Black Friday Trivia
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101 free Black Friday trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Black Friday trivia quiz is about the day after American Thanksgiving, the sale that traditionally opens the Christmas shopping season (for general retail, malls and brands, try our Shopping quiz instead). It covers where the name really came from (Philadelphia police, not accountants' ink), why Franklin Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving in 1939, how doorbusters got their name, and how the day spread to Britain, Canada, Mexico's El Buen Fin and Egypt's White Friday. The easy questions are ones most shoppers can answer: which day it falls on, what Cyber Monday is, who runs Small Business Saturday and what Buy Nothing Day protests. From there it works through the whole long weekend and its cousins: Giving Tuesday, Green Monday, Super Saturday, Free Shipping Day, Prime Day, Singles' Day and Boxing Day, plus the record years, the 2008 Walmart tragedy that gave doorbusters a darker meaning, the pepper-spray incident over Xbox 360s, the .blackfriday domain and the states whose blue laws keep big stores shut on Thanksgiving. There are numbers questions too on shopper counts and online sales records. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the related shopping days before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this, our Thanksgiving and Christmas quizzes cover the rest of the season.
30 of 101 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does Black Friday traditionally mark the start of?
The Christmas shopping season
The Christmas shopping season — Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, has been treated as the kickoff of holiday shopping since the mid-20th century and is usually the busiest US shopping day.
Q 02Black Friday follows US Thanksgiving, which since 1941 has been fixed on which day?
The fourth Thursday of November
The fourth Thursday of November became the uniform date nationwide in 1941, and the shopping day after it follows.
Q 03Which American city's police first used 'Black Friday' for post-Thanksgiving crowds and traffic?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia — its police used 'Black Friday' in the early 1960s for the traffic jams and crowds that clogged downtown the day after Thanksgiving, ahead of the Army–Navy game.
Q 04What did Philadelphia merchants try to rename the day after Thanksgiving in 1961?
Big Friday
Big Friday — in 1961 Philadelphia merchants and their PR advisers pushed 'Big Friday' to shed the negative ring of 'Black Friday', but the new name never caught on.
Q 05In what year did 'Black Friday' first appear in The New York Times, still meaning that city's crowds?
1975
Retailers in Cincinnati and LA had still not heard it in 1985.
Q 06The earliest known use of 'Black Friday' for the day after Thanksgiving, in 1951, referred to what?
Workers calling in sick for a long weekend
Workers calling in sick for a long weekend — a November 1951 item in Factory Management and Maintenance dubbed post-Thanksgiving absenteeism 'Black Friday', a 'disease second only to the bubonic plague'.
Q 07Which origin story for the name 'Black Friday', first published in 1981, did retailers promote during the 1980s?
Profits turn ledgers from red to black
Profits turn ledgers from red to black, the story goes, because accountants once wrote losses in red ink and gains in black; the earliest published version is a 1981 Philadelphia Inquirer piece.
Q 08Which financial disaster was the most significant early American 'Black Friday'?
The 1869 gold panic
Jay Gould and James Fisk tried to corner gold.
Q 09Which president's brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, was ruined in the gold-cornering scheme?
Ulysses S. Grant
Grant released government gold and prices dropped 18%.
Q 10On what date did the gold panic that ruined Abel Corbin occur?
September 24, 1869
September 24, 1869 — that Friday the Treasury announced a sale of $4 million in gold, breaking Gould and Fisk's corner and sending the gold price tumbling within minutes.
Q 11Which president moved Thanksgiving a week earlier in 1939 to lengthen the shopping season?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt — in 1939 he moved Thanksgiving from November 30 to November 23 to add a week of Christmas shopping; critics dubbed the result 'Franksgiving'.
Q 12Who coined the derisive term 'Franksgiving'?
The mayor of Atlantic City
The mayor of Atlantic City — in 1939 the city's mayor mocked Roosevelt's moved holiday as 'Franksgiving', a blend of Franklin and Thanksgiving that newspapers quickly picked up.
Q 13Which retail boss urged Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving in 1939?
Q 21What did a woman at a Los Angeles Walmart use on fellow shoppers in 2011?
Pepper spray
Pepper spray — at the Porter Ranch Walmart in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving night 2011 a woman sprayed shoppers crowding a discounted-electronics display; about 20 people were treated for minor injuries.
Q 22Which product was the crowd waiting for in the 2011 Los Angeles Walmart incident?
Xbox 360
Xbox 360 — the Porter Ranch Walmart crowd was jostling over discounted Xbox 360 consoles when the pepper spray hit; about 20 people were hurt.
Q 23What sparked the 2012 shooting outside a Tallahassee Walmart?
A dispute over a parking space
Fred Lazarus Jr. of Federated Stores
Fred Lazarus Jr. of Federated Stores — the Federated Department Stores chief lobbied Roosevelt in 1939 to move Thanksgiving earlier and add shopping days; Federated was renamed Macy's, Inc. in 2007.
Q 14Which three states gave holidays in both weeks during the 1939 Thanksgiving confusion?
Colorado, Mississippi and Texas
Colorado, Mississippi and Texas — in 1939 twenty-three states took Roosevelt's November 23, twenty-two kept November 30, and those three declared both days holidays.
Q 15How did a 1939 Gallup poll find Americans overall felt about the Thanksgiving date change?
Opposed 62% to 38%
Opposed 62% to 38% — Gallup found Democrats narrowly favoured the change 52–48 while Republicans opposed it 79–21, leaving the country 62% against Roosevelt's earlier Thanksgiving.
Q 16What did a 1941 Commerce Department survey find about the earlier Thanksgiving?
No significant expansion of retail sales
No significant expansion of retail sales — the Commerce Department's 1941 survey found the earlier Thanksgiving had not lifted holiday spending, and Congress fixed the fourth Thursday later that year anyway.
Q 17What is a 'doorbuster'?
A limited-supply discount offered at opening
A limited-supply discount offered at opening — doorbusters are deeply cut deals on a handful of items, meant to draw crowds through the doors the moment the store opens.
Q 18Which toy's 1983 shortage set off store stampedes across America?
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids — Coleco's adoptable dolls sold out in late 1983, sparking shoving matches and fistfights in stores that became the template for later doorbuster frenzies.
Q 19What is a 'loss leader'?
A product sold below its profit margin to lure shoppers
A product sold below its profit margin to lure shoppers, in the hope that the vendor profits on the other goods they buy.
Q 20Where was Walmart employee Jdimytai Damour trampled to death by shoppers in 2008?
Valley Stream, New York
Valley Stream, New York — about 2,000 shoppers surged through the doors of the Green Acres Mall Walmart at its 5 a.m. opening on November 28, 2008, crushing Damour.
A dispute over a parking space — on Black Friday 2012 an argument over a parking spot outside a Tallahassee Walmart ended with two people shot and taken to hospital.
Q 24What did two women fight over at a Norwalk, California Walmart in 2014?
A Barbie doll
A Barbie doll — on Thanksgiving night 2014 a viral video showed two women wrestling over a discounted Barbie at a Walmart in Norwalk, California, while the crowd filmed.
Q 25What was the sale first called in Egypt when it began in 2014?
White Friday
White Friday — Souq.com launched the region's version in 2014 as 'White Friday', since Friday is the Muslim holy day and black carries mourning connotations.
Q 26Under what name did Pakistani retailers rebrand the Black Friday sale?
Blessed Friday
Blessed Friday — Pakistani retailers rebranded the sale 'Blessed Friday' after objections to attaching 'black' to the Muslim holy day.
Q 27Which e-commerce platform created 'Yellow Friday' in Saudi Arabia and the UAE?
noon.com
It is now an annual event.
Q 28What is the Turkish version of the sale called?
Efsane Cuma (Legendary Friday)
Efsane Cuma (Legendary Friday) — Turkish retailers avoided 'Kara Cuma', which sounds like a day of calamity, and sold the event as 'Efsane Cuma', with 'Muhteşem Cuma' (Magnificent Friday) another common label.
Q 29What is Mexico's Black Friday-inspired sales weekend called?
El Buen Fin
El Buen Fin ('the good weekend') — Mexico's four-day sales event has run each November since 2011, modelled on Black Friday and backed by the government and business chambers.
Q 30Which Mexican holiday does El Buen Fin precede?
Revolution Day (November 20)
Revolution Day (November 20) — since 2006 Mexico observes it on the third Monday of November, and El Buen Fin runs over the Friday-to-Monday long weekend that creates.