The stock market crash of 1929 got cranked up on Black Thursday, Oct. 24. But it really took off the following Monday. Investors read about the Thursday drop in Friday's papers, and they fretted about it over the weekend. On Monday they bailed. The Dow plunged 13 percent on Oct. 28 and another 12 percent the next day, says Wiki.

On dshort.com's graph below of four bad bear markets, the trauma of October 1929 can be seen at the far left of the gray fever line. As you can see, the pain had only just begun. The blue line represents stocks' performance in this particular crisis. We can be thankful that it has diverged from the pattern of 1929 and the 1930s.