Coinciding with the start of the Christmas shopping season, ‘Black Friday’ is an American tradition that involves a day of sales, falling on the last Friday of November. But how exactly did this celebration come about?
The first time the term “Black Friday” was coined wasn’t to refer to Christmas shopping but to a financial crisis. Who hasn’t heard of Wall Street, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk? Due to trying to benefit from their actions on 24th September 1869, the market fell into bankruptcy as they failed to reach their objectives in the end. It is for this reason that this day is called “Black Friday”.
photo by Hilo Directo
Another story related to the term “Black Friday” has something to do with small American business’. It has been said that, after a bad year of sales, a number of business’ that were “in the red” increased the number of items on sale, helping them to reap the benefits after Thanksgiving. With this, business’ went from being in the red to being “in the black”.
Photo by History Hol
There are many theories though. There are some who believe that it originates from the day on which “New York Times” used the adjective “black” for the first time (on 19th November 1975) to refer to the chaos of traffic jams caused by the discounts available the day after Thanksgiving that year.
This tradition reached Spain in 2010 with Apple and, since then, its popularity has grown with every passing year. Major companies offer mega discounts both online and at the shops, leading to hundreds of people heading to shopping centres to take advantage of these fantastic offers.
Photo by cnet.com
