Depending on how you view the world, this entry is either the most unbelievable or the most positively, positively believable. Francine Gottfried, better known as "Sweater Girl," crippled Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange in 1968.

At the time, Gottfried commuted on foot to her job on Wall Street. And since there is no logical way to put it, we'll just go with what actually happened: because she wore tight sweaters, groups of guys used to gather to watch her. Gottfried had enormous breasts, and in 1968, it was uncommon for large groups of men to leave a large-breasted lady alone. As a result, Gottfried's physique created what you may call an appealing silhouette.

According to the reports, as each day went by, more and more men joined the throngs that had gathered to watch her walk to work, until on the afternoon of September 19, there was complete anarchy. There was a gathering of 5,000 people, though some reports claim 6,000, who left their workplaces and the Stock Exchange unattended.

Bankers and dealers rushed to their windows to see what was occurring, which halted trading. By October 5th, additional women had arrived to raise a spectacle as well, complete with measurements that had been published and police to manage the mob. Gottfried reportedly received a $100,000 offer to perform in a few nightclubs. No word on whether she agreed.

What do your grandmother, little dogs, and the stock market all have in common? You should make an effort to shield children from loud noises that can annoy them. 2018 saw the discovery that the computers in charge of the European markets are sensitive to loud whistles, and when faced with them, they can and will shut down.

The fire alarm at a Swedish data center was the root of the issue. The stock exchanges for seven different nations, including Denmark, Finland, and some of Iceland's servers, were shut down due to the stock suppression system's excessive noise, which also harmed the servers. The markets were down for a number of hours while they flew new servers in and made repairs.

It has to do with vibrations, in case you're interested in the science. The servers' hard drives were shaken so badly by the noise that it disrupted their alignment and rendered them read-write inoperable. Hard drives can be damaged by noises up to 110 decibels, and the fire system was producing 130 decibels of noise.

Are squirrels planning to bankrupt America financially? Let's leave zoologists to answer that query. In recent years, so-called flash crashes have been caused by bugs in computer algorithms, but the longest the Nasdaq has ever been down was in the 1990s. However, given that they have already shut down the Stock Market twice, there is growing evidence that the small rodents have something against it. Between natural disasters and war, it would be difficult to identify many events that have ever caused the stock exchange to close twice. However, squirrels did it.

A squirrel shorted electrical systems at the National Association of Securities Dealers in 1987, causing 82 minutes of market closure. It was believed that as a result, around 20 million shares could not be exchanged. The stock exchange was shut down for 34 minutes in 1994 when another squirrel chewed through some wires that the backup systems weren't equipped to replace.

Groucho Marx Stopped Trading for 15 Minutes in 1950. Groucho Marx was once among the most well-known figures in Hollywood. In 1950, they invited him to the New York Stock Exchange just to take a look around because he was so well-known. Marx, a superb showman, took over of the public address system when allowed access to it and started singing Lydia the Tattooed Lady to the gathered merchants on the trading floor.

They reportedly owned him at least one song because when they tried to take the microphone away from him, he reportedly complained about losing all of his money in the 1929 stock market crash. He effectively closed the market after that for a full 15 minutes. The diversion was sufficient to catch the traders' interest, and they paused their work to have a look. Marx had made the song famous roughly 11 years previously, and he was a professional entertainer.

If you weren't present for the O.J. Simpson trial, it's difficult to appreciate just how significant it was now. Although you may read about it, there's no substitute for really experiencing it to fully grasp how it seemed to control the media and popular culture for months. In hindsight, it doesn't even make sense because O. J. Simpson, whose professional football career had ended more than 15 years ago and who had only appeared in a few B movies and the Naked Gun series, was hardly well-known at the time.

Nevertheless, the trial turned into the traditional media circus, with estimates of the number of people who watched the decision being read on TV reaching as high as 150 million. At the time, trading on the stock exchange decreased by 41%. Unfathomable forecasts made prior to the trial suggested that unprecedented numbers of people would miss work to watch, destroying overall productivity, in addition to declines in housing and increases in unemployment, all of which were associated with the study. It was expected that traders would put their jobs on hold to observe what transpired as the stock market crashed.

Possibly the funniest movie to ever have its finale on the Stock Exchange floor is Trading Places from 1983. In the film, Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy get together to take financial revenge on two dishonest old millionaires who destroyed both of their lives. As the fourth-highest grossing movie of 1983 in the United States and Canada and with over $90.4 million globally, Trading Places was hailed as a success upon its release. Additionally, it received generally positive reviews.

Critics praised the main cast and the film's revival of the screwball comedy subgenre popular in the 1930s and 1940s, but they criticized Trading Places for lacking the genre's traditional moral message and instead encouraging the accumulation of wealth. It was nominated for numerous accolades, including an Academy Award for Bernstein's score, while Elliott and Curtis won two BAFTAs. The core cast of the movie, who each participated in a number of other movies throughout the 1980s, also had their careers begun or rejuvenated by it. In particular, Murphy rose to become one of Hollywood's highest-paid and most in-demand comedians.

The World Trade Center's Comex commodity exchange served as the backdrop for the trading scenes in the film. It had a genuine aura of realism as a result, but it also presented a challenge. This was the actual exchange, but due to the obstruction of a film crew, nothing could be done.

$6 billion in trades were ultimately halted due to the disruption caused by having the actors and production on location during regular business hours. Naturally, in order to finish, the production had to disband and return on a weekend when the market was closed.

As if the band's name wasn't a sufficient hint, Rage Against the Machine has always been deeply political. Even though some of their followers weren't aware of it, their music has been rather overtly political for years. The band actually produced a video on Wall Street that entailed shutting down the New York Stock Exchange, providing one very concrete illustration of their convictions.

The video for "Sleep Now in the Fire" was scheduled to be shot on the stairs outside of the exchange and was directed by filmmaker Michael Moore, who is no stranger to divisive political views. Tom Morello, the band's frontman, claims that they did have a permission for the steps but not the walkway. Moore also instructed them to move onto the sidewalk while they were recording. They did as instructed, then a policeman arrived and ordered them to retreat.

The band continued to play because Moore had instructed them to do so regardless of the situation. However, as it was a music video, they weren't actually performing. They were merely miming the actions as the music was being played. The cop attempted to unplug Morello's guitar, but to no avail. In the same way, he also turned off the bass and the drums.

The officer eventually detained Michael Moore after becoming frustrated and enraged, at which point Moore yelled for the band to take the exchange. Upon entering, Morello and his team informed the guards that they were there to take the exchange. Security activated an alert, called for riot police, and shut everything down as a result.

We'll observe that the majority of the causes for closing the stock exchange are materialistic. But not all of them. It turns out that the sun occasionally has it in for us, as was the case in 1989 when a solar flare forced the closure of the Toronto Stock Exchange on August 16.

A significant solar flare had months before resulted in a blackout that affected areas of Ontario and the Canadian province of Quebec. Although the one in August was stronger, the earlier one had at least given officials some insight into what to anticipate and how to respond.

Three distinct disc drives that were intended to function as redundancies to keep the system functioning failed one after another like falling dominoes as a result of electromagnetic interference. As a result, the exchange was unavailable for three hours while repairs were being performed.

The first questions they always ask you when you call tech support about equipment that isn't working sound so condescending it hurts. Does it have a plug? Are you using it with it on? The truth is that they ask these questions because that is frequently the issue, which makes the majority of us feel humiliated by them. Additionally, it appeared to be the cause of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's closure in 2020.

A hardware malfunction and a software bug were blamed in the media for the trading halt, which lasted the entire day. Backup systems also malfunctioned, leaving traders with nothing to do all day. How did the backup system fare? It was turned "off" by someone. Since they upgraded their system, it had been on for five full years, but no one noticed because it had never been needed. Ironically, the system was programmed to switch to back over even when it was set to off previous to their upgrade. However, the upgrade took away that function.

In early 2020, just as we were all adjusting to the covid-19 pandemic, the New York stock exchange found itself shutting down as well. It was March when it shut down so the system could transition over to electronic trading and therefore remove the requirement for everyone to share a floor and perhaps expose themselves to the virus. After two Covid-positive tests, the decision was made.

After being shut down for just over two months, the exchange reopened in May 2020 with security measures in place to allow individuals to come back, including masks and social seclusion exactly as everyone else was meant to be doing. However, the majority of people stayed at home to work.

According to a person knowledgeable about the NYSE's intentions, the decision to remain open for two more days is intended to promote a smooth transition and avoid interfering with stock trading during a period of elevated volatility.

The famous Big Board, also known as the historic exchange, has briefly shut down in response to previous emergencies, including the aftermath of 9/11. But this will mark the first time that trading will continue while the real trading floor, famous for its lively traders, is closed off.