 The History Behind Black Friday Every year Black Friday begins on 27 November, the day after Thanksgiving. Many believe the term Black Friday was a result of shop owners, when recording their details by hand, they noted profits in black and losses in red. Most the year, shops were in red, however went into black the day after Thanksgiving. This is not actually how the name came to be.The term Black Friday was first associated with the financial crisis. Two Wall Street financiers Fisk and Gould, bought a significant amount of US gold, in the hope the overall price would soar and be able to sell it for huge profits. Friday 24 September, 1869, in what became referred to as Black Friday, the US gold market crashed and Fisk and Gould's actions left Wall Street bankrupt. It was not until later years that the post Thanksgiving period became Black Friday. Police officers in Philadelphia were first to link Black Friday to the post Thanksgiving period in the 1950s. Large crowds of tourists and shoppers came to the city the day after Thanksgiving for the Army-Navy football game, creating chaos and shoplifting opportunities. Police officers in the city weren't able to take the day off and instead had to work long shifts to control the carnage, using the term Black Friday to refer to it. As the name spread throughout Philadelphia, some of the city's merchants despite the negative connotations and unsuccessfully tried to change it to Big Friday. Black Friday later became known in print, after an advertisement was published in the American Philatelist magazine in 1966. By the 1980s, the term was known across the nation and retailers soon linked it to their post Thanksgiving sales. Today, Black Friday is the USA's biggest shopping event of the year, when shops cut their prices in order to boost profits. Amazon introduced the concept to the UK in 2010, promoting discounts to consumers. Black Friday has grown significantly since, throughout the UK. The concept has also emerged in other countries across the globe. In Mexico, they call their version El Buen Fin, meaning the good end while in the United Arab Emirates, shops cut prices on what they call White Friday. To help improve sales and deal with competition, retailers now choose to run their sales across an extended period, rather than the traditional 24 hours. In recent years, a number of promotions have started in the days building up to Black Friday continuing until Cyber Monday.