
Panics, depressions or any economic crisis resulting in bankruptcies of companies and individuals, dissolution of banks, and vast unemployment, reducing millions to destitution and beggary is the greatest financial horror of all. Economic meltdowns are not biased, they destroy the wealthy, investors, businessmen and the working class too. Over the centuries, the United States has endured several notable crises such as those in 1815, 1819, 1837, 1857, 1869, 1873, 1893, 1901 and 1907 with the most notable exceptions occurring in 1837, 1893 and 1929. These years were defined as "major depressions because of the depth and duration of the collapse which occurred in American History."