What Is the True Story Behind Black Friday?
Black Friday , the annual shopping extravaganza, is already a staple of many Thanksgiving festivities, but this holiday ritual has darker beginnings than you might think. The phrase " Black Friday " was first used to refer to a financial catastrophe, notably the crash of the US gold market on September 24, 1869, rather than post-Thanksgiving holiday shopping. Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, two infamously vicious Wall Street businessmen, collaborated to purchase up as much gold as they could, aiming to inflate the price and sell it for astronomical profits. The conspiracy ultimately came to light on that Friday in September, throwing the stock market into freefall and bankrupting everyone from Wall Street billionaires to farmers. The most accepted explanation for the Thanksgiving shopping ritual of Black Friday is that it is linked to merchants. According to the account, after a whole year. Why is it called Black Friday? Early 17th century (as school slang, in the sense ‘Friday on w