Black Monday

Black Monday is a term used to refer to certain Mondays when undesirable or turbulent events have occurred. It has been used in the following cases:

Historic events

• 1209, Dublin – when a group of 500 recently arrived settlers from Bristol were massacred by warriors of the Gaelic O'Byrne clan. The group had left the safety of the walled city of Dublin to celebrate Easter Monday near a wood at Ranelagh, when they were attacked without warning. Although now a relatively obscure event in history, it was commemorated by a mustering of the Mayor, Sheriffs and soldiers on the day as a challenge to the native tribes for centuries afterwards.^[1]
• 14 April 1360, Black Monday (1360), when inclement weather killed men and horses in the army of Edward III during the Hundred Years' War. ^[2]
• 24 February 1689. During the Williamite War in Ireland the Protestant inhabitants of Bandon rose up against the Irish Army garrison of the town in an incident known as Black Monday. Bandon was quickly recaptured by Justin MacCarthy.
• 28 October 1929, stockmarkets in the United States began to crash, prior to Black Tuesday.
• 17 May 1954, Washington, D.C. – Following the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, U.S. Representative John Bell Williams (D-Mississippi) coined the term “Black Monday” on the floor of Congress to denote Monday, 17 May 1954, the date of the Supreme Court's decision. In opposition to the decision, white citizens' councils formally organized throughout the south to preserve segregation and defend segregated schools.^[3]
• 19 September 1977, Youngstown – Youngstown Sheet and Tube closes its doors and furloughs 5000 workers, devastating the Youngstown economy.
• 19 October 1987 – sharemarkets around the world crashed rapidly.
• 8 October 1990, 1990 Temple Mount riots in Jerusalem
• 20 July 2009, Berlin – Only 330 of the 1,260 of the Berlin S-Bahn's train cars were good for operation.^[4] Earlier in the month 380 (30.2%) train cars were removed, making the total removed on 20 July was at 550 (43.7%).^[4]
• 30–31 July 2012 – 2012 India blackouts: Due to an increase in power usage brought on by extreme heat in the summer of 2012, circuit breakers along the 400 kV Bina-Gwalior line tripped and caused critical outages that affected nearly half of India (22 out of 28 states), or 620 million people (nearly 9% of the world's population).
• 24 November 2014; Beginning of the 2nd wave of the 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri
• 24 August 2015; 2015 Chinese stock market crash. The SSE Composite Index declined by 8.45%.^[5]

Recurring events

• The day following the final Sunday of the National Football League season (Week 17) on which numerous coaches and general managers of underperforming teams are fired or resign their positions.^[6] First use of the phrase was attributed by a pair of writers in the New York Times to a 1998 Associated Press story, "Black Monday for NFL Coaches."^[6] The term is also sometimes used in reference to the day following the annual NFL Draft where players' contracts may be terminated once new players are added to a roster.^[7]
• An old schoolboys' name for the first Monday after the holidays.^[8]

References

1. Sir James Ware (13 January 2010). The antiquities and history of Ireland.
2. Brand, John (1725, R&T edition 1905). Brand's Popular Antiquities of Great Britain I. London: Reeves and Turner. p. 53. Check date values in: |date= (help)
3. "Brown vs. Board of Education at Fifty exhibit". The Library of Congress. Retrieved 9 May 2014.
4. "Berlin commuters face S-Bahn chaos". The Local. 20 July 2009. Retrieved 6 May 2013.
5. "Business Day on Twitter: "'Black Monday': Xinhua calls it before trading even finishes @philipwen11 http://t.co/jZs8cUNIUs #ASX #ausbiz http://t.co/pzHql626so"". Twitter.com. 22 February 2009. Retrieved 25 August 2015. External link in |title= (help)
6. Ken Belson with Alain Delaqueriere, "Black Monday: Now a Ritual Whose Meaning is Clear," New York Times, 28 December 2013.
7. "ProFootballTalk". ProFootballTalk. Retrieved 23 November 2011.
8. Webster 1913