Stock market crash

From Turtledove

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 was an economic disaster that caused depressions in every country in the world except China and the African colonies. It was caused by the stock market 'bubble' that had grown during the 1920s, and was triggered by Russia's inability to repay a loan to Austria-Hungary.

Although no single person was responsible for the resulting depression, most of the incumbent political leaders of world took the blame when their respective policies proved incapable of effectively solving the problem. In the United States, for example, President Hosea Blackford, was soundly defeated when he ran for re-election against Calvin Coolidge in 1932. In the Confederate States, it was blamed on President Burton Mitchel and his political party, the Whigs. Jake Featherston and the Freedom Party used the Confederate depression to agitate the previously content Confederate voters into electing him President.

Similar patterns played out in Britain, where the upstart Silver Shirts forced the Conservative Party to take a hard political line when they elected Winston Churchill as Prime Minister; and in France, where Action Francaise brought down the Third Republic and elevated Charles XI as king.