Nascent Drama

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E.g., the Wall Street Crash 1929, the stock market crash on October 29, 1929 which is the start of the Great Depression, is nicknamed Black Tuesday, and was preceded by Black Thursday, a downturn on October 24 the previous week.

 

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Black Monday, stock market crash on October 19, 1987.

 

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Black Wednesday caused Britain to pull out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism.

 

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Black Friday, various tragic events. (Exception: See Black Friday (shopping).)

 

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Black months include:

 

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the Black September in Jordan, in which thousands were killed.

 

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Black July killing of the Tamil population by the Sinhalese government in Sri Lanka.

 

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Black Spring 2001 (Printemps noir), in the Berber region of Kabylia (Algeria), when the police shot and killed more than 100 people.

 

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The Black Death, also known as the Black Plague, was a pandemic in Europe which killed tens of millions of people.

 

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The Black Hole of Calcutta was the overcrowding of an impromptu prison cell in which many died.

 

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Expressions

 

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The black market is used to denote the trade of illegal goods, or alternatively the illegal trade of otherwise legal items at considerably higher prices, e.g. to evade rationing.

 

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Black comedy is a form of comedy dealing with morbid and serious topics.

 

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A blacklist is a list of undesirable persons or entities (to be placed on the list is to be "blacklisted").

 

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To blackball someone is to block their entry into a club or some such institution.

 

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In the traditional English gentlemen's club, current members vote on the admission of a candidate by secretly placing a white or black ball in a hat.

 

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If upon the completion of voting, there was even one black ball amongst the white, the candidate would be denied membership, and he would never know who had "blackballed" him.

 

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Blackmail is the act of threatening to reveal information about a person unless the threatened party fulfills certain demands.

 

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This information is usually of an embarrassing or socially damaging nature.

 

[The Dork Lord]

Ordinarily, such a threat is illegal.