The Big Crash: Crushed under the weight of speculative attacks to its currency, the Thai government ended the baht's peg to the US dollar, causing the baht to halve in the value and the Thai economy to grind to a halt.
This spread quickly to most of Asia as currencies buckled, stock markets crashed and assets price plunged. The Thai stock market dropped 74%, Hong Kong's fell 23%, and South Korea's loss 7% in one day. Asian economies went into recession, weighing own on global growth.
Recovery: Despite help from the International Monetary Fund, recovery was slow and painful, and hit along the way by more economic shocks. But economies in the region finally got back on the growth track, boosted by a global boom.
Why it's Important: Learning its lesson from the finanical crisis, Asia's government built up hefty reserves and may be in better insulated from the currency downturn.
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