Black Monday

Black Monday is a term used to refer to certain events which occurred or occur on a Monday. 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, Paris – when inclement weather killed men and horses in the army of Edward III during the Hundred Years' War. ^[2]
• 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, May 17, 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.
• 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 – 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 a number of 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

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.^[5] 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."^[5] 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.^[6]
• An old schoolboys' name for the first Monday after the holidays.^[7]

References

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