Black Thursday

Black Thursday is a term used to refer to events which occurred on a Thursday. It has been used in the following cases:

  • February 6, 1851, Black Thursday, a day of devastating bushfires in Victoria, Australia
  • September 18, 1873, during the Panic of 1873 when the U.S. bank Jay Cooke & Company declared bankruptcy, triggering a series of bank failures
  • October 24, 1929, the start of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 at the New York Stock Exchange. "Black Tuesday" was the following week on October 29, 1929.
  • August 15, 1940, Schwarzer Donnerstag ("Black Thursday"), when the German Luftwaffe mounted its largest number of sorties during the Battle of Britain, and suffered its heaviest losses; known in Britain as "The Greatest Day".
  • October 14, 1943, when the Allied air forces suffered large losses during bombing in the Second Raid on Schweinfurt during World War II
  • The night of 16/17 December 1943, when RAF Bomber Command losses during the Berlin bombing campaign were particularly high due to combat losses and bad weather over home airfields
  • August 24, 1995, when the Moscow interbank credit market collapsed
  • February 8, 1996, the Black World Wide Web protest against the Communications Decency Act in the United States
  • July 24, 2003, Jueves negro (Spanish for Black Thursday), when a series of violent political demonstrations created havoc in Guatemala City
  • The May 6, 2010 Flash Crash, when the Dow Jones briefly lost more than 900 points in response to the 2010 European sovereign debt crisis and algorithmic trading
  • 30 September 2010, when the Irish government revealed to its people the alleged full cost of bailing out Anglo-Irish Bank, causing the country's deficit to rise to 32% of GDP
  • Thanksgiving Day, the shopping holiday preceding Black Friday

Famous quotes containing the words black and/or thursday:

    “There with vast wings across the canceled skies,
    There in the sudden blackness the black pall
    Of nothing, nothing, nothing—nothing at all.”
    —Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)

    “Newspaperman: That was a magnificent work. There were these mass columns of Apaches in their war paint and feather bonnets. And here was Thursday leading his men in that heroic charge.
    Capt. York: Correct in every detail.
    Newspaperman: He’s become almost a legend already. He’s the hero of every schoolboy in America.”
    —Frank S. Nugent (1908–1965)