Black Friday

Black Friday

Is the day following Thanksgiving day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. On this day, most major retailers open extremely early, oftenat 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season.

The term Black Friday originated in Philadelphia, where it originally was used to describe the heavy pedestrianand vehicle traffic, which would occur on the day after Thanksgiving.

Use of the term began in Philadelphia, and then spread to other cities around 1975.

That the day after Thanksgiving is the"official" start of the holiday shopping season may be linked together with the idea of Santa Claus parades. Parades celebrating Thanksgiving often include an appearance by Santa at the end of theparade, with the idea that 'Santa has arrived' or 'Santa is just around the corner'.
In the late 19th century and early 20th century, many Santa parades or Thanksgiving Day parades were sponsored bydepartment stores. These include the Toronto Santa Claus Parade, in Canada, sponsored by Eaton's, and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade sponsored by Macy's. Department stores would use the parades tolaunch a big advertising push. Eventually it just became an unwritten rule that no store would try doing Christmas advertising before the parade was over. Therefore, the day after Thanksgiving becamethe day when the shopping season officially started.

In 2006, a man in Roanoke, Virginia shopping at Best Buy was recorded on video assaulting another shopper.Unruly Walmart shoppers at a storeoutside Columbus, Ohio, quickly flooded in the doors at opening, pinning several employees against stacks of merchandise.Nine shoppers in a California mall were injured, including an elderly woman who hadto be taken to the hospital, when the crowd rushed to grab gift certificates that had been released from the ceiling
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