A worldwide economic downturn beginning in the late 1920s and lasting until the mid-1930s. In the US the Great Depression began on 29 October 1929 with the stock market collapse. The effect of the Great Depression was to reduce international trade and national incomes. Farming was particularly badly hit with large declines in agricultural product prices. The growth of fascism in Europe is often attributed to a reaction to the Great Depression and the subsequent loss of confidence in less extreme forms of government.