In fact, most people expected the Spanish Inquisition because the inquisitors announced their presence and their intention to weed out heretics and gave people a few weeks or more to confess their sins. The story of the Wall Street suicides has been often repeated, and plenty of people believe it today, but one study debunked it as far back as the 1980s. While undoubtedly many people committed suicide due to the financial crisis, very few did it by jumping, and even fewer did it on Wall Street.