The document provides background information on the Great Depression and the stock market crash of 1929. It discusses key terms, events, causes and effects of the period. Specifically, it outlines how speculation in the stock market led to inflated stock prices that eventually crashed in October 1929. This crash had widespread effects, causing banks to fail, businesses to cut production and lay off workers, and unemployment to rise sharply. Together these events marked the beginning of the Great Depression, a severe worldwide economic downturn that lasted through the 1930s.