The Day After Thanksgiving Trivia Quiz

Answer: Black Friday

"Black" days are usually bad days. Black Thursday, for example, was the stock market crash of 1929, which led to the Great Depression that lasted until World War II. Black Friday, however, is a good day for retailers (the owners, not necessarily the workers). It's the biggest shopping day of the year, and the day when many merchants who were operating "in the red" (at a loss) finally operate "in the black" (at a profit). Usually there are sales with bargains that are rarely equaled at other times of year. Before the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic especially, some disturbing features of Black Friday were stampedes of shoppers, fights over merchandise, and general chaos in the department stores and the big-box stores.

In case it needs to be said, Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of the month, so the day after is always a Friday.

Answer: Canada

The first Buy Nothing Day event was held in Canada in September 1992 and later moved to Black Friday as an antidote and act of resistance against consumerist culture (especially considering that Canadians would drive over their southern border for the spending spree). Vancouver-based magazine "Adbusters" tried to promote the idea of an anti-consumerist day in America in 1999, but of all the U.S. television networks, only CNN would air their advertisement.

Ways to participate in the day include cutting up credit cards in the middle of a shopping mall, walking like a zombie through stores without buying anything, and pushing carts through a store in a conga line (again, buying nothing). Alternatively, participants partake in outdoors events. The Bay Area Sea Kayakers holds a Buy Nothing Day paddle in San Francisco. In Rhode Island, Utah, Oregon, and Kentucky, there is a Buy Nothing Coat Exchange, in which anyone who needs a winter coat can exchange their old one (or take one without exchanging if they need to).

In Canada, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, and the USA, Buy Nothing Day is held the day after U.S. Thanksgiving. (In other countries, like France, Japan, and New Zealand, it is held on the last Saturday in November).

Answer: Native Americans

In 2008, Congressman Joe Baca (D-CA) introduced legislation to designate the Friday after Thanksgiving as Native American Heritage Day, a day to celebrate the vibrant and myriad histories and traditions of Native Americans, to foster cultural pride, to recognize the contributions and achievements of Natives. Congress passed the bill, and President George W. Bush signed it into law. (It is not, however, a bank holiday or a day when government offices are closed.) Ways to observe include visiting a Native American museums, heritage center, or historical site; watching a documentary about Natives; or attending one of the various seminars, performances, or events held across the USA. You could even try a delicious Native American recipe, like frybread or Three Sisters soup or pemmican (venison or similar game meat with dried fruits and honey).

Note of controversy: Some Native Americans have taken issue with the placement of Native American Heritage Day. First, it's on Black Friday, "a day of excess and gluttony and greed and aggressive capitalism" in the words of Simon Moya-Smith, a journalist of the Oglala Lakota Nation. "It's the complete opposite of what we teach our youth". Second, it "falls after a holiday that omits the murder and mutilation of Natives.... For indigenous people that day is known as 'Un-Thanksgiving' or 'the National Day of Mourning' because we mourn the millions of indigenous people who died as a result of aggressive settler colonialism." While they are glad for a Heritage Day, they would like it on a different day!

Answer: Indiana

The Great Lakes region consists of eight U.S. states (Illinois Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Indiana) as well as the Canadian province of Ontario

It's not clear why Indiana designated the day after Thanksgiving as Lincoln's Day, other than to give to employees the day off after the federal holiday.

Indeed, the day after Thanksgiving is an official, public holiday in almost half of the states in the Union. This gives state employees, teachers, etc. a nice four-day weekend from Thursday to Sunday. Besides Indiana, a few states give the day an additional meaning. In Nevada, it's called Family Day. In Georgia, it used to be the observance of Robert E. Lee's birthday (even though he was born on January 19), but the practice was officially stopped in 2016, the day remaining an unnamed state holiday.

Situated in the U.S cornbelt, with Lake Michigan to its north, Indiana uses the motto "Crossroads of America". Bedford, Indiana is known as the "Limestone Capital of the USA" for providing limestone for many famous buildings, including the Empire State Building, the original 1930s buildings of Rockefeller Center, the Pentagon, and many state capitols.

Answer: You're Welcomegiving Day

On Thanksgiving Day in the USA we give thanks for all the good things we have. And what do you say after "thank you"? "You're welcome!" Apparently, You're Welcomegiving Day was created by comic Richard Ankli of Ann Arbor, Michigan, way back in 1977, hoping to restore some manners to U.S. culture (or so he claimed). Some "fun" calendar publishers who promote the day have shortened it to "You're Welcome Day". Richard Ankli also started National May Ray Day, a day nominally to celebrate the sun's rays in May, but actually to honor his brother Ray's birthday on May 19! (See what he did there?)

One might think that responding to thanks with "You're welcome" is quite old, considering how automatic it can be. In reality, the response did not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary until 1907! ("Welcome", without the "you're", may have been used from the 17th century, however).

As the immodest yet endearing demigod Maui, Dwayne Johnson sang the song "You're Welcome" in the Disney animated feature, "Moana" (2016). Maybe this could become the day's theme song!

Answer: St. George

November 23rd is St. George's Day in Georgia, whose citizens particularly revere their patron saint, Giorgi in their language. Whereas in England St. George's Day marks the day of the martyr's death, in Georgia it marks the day that George was arrested and tortured in A.D. 302 for refusing to make sacrifices to the Roman gods. He was lacerated on a wheel of swords, and so the day may be known as "The Breaking on the Wheel of Holy Great-martyr George". The torment lasted for seven months until his death by decapitation on April 23rd.

Now George had a cousin, St. Nino (Agía Nína) of Cappadocia, a Greek-speaking woman known as the Enlightener of Georgia and Equal to the Apostles. In 337 she cured the blindness of King Mirian III of Kartli (Georgia) and converted him to Christianity, eventually Christianizing the whole kingdom. It was also Nino who established November 23rd as the day to commemorate her martyred relative. Georgians also observe the April 23rd feast, but November 23rd is a much more ceremonious and grand occasion!

The earliest date on which U.S. Thanksgiving Day can fall is November 22nd. That happened in 2018, so that year Georgia's St. George's Day coincided with Black Friday (the 23rd of November).

Answer: Both of these

On November 24, 1859, British publisher John Murray published one of naturalist Charles Darwin's most foundational works in the theory of evolution. The full title is "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". The work outlined evidence for evolution and proposed a theory to explain just *how* evolution occurred, namely natural selection. It sparked a lot of philosophical and religious debate even as it revolutionized the science of biology.

In jest over the misunderstanding that Darwin thought humans "evolved from monkeys", another name for the day is All our Uncles are Monkeys Day. (Think "Scopes Monkey Trial").

Evolution Day also marks the discovery of an adult Australopithecus afarensis skeleton by Donald Johanson and Tom Gray at the Afar Depression in Ethiopia on November 24, 1974. Her bones helped support the view that walking on two legs came before having a larger brain, instead of the other way around as some scientists had proposed. The 3.2-million-year-old fossilized skeleton was dubbed "Lucy" after the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and became part of popular culture.

In 2017, Evolution Day fell on the day after Thanksgiving (the 23rd that year).

Answer: Women

The White Ribbon Campaign emerged in Ontario, Canada in 1991, after the 1989 École Polytechnique Massacre, in which a man killed 14 women engineering students (sparing their male classmates). The idea was for boys and men to work toward an end to violence against women and girls, and to show their support for an end to misogyny by wearing white ribbons on the anniversary of the massacre.

The 25th of November was chosen as White Ribbon Day as it is also the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, a UN-sponsored observance. In 1960 on that day, the three Mirabel sisters (Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa) who opposed the regime of the dictator of the Dominican Republic were assassinated.

In 2021, the UN encouraged social media users to express their support for the worldwide commemoration by using the color orange on their platform of choice, with the hashtags #OrangeTheWorld and #GenerationEquality. The color orange was chosen to symbolize a brighter future.

Answer: Chad

The fifth-largest country in the world, landlocked Chad ultimately declared independence from France in 1960 and elected Francois (later Ngarta) Tombalbaye its first president. Both Eswatini (as Swaziland) and Zimbabwe (as Rhodesia) broke from the British Empire in 1968 and 1965, respectively. Ethiopia escaped colonization but was invaded and occupied by Italy during World War II.

The 28th of November also marks Flag and Independence Day in Albania, as well as the national days of Mauritania, the DR of Congo, Myanmar (Burma), East Timor, and Panama. Last but not least, Red Planet Day, which celebrates Mars, is also on this day. And in 2014, it was the day after Thanksgiving!

Answer: Judith Donath

Judith Stefania Donath created the first e-card site at the MIT Media Lab in 1994. It was called The Electric Postcard, and it featured artists like Van Gogh, Leonardo da Vinci, and Gaugin, and it also had prints of original illustrations from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Users would choose a postcard, insert a friend's email address, and add a greeting, and the recipient would receive an email notice that there was a card waiting for him or her, with a Web URL and a claim number. At the time, this was quite revolutionary as the World Wide Web itself had only come into existence the year before (though email had been around since the 1970s). Despite accelerating technological progress, one thing hasn't changed in the decades since: the recipient does not get the e-card itself but a link to the publisher's website where the card may be viewed.

In 2013 and 2019, Electronic Greeting Card Day fell on the day after Thanksgiving.

An educational software developer, Judith Donath also pioneered the first interactive art show competition, called Portraits in Cyberspace. Her academic research has been on identity, anonymity, and deception in online communities. She has been a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society since 2007.