I hope you all had a lovely Black Friday so far. Contrary to my Black Friday post, I took Dave’s advice and decided to Black Friday shop from the comfort of my computer chair. Letting the kids up past their normal bedtime/the thanksgiving feast last night kind of took the roller derby girl fight out of me. I took good advantage of this lovely day off making a pillow fort with my little ones and proceeded to take a nice long nap in it 
While snoozing, I did start to wonder where the name “Black Friday” came from. I always assumed it was the name of some tragic historic event that American retailers recycled to spur shopping while everyone is in a good mood from Thanksgiving. I decided to do a little snooping and found quite a few “Black Fridays”:
- October 14, 1881. a.k.a. “The Eyemouth Disaster.” 189 fishermen are killed by a windstorm in Scotland.
- September 24, 1869. Speculators, Jay Gould and James Fisk cause a stock market crash in a scandal involving manipulation of the price of gold.
- November 18, 1910. 300 unarmed women protest in the United Kingdom for suffrage. 200 of them were assaulted by the UK police.
- January 13, 1939. One of the most brutal wildfires in history. Almost 5 million acres are destroyed in Australia.
- February 9, 1945. An Allied air attack against the Nazi naval camp in Norway fails. 10 Allied aircrafts are lost.
- October 5, 1945. An organized mob of set decorators on a six month strike riot through the Warner Brothers studios.
- September 8, 1978. 64 peaceful protesters against the Shah of Iran are killed in Zhaleh Square by the military.
- July 31, 1987. A tornado in Edmonton, Canada destroys over 300 homes.
- April 15, 2011. United State v. Scheinberg rule against the major US online poker companies. Approximately $500 million of funds are seized and online gambling is made illegal.
Quite a downer. It seems like the historians got lazy and just named any bad event that happened on a Friday, “Black Friday.” Not all Black Fridays are bad though. In England, “Black Friday” also refers to the last Friday before Christmas which is the most popular days for holiday parties. “Black Friday” is also an alternative name for “Good Friday,” and the negative superstitions revolving “Friday the 13th.”
Yeah, on second thought, I’d rather just think of it as “shopping day.”
Have a great weekend everyone!
