a reference to the year in which the stockmarket crashed in the United States and the beginning of the Great Depression-that period of economic crisis and lowered business activity occurring in the United States from 1929 through most of the 1930s. The Depression began in 1929 when stockvalues in the US dropped rapidly and thousands of stockholders lost large sums of money. Numerous banks, factories and stores closed, leaving millions of Americans jobless. It ranked as the worst and longest period of low business activity and high unemployment in modern times.