In Canadian history, there's this thing called the crash of 1873 -- an economic depression that started elsewhere but created conditions in which the Canadian economy stagnated for five years, the Pacific railway project languished, and the new Liberal government of Alexander Mackenzie was doomed to a single term.
In a lot of Canadian history, it's a kind of random intervention, like a hurricane or a drought, mentioned for its local impact but rarely explained or analyzed. So the
summary explanation of its causes and consequences at
Lawyers, Guns, and Money is a worth-reading.
