1st-the+Great+Depression

**The Great Depression was an economic slump that began in 1929 and lasted until 1939. It started in the United State but quickly went global spreading throughout North America, Europe, and other industrialized areas in the world. It is believed that The Great Depression began with a catastrophic collaps of stock-market prices on the New York Exchange in October 1929. Throughout the next three years stock prices in the U.S. continued to fall. By 1939 they had dropped to 20% of their value in 1929. Almost all nations sought to protect their domestic production by imposing tariffs, raising exsisting ones, and setting quotas on foreign imports. The effects of these restrictive measures was to greatly reduce the the volume of international trade. By 1932 the total value of world trade dropped by more than half as country after country took measures against the importation of foreign goods.**