In 2026, November 27 is Black Friday — the day after Thanksgiving. In other years it can be Thanksgiving itself, as in 2025 and 2031.
Next: Friday, November 27, 2026.
Black Friday is the day after U.S. Thanksgiving, so it always falls between November 23 and 29. In 2026 Thanksgiving is Thursday, November 26, which puts Black Friday on Friday, November 27; it lands on November 27 again in 2037. In 2025 Black Friday was November 28, and in 2027 it will be November 26. Cyber Monday 2026 follows on November 30.
Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November, so it can fall anywhere from November 22 to 28. It fell on November 27 in 2025 and will do so again in 2031 and 2036. In 2026 Thanksgiving is on November 26, and in 2027 on November 25.
President Abraham Lincoln's proclamation of October 3, 1863 — encouraged by magazine editor Sarah Josepha Hale — set a national day of thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November, and later presidents followed that custom. In 1939 President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday a week earlier to lengthen the Christmas shopping season during the Depression, and some states refused to follow. Congress then passed a joint resolution fixing Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November, which Roosevelt signed on December 26, 1941.
At the Council of Clermont in France, Pope Urban II preached a sermon urging Western Christians to go to the aid of the Byzantine Empire and to take Jerusalem. The call launched the First Crusade, which captured Jerusalem in July 1099.
Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, signed his last will at the Swedish-Norwegian Club in Paris. It left the bulk of his fortune to fund annual prizes in physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. Nobel died in December 1896, and the first Nobel Prizes were awarded in 1901.
Martial artist and actor Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco and grew up in Hong Kong. Films such as Fist of Fury and Enter the Dragon made him an international star and helped popularize martial arts worldwide. He died in July 1973 at age 32, shortly before Enter the Dragon was released.
Guitarist, singer and songwriter Jimi Hendrix was born in Seattle, Washington. After breaking through in Britain with the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1966–67, he became one of the most influential electric guitarists in rock, famed for performances at the Monterey Pop Festival and Woodstock. He died in London in September 1970 at age 27.
San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk were shot and killed at San Francisco City Hall by former supervisor Dan White. Milk had been one of the first openly gay people elected to public office in the United States. That evening, thousands of people marched in a candlelight vigil from the Castro to City Hall.