Don't believe the ill-researched news stories about "Black Friday" being the day when retails make enough money to go "in the black" (profitable) for the year.

From the article:

The term appears to have originated about 50 years ago among police in Philadelphia inconvenienced by downtown crowds kicking off the holiday shopping season. Those crowds added to congestion from traffic in town for the Army-Navy football game, which in that era was generally played in Philly the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Black Friday "was not a happy term," department store historian Michael J. Lisicky told CBS News last year. "The stores were just too crowded, the streets were crowded, the buses and the police were just on overcall and extra duty."

Matt, I had no idea. Wow. Thanks for the history lesson.