Financial crises through history · causes, liability, rescues and winners

A comparative history of financial crises, causes, responsibility, liability, rescues, beneficiaries and lasting consequences. The survey covers 47 crisis groups: ancient credit distress, medieval merchant banking, sovereign defaults, bubbles, banking panics, currency crises and major institutional or fraud-related failures. These categories have different systemic scale; Madoff, Archegos and a speculative bulb market are not presented as equivalent to a global depression.

Follow the money and the mechanism

Each case begins with a dated shock or representative anchor and an analytical note on responsibility and distribution. Later moments identify interventions, restructuring, official reviews, legal outcomes and reforms where documented. The questions are concrete: what made the balance sheet vulnerable, what triggered withdrawal or loss, which claims were protected, who supplied the money, who absorbed the damage, and what changed afterward?

Named beneficiaries include Soros’s fund investors in the sterling episode; Paulson & Co.’s mortgage-credit position; AIG counterparties; acquiring banks including JPMorgan and UBS; and Tai Mo Shan’s documented discounted-token arrangement. A contractual receipt, avoided loss, potential acquisition upside and realized net profit are different benefits. Government recoveries are likewise assessed case by case: AIG’s reported aggregate outcome differs from the UK’s nominal loss on its NatWest investment.

Responsibility is recorded precisely

Economic contribution, poor management, an official inquiry finding, a regulatory settlement, a civil verdict and a criminal sentence are distinguished. Mozilo’s settlement, Tourre’s civil verdict and Serageldin’s criminal sentence are separate events, as are the Madoff, Hwang and Bankman-Fried criminal outcomes. A regulator’s announced penalty is not necessarily money already distributed to victims. A lack of a recorded conviction does not establish that the conduct was prudent or harmless.

For older episodes the surviving evidence may not support a reliable named list of profits or a modern legal allocation of blame. The notes say so rather than inventing a villain or bailout. The account of Florence challenges simplistic blame of Edward III; tulip mania’s national economic scale is qualified; the Bubble Act is dated before the main South Sea collapse. Credit Suisse’s AT1 loss allocation includes the later partial court decision and announced appeal, rather than being treated as legally uncontested.

Explore the comparisons

Use crisis, region, type, role and actor tags to separate cases or examine one institution across events. Concept guides explain liquidity versus solvency, leverage, currency mismatch, settlement risk, bail-in, public-cost accounting and social consequences. Arrow explanations distinguish transmission, response, investigation and comparison; an arc is not a claim that every connected event has been proven to be the sole cause of the other.

Evidence and dates

Sources emphasize statutes, court records, regulator orders, official inquiries, central-bank histories, IMF evaluations and archival evidence, with scholarly and reputable secondary reporting where useful. Institutional accounts are identified as such, including evaluation of their own earlier decisions. Figures retain their units, scope and status: commitments are not disbursements, nominal proceeds are not inflation-adjusted returns, and fictitious account profits are not recoverable principal.

The selection extends to a 2026 Lebanese governance diagnostic and dated later accountability events. It is a substantive survey, not every financial disturbance ever recorded or a complete live docket of every appeal. Exact days, months, representative years and approximate medieval anchors are distinguished. All entries use Gregorian display; no continuing crisis or institutional legacy is assigned an artificial duration ending today.

Related timeline: Lending and financial institutions.

Cover and illustrations

The cover shows depositors in Michigan in February 1933, not a 1929 stock-exchange crowd. Other illustrations distinguish contemporary photographs, earlier portraits, later building views and satire. Individual entries provide their own context, attribution and public-domain or Creative Commons license.

Photographer not credited. · Bank Run in Michigan, USA, February 1933.jpg · Public domain. File and attribution No changes beyond thumbnail rendering/scaling.

Selected source records

119 moments · 0033-01-01T00:00:00Z CE – 2026-04-01T00:00:00Z CE · by @athan · @athan

Mortgage losses and wholesale-funding stress become a global financial crisis

2007-08-01T00:00:00Z CE

crisis: gfc
region: united states / global
type: systemic banking and shadow-banking crisis
role: crisis / trigger
actor: countrywide
actor: angelo mozilo
actor: goldman sachs
actor: fabrice tourre
actor: paulson and company
actor: john paulson
actor: jpmorgan chase
actor: bear stearns
actor: aig
actor: deutsche bank
actor: société générale
actor: kareem serageldin
actor: fannie mae
actor: freddie mac
actor: ben bernanke
actor: henry paulson

Deteriorating mortgages meet securitization, high leverage, weak underwriting, rating failures and dependence on short-term funding. Falling collateral values and uncertainty prompt lenders to withdraw, forcing sales that further damage prices. The FCIC majority identifies avoidable failures in governance and regulation, while published dissents differ on causal weight. The crisis is therefore traced through multiple mechanisms rather than attributed to one defaulting household or one trader. **Crisis / comparison:** Mortgage losses and wholesale-funding stress become a global financial crisis. **Role in the record:** crisis / trigger. **Date:** 2007-08 CE; month. Gregorian CE display, UTC. A year-only or month-only coordinate uses the first day only for positioning and does not assert that the event occurred on that day. Ancient dates are proleptic Gregorian year anchors. Pre-Gregorian and pre-reform events generally retain coarse historical precision rather than silently assigning an unconverted exact calendar day. **Sources:** - [Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, Final Report (2011), including dissents](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-FCIC/pdf/GPO-FCIC.pdf) - [Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission archived research and testimony](https://fcic.law.stanford.edu/) - [SEC, Goldman Sachs’s $550 Million ABACUS Settlement (2010)](https://www.sec.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2010-123-goldman-sachs-pay-record-550-million-settle-sec-charges-related-subprime-mortgage-cdo) **Image context:** Exterior of Lehman’s Times Square building; illustrates the institution, not a dated image of the bankruptcy filing. **Credit:** David Shankbone · Lehman Brothers Times Square by David Shankbone.jpg · CC BY-SA 3.0. [File and attribution](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lehman_Brothers_Times_Square_by_David_Shankbone.jpg); [license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/). No changes beyond thumbnail rendering/scaling. **Related event — Federal assistance facilitates JPMorgan’s acquisition of Bear Stearns:** Same crisis record: assisted acquisition. This connection identifies a response, consequence or later finding; it does not treat chronological succession alone as proof of causation. **Related event — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorships are publicly announced:** Same crisis record: public intervention. This connection identifies a response, consequence or later finding; it does not treat chronological succession alone as proof of causation. **Related event — Lehman Brothers enters bankruptcy while contagion intensifies:** Same crisis record: failure / contagion. This connection identifies a response, consequence or later finding; it does not treat chronological succession alone as proof of causation. **Related event — The Federal Reserve authorizes an initial AIG credit line of up to $85 billion:** Same crisis record: official rescue. This connection identifies a response, consequence or later finding; it does not treat chronological succession alone as proof of causation. **Related event — A money-market fund’s loss exposes the run risk of cash-like investments:** Same crisis record: run / amplification. This connection identifies a response, consequence or later finding; it does not treat chronological succession alone as proof of causation. **Related event — Emergency legislation authorizes TARP and bank-capital support:** Same crisis record: law / recapitalization. This connection identifies a response, consequence or later finding; it does not treat chronological succession alone as proof of causation. **Related event — Disclosure and audit identify institutions benefiting from AIG support:** Same crisis record: distribution / official scrutiny. This connection identifies a response, consequence or later finding; it does not treat chronological succession alone as proof of causation. **Related event — Goldman Sachs settles the SEC’s ABACUS case for $550 million:** Same crisis record: civil settlement. This…

Date precision: month
Coordinate convention: Gregorian CE display, UTC. A year-only or month-only coordinate uses the first day only for positioning and does not assert that the event occurred on that day. Ancient dates are proleptic Gregorian year anchors. Pre-Gregorian and pre-reform events generally retain coarse historical precision rather than silently assigning an unconverted exact calendar day.
Crisis case: Mortgage losses and wholesale-funding stress become a global financial crisis
Jurisdiction / region: United States / global
Causal or response role: crisis / trigger
Legal status of this record: Economic or institutional event; responsibility and case-specific legal outcomes are distinguished in the notes.
Named actors in the case: Countrywide; Angelo Mozilo; Goldman Sachs; Fabrice Tourre; Paulson and Company; John Paulson; JPMorgan Chase; Bear Stearns; AIG; Deutsche Bank; Société Générale; Kareem Serageldin; Fannie Mae; Freddie Mac; Ben Bernanke; Henry Paulson

Sources

The Federal Reserve authorizes an initial AIG credit line of up to $85 billion 2008-09-16T00:00:00Z CE
Disclosure and audit identify institutions benefiting from AIG support 2009-01-01T00:00:00Z CE
Treasury exits its AIG shareholding with reported aggregate positive proceeds 2012-12-01T00:00:00Z CE
Federal assistance facilitates JPMorgan’s acquisition of Bear Stearns 2008-03-16T00:00:00Z CE
Dodd–Frank changes oversight, consumer protection and resolution powers 2010-07-21T00:00:00Z CE
Goldman Sachs settles the SEC’s ABACUS case for $550 million 2010-07-15T00:00:00Z CE
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac conservatorships are publicly announced 2008-09-07T00:00:00Z CE
JPMorgan reaches a $13 billion RMBS civil settlement 2013-11-19T00:00:00Z CE
Lehman Brothers enters bankruptcy while contagion intensifies 2008-09-15T00:00:00Z CE
A money-market fund’s loss exposes the run risk of cash-like investments 2008-09-16T00:00:00Z CE
Angelo Mozilo agrees to a $67.5 million SEC civil settlement 2010-10-15T00:00:00Z CE
Standard & Poor’s reaches a $1.375 billion ratings-practices settlement 2015-02-03T00:00:00Z CE
Kareem Serageldin receives a prison sentence for concealing trading losses 2013-11-22T00:00:00Z CE
Emergency legislation authorizes TARP and bank-capital support 2008-10-03T00:00:00Z CE
A jury finds Fabrice Tourre civilly liable in the ABACUS case 2013-08-01T00:00:00Z CE
Iceland’s oversized banks fail as foreign-currency funding disappears 2008-10-01T00:00:00Z CE
Ireland’s blanket bank guarantee transfers contingent private losses to the state 2008-09-30T00:00:00Z CE
Northern Rock’s funding failure exposes weaknesses in the UK banking model 2007-09-01T00:00:00Z CE

On other timelines

MISHAP · Unauthorized multichain loss begins on Binance’s $6.3B theft · events, causes and competing claims by @athan
2007–2009 · selected global-crisis sequence on Lending and financial institutions · origins, laws and crises by @athan
Mortgage stress spreads into funding markets on Lending and financial institutions · origins, laws and crises by @athan

Open Mortgage losses and wholesale-funding stress become a global financial crisis in the timeline