an asteroid.

1994: A man was arrested outside the White House in Washington after spraying the building with automatic gunfire while Bill Clinton, the president, watched television inside.

1995: Orkney police started an investigation after 25 grey seal pups were found shot near Burwick on South Ronaldsay.

1998: A fire at The Gothenburg nightclub in Sweden claimed 63 lives and injured 200.

2004: In Rome, European heads of state signed the Treaty and Final Act to establish the first European Constitution.

2008: Delta Air Lines merged with Northwest Airlines to create the world’s largest airline.

2012: Publishing companies Penguin and Random House merged to form the world’s largest publisher.

Yasmin Le Bon, model, 51; Richard Dreyfuss, actor, 68; Ian Durrant, Scottish football coach and former player, 49; Robert Hardy CBE, actor and writer, 90; Kate Jackson, actress, 67; Winona Ryder, actress, 44; Rufus Sewell, actor, 48; Michael Vaughan OBE, former England cricket captain, 41; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, president of Liberia and first female premier of an African country, 77; Lee Child, thriller writer, 61; Amanda Beard, Olympic champion swimmer, 34; Randy Jackson, singer and musician (member of The Jacksons), 54; Peter Green, musician, founder of Fleetwood Mac, 69.

Births: 1650 David Calderwood,Scottish historian; 1656 Edmund Halley, astronomer; 1740 James Boswell, Edinburgh-born diarist and biographer of Samuel Johnson; 1897 Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister.

Deaths: 1618 Sir Walter Raleigh, seafarer; 1911 Joseph Pulitzer, American newspaper publisher; 1924 Frances Burnett, novelist and dramatist; 1957 Louis B Mayer, film producer; 2011 Jimmy Savile, media personality.