Black Friday (shopping) corner the gold market. When President Grant learned of this manipulation, he ordered the Treasury to release a large supply of gold, which halted the run and caused prices to drop by eighteen percent. Fortunes were made and lost in a single day, and the president's own brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, was ruined. The earliest known use of "Black Friday" to refer to the day after Thanksgiving occurs in the journal, "Factory Management and Maintenance", for November 1951, and again in 1952. Here it referred to the practice of workers calling in sick on the day after Thanksgiving, in order to
Black Friday (shopping) and small retailers that used Black Friday in their marketing. However, with a total of 35 participating stores, 2015 can be considered the year in which Black Friday started in the Netherlands due to more widespread support of large retailers. The popularity of Black Friday has grown rapidly in the Netherlands. The number of participating stores has increased to over 125 during the Black Friday period of 2017. In 2016 Black Friday was introduced in Poland, Greece and Ukraine. Black Friday in Belgium is seriously marketed by retailers since 2016. Especially online shops have broke sales records during the last