On this day, Oct. 29 ...

1929: "Black Tuesday" descends upon the New York Stock Exchange. Prices collapse amid panic selling and thousands of investors are wiped out as America’s “Great Depression” begins.

Also on this day:

  • 1901: President William McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, is electrocuted.
  • 1911: Hungarian-born American newspaperman Joseph Pulitzer, 64, dies in Charleston, S.C.
  • 1956: "The Huntley-Brinkley Report" premieres as NBC’s nightly television newscast.
  • 1987: Following the confirmation defeat of Robert H. Bork to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court, President Ronald Reagan announces his choice of Douglas H. Ginsburg, a nomination that would fall apart over revelations of Ginsburg’s previous marijuana use. 
  • 1998: Sen. John Glenn, at age 77, roars back into space aboard the shuttle Discovery, retracing the trail he’d blazed for America’s astronauts 36 years earlier.

The Hudson River swells and rises over the banks of the Hoboken, N.J., waterfront as Hurricane Sandy approaches on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Sykes)

  • 2012: Superstorm Sandy slams ashore in New Jersey and slowly marches inland, devastating coastal communities and causing widespread power outages; the storm and its aftermath would be blamed for at least 182 deaths in the U.S.
  • 2014: Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the military men and women helping fight Ebola in West Africa have to undergo 21-day quarantines upon their return, longer than required for many civilian health care workers.
  • 2014: The San Francisco Giants win Game 7 on the road for their third World Series title in five years as they defeat the Kansas City Royals 3-2.
  • 2017:  All but 10 members of the Houston Texans take a knee during the national anthem, reacting to a remark from team owner Bob McNair to other NFL owners that “we can’t have the inmates running the prison.”