Black Friday Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
8correct to beat the crowd
98 free Black Friday trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 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 98 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 — its tie to Thanksgiving is believed to date from the 1920s, when big department stores launched Thanksgiving Day parades to promote their Christmas sales.
Q 02Black Friday follows US Thanksgiving, which a 1941 law fixed on which day?
The fourth Thursday of November
The fourth Thursday of November — the House voted in 1941 to restore the old last Thursday, but the Senate changed it to the fourth, a week earlier whenever November has five Thursdays.
Q 03Police in which American city popularised 'Black Friday' as their name for post-Thanksgiving crowds and traffic?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia — its traffic police, who had to work 12-hour shifts while shoppers jammed downtown the day after Thanksgiving, gave the day its gloomy name.
Q 04What upbeat name did merchants and city officials push in 1961 to replace 'Black Friday'?
Big Friday
Big Friday — merchants feared talk of traffic chaos kept shoppers away, so a city PR official pushed 'Big Friday' and 'Big Saturday', but the names were quickly forgotten.
Q 05A 1951 factory-management journal made the earliest known use of 'Black Friday' for the day after Thanksgiving, describing what?
Workers calling in sick
Workers calling in sick — the journal joked about post-Thanksgiving absenteeism, but the name only stuck about a decade later, when traffic police applied it to shopping crowds.
Q 06Which origin story for 'Black Friday' did retailers promote from the 1980s?
Profits turn ledgers from red to black
Profits turn ledgers from red to black — merchants who hated the gloomy police nickname spread this cheerier accounting story, first seen in print in 1981, and it soon eclipsed the day's real origin.
Q 07Which tradespeople nicknamed the day after Thanksgiving 'Brown Friday' for its surge in emergency calls?
Plumbers
Plumbers — Thanksgiving cooking sends grease and potato peels down garbage disposals and a houseful of guests strains the toilets, so the next day brings a spike in clogged drains.
Q 08Which president's brother-in-law, Abel Corbin, was drawn into the 1869 'Black Friday' gold-cornering scheme?
Ulysses S. Grant
Ulysses S. Grant — on realising that speculators were using his sister's husband to keep Treasury gold off the market, he ordered $4 million of it sold, and the price collapsed within minutes.
Q 09Which railroad financier, with partner James Fisk, set off the 1869 'Black Friday' panic by trying to corner gold?
Jay Gould
Jay Gould — the Erie Railroad boss sold his gold before the price broke and escaped the crash that wiped out investors who had borrowed to buy, and he stayed a power on Wall Street.
Q 10Which president moved Thanksgiving a week earlier in 1939 to lengthen the shopping season?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt — retailers feared a late Thanksgiving left too few shopping days, but only 23 of the 48 states adopted his date, so the country ate its turkey on two different Thursdays.
Q 11On London's 'Black Friday' in November 1910, police manhandled some 300 marchers who were demanding what?
Votes for women
Votes for women — suffragettes marching on Parliament were assaulted for hours by police and bystanders, and Home Secretary Winston Churchill turned down calls for a public inquiry.
Q 12Which US sports league added a Black Friday game to its calendar in 2023?
The NFL
The NFL — the Jets met the Dolphins the day after Thanksgiving, and the online retailer that streamed the game used it to pitch deals to an audience of holiday shoppers.
Q 13In 1939, with two rival Thanksgiving dates on offer, how did Texas and Colorado settle the matter?
They celebrated both Thursdays
Q 21Which Republican, beaten in the 1936 presidential race, said the 1939 Thanksgiving switch was made 'with the omnipotence of a Hitler'?
Alf Landon
Alf Landon — the former Kansas governor argued that if the change had any merit, more time should have been taken over it rather than springing it on an unprepared country.
Q 22What sparked the 2012 shooting outside a Tallahassee Walmart?
A dispute over a parking space
A dispute over a parking space — the argument outside the store, shortly after noon on Black Friday, left a man and a woman shot; both were expected to make a full recovery.
Q 23Why is 'Blackout Wednesday', the eve of Thanksgiving, among America's busiest bar nights?
They celebrated both Thursdays — each state set its own holiday, so 23 adopted the new, earlier date, most of the rest kept the old one, and a few simply gave both weeks.
Q 14Which 1942 Bing Crosby film mocked the two-Thanksgivings muddle with a cartoon turkey hopping between dates?
Holiday Inn
Holiday Inn — its calendar-page turkey cannot decide which Thursday is the holiday; the same film introduced the song 'White Christmas', which got a movie of its own in 1954.
Q 15What did a 1941 Commerce Department survey find about the earlier Thanksgiving?
No significant expansion of retail sales
No significant expansion of retail sales — on that finding the president conceded his experiment had not worked and announced that Thanksgiving would go back to its old date.
Q 16What is a 'doorbuster'?
A limited-supply discount offered at opening
A limited-supply discount offered at opening — stores stock only a few of each bargain because its job is to pull a crowd through the doors, where shoppers go on to buy other goods.
Q 17Which toy's 1983 shortage set off store stampedes across America?
Cabbage Patch Kids
Cabbage Patch Kids — no two dolls were alike and each came with adoption papers, and maker Coleco badly underestimated demand, so parents fought over the few on the shelves.
Q 18What is a 'loss leader'?
A product sold below its profit margin to lure shoppers
A product sold below its profit margin to lure shoppers — the store accepts a thin or negative return on that item because customers who come in for it tend to buy full-priced goods too.
Q 19Where was Walmart employee Jdimytai Damour trampled to death by shoppers in 2008?
Valley Stream, New York
Valley Stream, New York — about 2,000 shoppers, some queuing since the night before, broke down the doors at the 5 a.m. opening and trampled Damour as staff tried to let them in.
Q 20What 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.
Old friends are back home
Old friends are back home — with students and out-of-towners in their hometowns and few people working the next day, bars draw crowds to rival New Year's Eve and St. Patrick's Day.
Q 24What was Black Friday first called in Egypt when it arrived in 2014?
White Friday
White Friday — a big regional online marketplace coined the name, judging that 'black' would reflect badly on a sale day in Arab culture, and other retailers followed.
Q 25Which rapper named her debut album 'Pink Friday' as a twist on Black Friday?
Nicki Minaj
Nicki Minaj — revealing the title to fans online, she said she would 'carry on a great tradition of Black Friday' by renaming the day after Thanksgiving in honour of her album.
Q 26Which music event, usually held each April, later added a Black Friday edition of exclusive releases?
Record Store Day
Record Store Day — its organisers wanted to turn the biggest shopping day's attention to the special releases found in local, independently owned shops.
Q 27What is Mexico's Black Friday-inspired sales weekend called?
El Buen Fin
El Buen Fin ('the good weekend') — launched in 2011 with government backing to spur consumer spending, it has been criticised for leaning on credit deals more than real price cuts.
Q 28Which Mexican holiday's long weekend hosts the country's answer to Black Friday?
Revolution Day (November 20)
Revolution Day (November 20) — since 2006 it has been observed on the third Monday of November, and the four-day sale runs from the Friday before through that holiday Monday.
Q 29UK police and ambulance crews first used 'Black Friday' for which heavy-drinking night?
The last Friday before Christmas
The last Friday before Christmas — office parties peak that night, also called Mad Friday, bringing the year's heaviest 999 demand and temporary treatment centres in some city centres.
Q 30Which UK chain, then owned by Walmart, helped import US-style Black Friday sales?
Asda
Asda — it helped bring the sales to the UK in 2013, but after police were called to scuffles in stores in 2014 it pulled out of Black Friday the following year, citing shopper fatigue.