The 2008 Financial Crisis: Full Timeline

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2006-2007: The Housing Market Turns

Years of loose mortgage lending, including widespread subprime loans, had inflated U.S. home prices. Home prices peaked in 2006 and began falling, and by 2007 rising subprime mortgage defaults were rattling markets.

March 2008: Bear Stearns

Investment bank Bear Stearns, heavily exposed to mortgage-backed securities, collapsed and was acquired by JPMorgan Chase in a Fed-backed emergency deal — an early sign of how deep the damage ran.

September 2008: Lehman Brothers

On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history after the government declined to bail it out. Panic spread through global credit markets almost immediately. Days later, the government did step in to rescue insurance giant AIG.

Late 2008: Emergency Response

Congress passed the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in October 2008 to stabilize banks. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates to near zero by December 2008 and began its first quantitative easing program shortly after.

2009: Recovery Begins

The U.S. economy returned to GDP growth in the third quarter of 2009, marking the technical end of the "Great Recession," though unemployment continued climbing into 2010, eventually peaking near 10%.