What happened between 5 Jan 1973 and 9 Dec 1974 to cause the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall to 570.01?

Question

The DJIA fell from a high of 1047.49 on 5 January 1973 to 570.01 on 9 December 1974. That's a loss of 46% in less than two years. What happened to cause that? (Statistics taken from Google Finance.)

Answer 1

The very first oil crisis. The Arab countries closed the oil tap, to punish the West for it's support for Israel. No oil is bad for the economy and so the Dow went South.