Black Monday refers to specific Mondays when undesirable or turbulent events have occurred. It has been used to designate massacres, military battles and stock market crashes.
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.
13 April 1360 – Black Monday, when inclement weather killed men and horses in the army of Edward III during the Hundred Years' War.
17 May 1954, Washington, D.C. – Following the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, U.S. Representative John Bell Williams 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.
20 July 2009, Berlin – Only 330 of the 1,260 of the Berlin S-Bahn's train cars were good for operation. Earlier in the month 380 train cars were removed, making the total removed on 20 July was at 550.
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, or 620 million people.
3 October 2016 – Strikes and demonstrations by women in Poland protesting against proposed legislation for a total ban on abortion.
9 March 2020 - Part of the 2020 stock market crash, the worst day for stock market losses since the Great Recession, fueled by investor panic over the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
16 March 2020 - Larger falls than the previous week's fall during the 2020 stock market crash.
Recurring events
The day following the final Sunday of the National Football League regular season on which numerous coaches and general managers of underperforming teams are fired, their contracts have expired without renewal, or they resign their positions. 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". 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.
