Universal Encyclopedia
What caused the 2008 financial crisis?
From subprime defaults to the fall of Lehman Brothers — how a mortgage crisis born in America became a global recession in 2008.
Last updated: October 2026
In 2008, the money stopped believing — in the mortgages, in the banks, in itself. Defaults on American subprime mortgages, cascading through 2007 and 2008, did not merely topple banks: they revealed the pillars of the global financial system as scaffolding — and when they fell, they fell together.