Deja Vu

November 27, 2009

The Darkest Days

Tags:

Black Friday,

finance,

panic,

shopping

Despite the popularity of Black Friday among retailers and the local news media, every day of the week has at some point or another been described as “black.” In fact, an entire week can be cobbled together out of the darkness.

Black Sunday (1977)
1977 movie about a blimp pilot / Vietnam veteran driven mad by torture as a POW who uses his intricate knowledge of blimps to attempt to detonate a bomb at the Super Bowl. Much of the film was shot live at Super Bowl X, in which the Dallas Cowboys triumphed over the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Black Monday (1987)
Describes the largest one-day decline in stock market history which occurred on Monday October 19 1987. Also ascribed to part of the Black Long Weekend of 1929 (see “Black Thursday” and “Black Tuesday”)

Black Tuesday (1929, 2001)
The day the financial repercussions of 1929’s Black Thursday set in, causing wide-spread panic when everyone attempted to pull out of the market at the same time. Also used to describe the events of September 11th, 2001.

Black Wednesday (1992)
Describes the situation in Britain on September 16, 1992 when the government was forced to withdraw the pound from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism due to currency speculators. The fiasco cost the UK Treasury an estimated 3.3 billion pounds.

Black Thursday (1929, 1993)
This was, of course, the day of the 1929 Stock Market Crash, but is it also used to describe a terrible Thursday in 1993 when Phillies player Pete Incavigila shouted obscenities at his fans and stormed out of an autograph session at the Granite Run Mall in Media, PA.

Black Friday (1869, 1929, present)
On September 24, 1869, during one of the great scandals of the Reconstruction era, two speculators sent the market into freefall by buying up government gold in a time the government was run primarily on credit. Black Friday is perhaps better known as, the day after Thanksgiving, on which the Christmas retail season pins most of its hopes. In the United Kingdom, it’s the name given to the last Friday before Christmas when widespread alcohol abuse is expected to occur and police are given extra leniency to combat any disturbances of the peace. Also in Europe, this is used to refer to the “Black Thursday” 1929 crash because of the time difference.

Black Saturday (1621)
Saturdays are rarely ruinous. The only Black Saturday on record occurred when a particularly nasty storm raged over the skies of Scotland on August 4th, 1621. This was largely regarded as the judgment of God on recent acts passed by the Scottish Parliament concerning the Episcopal Church.

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