Search Results for "october 29"

Tech History Today – July 29, 2013

In 1947 – ENIAC was switched on after being transferred to the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland. It operated continuously until October 2 1955.

In 1951 – A recording was made of Beethoven’s 9th by EMI that eventually became used to justify the diameter of the CD.

In 1958 – President Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, creating the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

About DNS (Rewrite)

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The Internet’s directory was once a simple text file on a single computer but has evolved into many directories world-wide that enable the Internet as you know it.

Featuring Tom Merritt.

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Episode transcript:

In 1972, four years after the Mother of All Demos, Douglas Engelbart’s Augmentation Research Center might have felt like it was falling apart. More and more folks who had worked on Englebart’s NLS were moving on, many of them up the street to Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Centre.
But that didn’t mean Engelbart’s Augmentation Research Center was closing. Over the past few years ARC had been working with the Advanced Research Project Agency on its new network, the ARPANet. It had launched October 29, 1969, and had 29 computers connected but new hosts weren’t moving as fast. So Bob Kahn at ARPA wanted to show off to everyone what this network could do and why it was worth funding.
Kahn was planning a big demo of ARPANET at the first International Conference on Computer Communications in Washington, DC and needed someone to organize all the info into a handbook to go along with the demonstration.
Elizabeth Feinler, aka “Jake,” was a biochemist. But she was also fascinated with how to compile large amounts of data. She had worked on a project to index all the chemical compounds in the world. And in 1960, joined the Stanford Research Institute where she developed the Handbook of Psychopharmacology and The Chemical Process Economics Handbook.
By 1972, she led the Literature Research section at SRI. And she told Webster University Professor Julia Griffey in 2019 that, of course, she knew Douglas Engelbart
So Engelbart asked her to come over to the ARC team where she wrote the Resource Handbook for the ARPAnet demo.
You don’t put together all the info about how the ARPANet works without becoming a useful resource people rely on when they have questions about how the ARPANet works. By 1974, Feinler was one of the people planning and running the Network Information Center.
NIC was the reference desk of ARPANet. You needed to know something you called NIC. Literally. On the phone. You could also send a letter if your request was less urgent. NIC published a book– the successor of that Resource Handbook from the demo– listing all the protocols of ARPANet and all the registered names and and terminals.
That demo had worked and more computers were connecting to ARPAnet all the time. In 1974, the network working group decided to create a text file to list all the host names, so they didn’t have to keep publishing a pamphlet. You had an information network after all, why not use it.
Feinler took charge of making sure it was updated. She’d keep doing that until 1989 when the domain name system came along and made it easy to find a machine on the now Internet just by typing in a name. Without it, Feinler at 92 might still be updating that hosts file.
So let’s help you Know a Little More about the Domain Name System, aka DNS.
DNS stands for the Domain Name System. It’s essentially the system that lets you type google.com when you want Google search rather than having to remember something like 142.250.68.46.
That string of numbers is an Internet Protocol Address or IP address. That’s actually how computers on the internet talk to each other. They identify as numbers.
Domain Names are associated with those numbers. When you type in a domain name in a browser the browser goes and looks up in a table which number (or more often range of numbers) goes with that domain name so it can find it on the internet. The same way you just go to your friends name in your phone’s contact list to call them. You don’t tap in their phone number by hand.
The Domain Name System provides a worldwide distributed directory of which domain names go with which numbers. It’s not just one table (anymore) it’s lots of tables on lots of servers around the world. So DNS also defines a communication protocol for how all those directories communicate with each other so that any computer can find another on the Internet.
But it did start in 1974 as that HOSTS.TXT file on a machine at the Stanford Research Institute developed and maintained by Elizabeth Feinler. She mapped host names to the numbers she found in the Assigned Numbers List handled by Jon Postel at USC. Feinler and her team managed that list for the ARPANET– and later Internet– until 1989.
But along the way that host table became slow and unwieldy. And on January 1, 1983, the ARPANet and Defense Data Networks switched to the TCP/IP standard and became the Internet, That meant all networks could be connected by a universal language. It also meant a lot of safety nets that existed before were no longer there and there were a number of issues that needed addressing. Some of them were considered very important and got a lot of attention. Others not so much.
That’s Paul Mockapetris talking to the Oxford Internet Institute about taking on the task of automating and publishing the original spec for the domain name system in November 1983.
Four UC Berkeley students wrote a UNIX implementation of the spec called the Berkeley Internet Name Domain or BIND. BIND is still the most widely used DNS software on the Internet. And yes it has been updated several times since then.
The domain name system itself is made up of multiple domains. The most familiar is of course .com. There’s also .org, .net .fr .biz and on and on. Each of those domains has an authority responsible for assigning domain names and mapping them to the corresponding numbers. Each domain has multiple name servers that you can call on to find which domain name goes with which IP addresses.
But it’s not just one server with all the addresses. In fact the process involves different servers for different parts of the domain name.
You see the domain name itself consists of multiple labels. Let’s take knowalittlemore.com The right-most label is the top-level domain .com. Each label to the left specifies a subdivision. So the first to the left is knowalittlemore which is the domain of this show. For websites usually the last label is www to specify that you mean the web server on that domain. So when you type in http://www.knowalittlemore.com you go to the website for knowalittlemore.com not the email server. If you’re thinking you don’t type in www ever, well, browsers can add it for you and you can configure your nameserver to assume www was meant if nothing else (like say SMTP for email) is to the left.
Each label in your domain name can have up to 63 characters. A full domain name with all subdivisions can’t be longer than 253 characters in text or 255 octets of storage in binary.
The characters in a domain name are officially A-Z, 0 through 9 and the hyphen. However the Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications or IDNA system can map international characters into this set so locals can use their own alphabet.
Each domain, like .com. .uk. etc has a set of authoritative name servers that are either primary or secondary. A primary server has the original up to date copy of all domain records. Secondary servers communicate with the primary to automatically update.
In practice, information is cached to speed things up and you’re almost always calling on cached information when you browse. But let’s pretend there was no cache available and you want to go to knowalittlemore.com. The request would start by finding the closest root name server. These are spread throughout the world. The root name server would direct you to the nearest .com name server, that server would then tell you which IP address goes with knowalittlemore.com you’d check there to find out which server is the web server at knowalittlemore.com and potentially with more complicated requests, onward until you get the exact server you’re looking for.
With all these intermediaries it’s possible for malicious actors to figure out how to insert themselves and give you the wrong IP address for a domain that would then take you to a malicious version of the site that might look just like the real site but infect you with malware or something.
Domain Name System Security Extensions or DNSSEC requires each level of DNS server to digitally sign its requests to assure they haven’t been intercepted. It is deployed at the root level but has not been fully deployed across the system because of complexity and also reasons.
As I said, in practice so much of the process is cached, that root name servers get a very small fraction of requests, otherwise they’d get overloaded. Records may be cached in your browser, in your router by your ISP and so on. Cached records have a time to live set on their records so they are forced to go update and look for changes regularly so they stay pretty well up to date.
The name servers record more than just domain name and corresponding IP address. It also includes mail exchanges, known as MX records, domain name aliases known as CNAME as well as responsible persons, there’s even a real-time blackhole list or RBL for combating spam.
And it can do more than just tell you what domain name goes with what address. The DNS can provide the IP address that is closest to the requesting computer. This function is essential to cloud services and content delivery networks. Netflix doesn’t have one machine at Netflix.com. It has thousands and the Domain Name System is the first step in routing your Netflix app to the closest set of Netflix servers so you have the least delay in getting that episode of Stranger Things.
OK so I know a lot of you have questions about registering domains and how that fits in, let’s touch on that briefly.
Registrars
To register a domain name and get its record created in the DNS directory you need to deal with an official domain name registrar. The registrar is different from the registry. Each domain like .com or .us has a registry. The registrar is contracted to handle requests for domain names and collect and verify the information that is then entered into the directory by the registry. Registrars can and do charge fees for this.
And yes registry and registrar are different and really should have been named something that made that a little more obvious.
Let’s use an example: for .com, authorized registrars – like say hover.com– must pay the registry – in the case of .com that’s Verisign. The registrar also pays a small administration fee to ICANN for each domain it handles. The price the public pays the registrar is these fees plus some markup. The maximum registration period is 10 years, though some registrars offer longer periods by legally binding themselves to renew the domain at the end of each ten year period.
There are usually more than one registrar per domain and in fact registrars usually handle more than one domain. Registrars can also authorize resellers as affiliates.
So there you have it. You pay a registrar to register a domain name with a registry and then when someone looks up your domain name the domain name system directory, or likely a cached copy of it, will point a browser to the IP address of your web server.
And Jake Feinler doesn’t have to be involved anymore.
Oh and one more thing. If you’re wondering why Elizabeth Feinler went by Jake, Feinler told the Computer History Museum in 2001, that when she was born in 1931, double names were a fad. Her middle name was Jocelyn, so they called her Betty Jo. Except her sister, Mary Lou, pronounced it Baby Jake. Eventually she grew out of the Baby, but the Jake stuck.
And we thank Jake Feinler for her hard work keeping that Hosts file going in the early days.
In other words, I hope you know a little more about DNS.

CREDITS
Know A Little More is researched, written and hosted by me, Tom Merritt. Editing and production provided by Anthony Lemos and Dog and Pony Show Audio. It’s issued under a Creative Commons Share Attribution 4.0 International License.

Cordkillers 193 – Archduke Content

YouTube TV comes to TVs, TiVo BOLT VOX gets real, and whether we want Netflix after shows.

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CordKillers: Ep. 193 – Archduke Content
Recorded: October 30 2017
Guest: None

Intro Video

Primary Target

  • YouTube is taking on TV on its home turf, and it’s starting to win
    – YouTube says viewers watch 100 million hours of clips a day in the living room, up 70% in the last year. Google uses that to mean TVs connected to the Internet not sitting on your couch with your laptop or phone. YouTube users overall watch a billion hours of video a day.
  • YouTube TV is rolling out on Apple TV, Roku, Xbox One, and more
    – Monday YouTube rolled out a YouTube TV app for Android TV and Xbox One. Apps will roll out in the coming weeks for Apple TV, Roku, and smart TVs from Samsung, Sony, and LG. YouTube has no rollout plans for Amazon Fire TV devices. The TV-based apps will have a full grid programming guide and let users scroll through a transparent sidebar of channels while video stays playing. It also supports voice search.

How to Watch

  • TiVo officially announces its voice-controlled DVRs, the BOLT VOX and Mini VOX
    – TiVo confirmed the launch of the 4K BOLT VOX and Mini Vox which include voice control from the remote. TiVo’s voice search has some context sensitivity allowing refinements on the fly. The BOLT VOX will come in 500GB and 1 TB sizes with 4 tuners for OTA and cable at $199 and $299 each. A 3 TB model has 6 tuners but only supports cable for $499. The Mini costs $179.99. The TiVO Vox remote will also be sold separately for $39.99 for existing BOLT, Roamio and Mini customers. The new VOX products go on sale October 29th.
  • TiVo’s revamped interface is available for existing DVRs
    – As of October 29th, you can visit TiVo’s website and request an upgrade to your Bolt, Mini or Roamio set-top box. It’ll take “2-3 hours” before you can force the download, but you don’t have to wait for TiVo to push the new design on its own

What to Watch

What We’re Watching

Front Lines

  • Hulu’s CEO is going to run Sony TV, and another Fox exec is going to run Hulu
    – Mike Hopkins, formerly of Fox, who has been CEO of Hulu since 2013, is leaving to run Sony TV where he will report to new Sony Pictures Entertainment boss Tony Vinciquerra. Randy Freer. President and COO of Fox TV will become CEO of Hulu.
  • DirecTV to Launch Android TV-Based OTT Set-Top Box
    – A new FCC filing shows that DirecTV plans to offer a new streaming set top box based on Google’s Android TV with no built in satelite connectivity or hooks into the company’s current Genie hardware. The documentation in the filing descirbes the box as an over-the-top streaming service box, with access to the Google Play Store and Ethernet, digital audio, HDMI and USB ports.
  • Roku Wants to Start Streaming to Third-Party Devices 
    – Variety reports Roku will bring its streaming videos channel to its mobile apps. The Roku Channel streams free ad-supported movies. Roku generates 41 percent of its revenue from what it calls its platform business, which includes advertising and licensing fees.
  • Apple’s Billion-Dollar Bet on Hollywood Is the Opposite of Edgy
    – Bloomberg reports Tim Cook delayed the release of Carpool Karaoke because of foul language. In fact Apple’s original content is expected to be comedies and dramas with broad appeal and suitable for all ages.
  • Comcast Q3 Earnings Beat Expectations Despite 134,000 Cable Subscriber Loss
    – Comcast lost 134,000 residential video subscribers while adding 214,000 Internet subscribers. Last year at this time Comcast was bucking the trend by adding video subscribers in modest amounts. Comcast overall did well. NBC Universal saw a drop with the absence of the Olympics but NBC’s content licensing haul was up 20% to $440 million.
  • Regal Cinemas Plan May Let You Pay Less for Flops, More for Hits
    – Regal Entertainment Group plans to test Dynamic Pricing in 2018. The idea would be to charge different prices depending on how popular a movie is.

Dispatches from the Front

Hello Tom, Brian and guest.
I can’t thank you enough for recommending the movies anywhere app. Not only did I get 5 free movies for linking my Google Play and Amazon accounts, I now have access to all the special features that I didn’t even know were available for my movies. Hours and hours of director’s commentary, behind the scenes footage, deleted scenes, gag reels and production stills. I buy most of my movies on Google and I watch them usually on my Roku device. Nowhere in the app on the Roku for Google movies or even the app on my Android device, as far as I can tell, is there a place to access the special features. Maybe I’ve completely missed something, but I am completely blown away that they don’t make this stuff available on their own apps. Anyway, thank you again. Love love love the show.

Adam  

 

 

Hi Tom (and Brian),
A few weeks ago, you were talking about the new Movies Anywhere app, and you mentioned how Ultraviolet movies purchased on FandangoNow didn’t transfer to Movies Anywhere via VUDU. I experienced the same thing with a 4K code from BestBuy for pre-ordering Spiderman Homecoming that redeemed only on FandangoNow. Well I was digging around my iTunes library with week and noticed Spiderman Homecoming in there. It took a while, but the movie eventually showed up in my Movies Anywhere library. You might want to check for those movies you were missing before, they might just be there now! 

– David

 

 

Just listened to latest episode and want to add the way I watch Star Trek Discovery is I have a tablet I just throw on VPN save discovery offline and then airplane mode it and watch it on my commute. I don’t even think CBS go gives option for offline viewing does it.

– Jack

 

 

 

Hey Tom and Brian, I wanted to toss a question out to the cord killers audience to see if I can get some suggestions. I have a Hard drive filled with videos for my 2 year old daughter to watch when we are bored with streaming options. Its mostly full seasons of young children’s television. I get tired of watching the same show repeatedly but don’t want to have to make decisions like which show to switch to and I don’t really want to manage a static playlist but I don’t really want the complete randomness of loading all the videos and hitting shuffle. So I was wondering if anyone knew of a way to dynamically generate a playlist based on some loosely defined “time blocks” for lack of a better word at the moment. where I could maybe say play 3 videos from folder A then 2 Videos from B etc. Love The show!

Justin

 

 

 

As far as neilson numbers for Netflix, I wanted to bring up a point about why their numbers will be even more pointless. Neilson works by taking a sample of people watching a show at a time and extrapolating that sample to the US audience. That works if you know that people have more or less the same choice of what to watch at a certain time. With Netflix any show can be watched at anytime and everyone’s LOLOM (list of list of movies – their term for the home page) is unique and different everytime you start Netflix. So making statistical extrapolations from a sample is pointless. Though knowing how corporations and ad agencies work (from the last 6 years of working) they will probably be used as cover to prove what ever point they need at the moment.

Love the show and keep up the good work. Love being a Patron

– Martin

Links

2017 Winter Movie Draft
patreon.com/cordkillers

DTNS 2344 – Lollipop Unwrapped

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comAndrew Zarian joins us and we’ll debate how good the possibility of HBO’s announced over the top Internet service might be.

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Show Notes

Today’s guests:  Andrew Zarian, founder of the GFQ Network

Headlines

CNET reports Google introduced three new Nexus devices today. The 8.9 inch Nexus 9 tablet by HTC, the Nexus 6 smartphone with a 5.93-inch display by Motorola and Asus’s Nexus Player, with Android TV. All run Lollipop, which is the new name for Android L. The Nexus 9 and Nexus Player start preorders October 17 – in stores November 3. Nexus 9 runs from $399 for 16GB up to $599 for 32GB with LTE The Nexus Player is $99 with an optional game controller for $40. You can preorder the Nexus 6 October 29 for sale in November. Sprint, US Cellular, AT&T and T-Mobile will have it in the US. Unlocked it runs $649 for 32GB and $699 for 64 GB.

So when will other phones are get Lollipop? Google says the Nexus 5 smartphone, Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets and Google Play edition devices should get it in the coming weeks. Ars Technica reports HTC promised updates for some flagship phones within 90 days of Lolipop’s release. And Motorola says both the 2013 and 2014 Moto X, the 2013 and 2014 Moto G, the Moto E, and the Droid Ultra, Maxx, and Mini will all get it too though Motorola didn’t say when.

Usually I avoid Apple leaks especially the day before an announcement but this one has actual facts. Mark Gurman at 9to5 Mac discovered screenshots for the iOS 8.1 iPad user guide in iBooks included pictures of an iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3. The screenshots indicated both new models had touch ID sensors and the iPad 2 has a new Burst mode for pictures. The designs pictured are nearly identical to current iPads.

ReCode reports HBO CEO Richard Plepler told investors at the Time Warner Inc. Investor meeting, “in 2015, we will launch a stand-alone, over-the-top, HBO service in the United States. We will work with our current partners. And, we will explore models with new partners.” Current partners are cablecos who also happen to be ISPs.

ReCode reports Netflix hit expectations for revenue in Q3 with $1.41 billion and 96 cents per share earnings. However they missed on subscriber expectations and the stock market is not happy. In a letter to investors, Reed Hastings wrote, “This quarter we over-forecasted membership growth.”

Ars Technica reports a new vulnerability in SSL version 3 called POODLE has been discovered that could be used to recover session cookies and impersonate users through a man in the middle attack. This is NOT OpenSSL so does not relate to Heartbeat. Modern browsers have switched to TLS not SSL v3 so most client-server interactions won’t be affected. HOWEVER, browsers have a nasty habit of falling back to SSLv3 when TLS fails or doesn’t exist, which mans attackers could use a link to trick a user into becoming vulnerable. What is to be done? Server operators should stop supporting SSLv3. GigaOm reports companies like Twitter, Cloudflare and others have done so. Users should turn off SSLv3 support in their browser. Go to zmap.io/sslv3/browsers.html for instructions. Mozilla and Google have announced they will remove support for SSLv3 from their client software. There is not a way to turn off SSLv3 in Safari or IE6. Hopefully Apple will fix Safari. IE6 on the other hand should be long dead anyway.

Venturebeat reports that Qualcomm will acquire CSR, maker of Bluetooth and GPS chips for $2.5 billion in cash. CSR is based in Cambridge, England; in addition to its chips, the company has branched out into cars, and the internet of things. CSR had previously turned down an acquisition offer from Microchip Technology, a maker of microcontrollers.

ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley reports Microsoft and Docker have announced Docker container support will be included in the next release of Microsoft Windows’ Server, expected mid 2015. Docker container apps will run on Windows Server or Windows Server Next vm in Azure. Docker uses containers to enable apps to run across platforms, or have multiple apps run at once on one server, without needing a vm.

Ebay reported its 3rd quarter earnings, reported revenues of $4.4 billion, growing 12% from a year ago, and beating both Wall Street’s expectations and Ebay’s own estimates. PayPal is on track to process 1 billion mobile transactions in 2014, with mobile payments this quarter at $12 billion, up 72%.

News From You

ebridges13 submitted the Sploid post about the Aviation Week story on Lockheed Martin’s compact fusion reactor, which is safer and cleaner than nuclear fission. The CFR experiment T4 is about the size of a business jet engine. Up until now fusion reactors were massive in size and expense. Lockheed’s CFR uses plasma containment more efficiently such that for the same size it can generate 10 times more power than a typical fusion reactor. Before you get too excited Lockheed has yet to build a prototype and even then would be 5 years off from production.

MacBytes submitted The Verge Report writeup of the news that Facebook and Apple are offering a new employee benefit: both companies cover the costs of egg-freezing procedures up to $20,000 for individual employees. The procedure, known as oocyte cryopreservation, allows women to harvest healthy reproductive eggs during their most fertile years and freeze them for later. While the procedure is still relatively new, and doctors are still assessing its effectiveness it does indicate that Apple and Facebook are thinking about the needs of their current and possibly future female employees.

KAPT_Kipper submitted the VentureBeat article that Firefox 33 arrives today for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android. Among the new features is support for encoding and decoding OpenH264 sandboxed support through Cisco’s H.264 implementation. It works for WebRTC but not the video tag yet. There are also improvements to the search bar. The Android version has added a send to device option for video that works with Roku and Chromecast devices.

Discussion Links: HBO To Go?

http://recode.net/2014/10/15/hbo-says-its-going-to-start-selling-on-the-web-next-year/

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/15/6982281/hbo-go-no-cable-streaming-netflix-worst-nightmare

http://www.timewarner.com/newsroom/press-releases/2014/10/15/hbo-chairman-and-ceo-richard-plepler-announces-hbo-to-offer-a

Pick of the Day: NoRoot Firewall via Loren Ahrens

I developed a problem with my android phone telling me, “Temporary server error, please try again later.” To isolate the app that is causing the problem I am using NoRoot Firewall. Every app that is calling home is easily identified. I’m surprised by a few and the will be uninstalling them now. Since it has been so easy and useful, I thought I’d share it.

Tomorrow’s guest: Andrea Smith, technology journalist

Why We Still Need to Explain the Tik Tok Ban – DTNS 4936

Today’s Daily Tech News Show dives into TikTok’s potential shutdown, Google Workspace’s Gemini integration, and Softbank’s attempt to redefine search culture in Japan. Plus, insights into Nvidia’s Cosmos platform and more!

Starring Tom Merritt and Jenn Cutter.

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Become a Patron!

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Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Apple’s AI Hold-Up – DTNS 4820

Apple delays the roll out of its Apple Intelligence until iOS 18.1 update in October. Plus Synology’s BeeStation hopes to streamline the data backup process for users who don’t want to be a part-time sysadmin. And Microsoft reveals more details about the CrowdStrike crash.

Starring Tom Merritt, Nica Montford, Roger Chang, Joe.

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Become a Patron!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

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Show Notes
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About Black Friday

KALM-150x150"

What’s really being celebrated on Black Friday and is it the biggest shopping day in the world?

Featuring Tom Merritt.

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Episode transcript:

At the end of the civil war the US government was deeply in debt, both from the cost of fighting and reconstruction. When General Ulysses S. Grant was elected president 1868 it had grown to $2.8 billion. That would be around 103.8billion in 2023.
To help pay for the war the government had begun issuing “greenback” dollars. These were not backed by gold or silver but promised an unspecified future payment. They had the effect fo driving up the price of gold.
So Grant’s administration pursued a policy of selling gold to buy up wartime bonds and by May 1869 the debt had been reduced to $12 million and the price of gold was suppressed.
All that cheap gold gaveJay Gould an idea. He was friends with Abel Corbin, who just happened to be married to Jennie Grant, the president’s sister. If they could prevail not he president to stop selling gold, the price would start going up. Knowing this in advance they could start buying up gold drilling up the price faster. Done right, they could corner the gold market and get unreasonably rich.
Gould enlisted one of his fellow directors at the Erie railroad, James Fisk into the plant.
On September 1, 1869 they started buying up large amounts of gold under other people’s names and driving up the price. Corbin planted the idea with Grant that selling gold would hurt western farmers and the plan should be suspended. But they got greedy. And when Grant’s personal secretary turned down an offer to open a gold account, they did it anyway. When he told the president about it Grant figured out what was happening. And on Friday September 24, 1869, the government resumed selling gold. Gold prices plummeted. And hundreds of people who were riding the gold wave along with Gould and Fisk, lost everything.
Stock prices plummeted 20 percent between that Friday and October 1st. Brokerage firms went bankrupt. Farmers really did get hurt this time with wheat and corn prices dropping by half. The economic turmoil lasted for months. Anti was all traced back to that one Friday. That Black Friday, in September 1869.
And it was that day that would, somewhat ironically, lend its name to what would become the biggest shopping day in the US.
Let’s help you Know a Little More about Black Friday.

Thanksgiving day was established by the US first constitutional president, George Washington in 1789. On the recommendation of Congress, President Washington proclaimed Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a Day of Public Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving days were proclaimed by subsequent presidents on a regular basis but the dates varied. It wasn’t until 1863 in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that Thanksgiving should be commemorated on the Last Thursday of November each year.
The regularity made it a nice signpost not he calendar. Retailers began promoting holiday shopping starting the day after Thanksgiving.
That lasted until another economic depression, the great one. In 1939, the economy was showing signs of recovery. But Thanksgiving that year would fall on the very last day of the month. That meant the shortest possible holiday shopping season, meaning the smallest boost to the economy So President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a proclamation that Thanksgiving would take place on the second to last Thursday of November, adding a week to the shopping calendar.
16 states refused to move the date and for two years, a third of the country celebrated Thanksgiving a week after the rest of the country.
So in October 1941, Congress passed a resolution declaring the fourth Thursday in November to be Thanksgiving. This kept it as the last Thursday most years, unless November happened to have 5 Thursdays. That kept the holiday shopping from getting too small without pushing it so far up the calendar.
Once that pattern was set, the Friday after Thanksgiving started to take on a character of its own. Workers began to call in sick on Friday in order to have a four day weekend. In 1951, the journal Factory Management and Maintenance began to refer to this phenomenon as Black Friday, referencing the panic of 1869. Friday also became a huge shopping day of course, and police in Philadelphia and Rochester began referring it to Black Friday as well because of the crowd management.
But the reference did not become common. The New York Times first called the Friday after Thanksgiving “Black Friday” in tis November 29, 1975 issue referring to the traffic in Philadelphia. But even as late as 1985, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that merchants Cincinnati and Los Angeles were unaware of the term.
Meanwhile merchants were trying to avoid the usages connotations of a panic and disasters. As early as November 28, 1981, the Philadelphia Inquirer picked up an explanation put out by merchants that it was being called Black Friday because it was when retailers got “in the black” – aka profitable.
But by the late 1980s the term had gained wide acceptance. Retailers across the US began advertising Black Friday sales. More companies began to just give in and give workers Friday off since they were going to call in sick anyway.
By the mid 2000s the day had inspired “Cyber Monday” when workers came into their offices with computers and high bandwidth and shopped for deals online. Giving Tuesday was a counter-celebration to encourage people to spend money on charities instead of products.
The lockdowns because of COVID caused a lot of people to shift to online shopping on all days and by 2021, the Black Friday sales were no longer limited to Friday.
The prevalence of US-based retailers have caused the promotion of Black Friday sales outside of the US, even though those countries do not have the November Thanksgiving holiday. Some countries even promote Black Week or Black Month sales.
The success of Black Friday sales may have inspired Alibaba to co-opt a dating holiday in China called Singles day – on November 11th – to be a big sales day which now has passed Black Friday as the largest shopping day in the world.
Steely Dan wrote a song called Black Friday, released in 1975 just as the New York Times was picking up on the phrase in its post-Thanksgiving context. Steely Dan was writing about the 1869 panic but its words could apply to both

When Black Friday comes
I’ll collect everything I’m owed
And before my friends find out
I’ll be on the road

I hope you appreciate the probably unintentional double meaning. And hope you know a little more about Black Friday.

CREDITS
Know A Little More is researched, written and hosted by me, Tom Merritt. Editing and production provided by Anthony Lemos and Dog and Pony Show Audio. The public key cryptography players were Sarah Lane as Alice, Shannon Morse as Eve and Andrew Heaton as Bob. It’s issued under a Creative Commons Share Attribution 4.0 International License.