This Day in History: Tonight is Devil's Night, otherwise known as Mischief Night in many other places. Devil's Night is a name associated with October 30, the night before Halloween and is chiefly associated with the serious vandalism and arson in Detroit, Michigan, from the late 1960s to the 1990s, finally prompting the "Angels' Night" community response.
Between 1979 and 2010, more than 100 fires broke out each year. Like a scene out of The Purge, the worst year was 1984, when firefighters responded to more than 800 blazes that covered the entire city in an eerie, smoky haze on Halloween morning.
Over the past nine years, the fires steadily declined.
Devil's Night started as early as the 1940s. Traditionally, teenagers engaged in a night of mischievous or petty criminal behavior, usually consisting of minor pranks or acts of mild vandalism (such as egging, soaping or waxing windows and doors, leaving rotten vegetables or flaming bags of poop on door-stoops, or toilet papering trees) which caused little or no property damage. This however escalated as seen above.
Mischief Night dates as far back as 1790 when a headmaster encouraged a school play which ended in "an Ode to Fun which praises children's tricks on Mischief Night in most approving terms."
In some regions in England, these pranks were originally carried out as part of the May Day celebrations, but shifted to later in the year, with dates varying in different areas, some marking it on 30 October, the night before Halloween, others on 4 November, the night before Bonfire Night.
According to one historian, "May Day and the Green Man had little resonance for children in grimy cities. They looked at the opposite end of the year and found the ideal time, the night before the Gunpowder Plot."[Remember Remember the fifth of November.] However, the shift only happened in the late 19th century and is described by the Opies as "one of the mysteries of the folklore calendar".
Mischief Night is generally recognized as a New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan phenomenon.
On Mischief Night people engage in popular tricks such as toilet papering yards and buildings, powder-bombing and egging cars, people, and homes, using soap to write on windows, "forking" yards, setting off fireworks, and smashing pumpkins and jack-o'-lanterns. Local grocery stores often refuse to sell eggs to children and teenagers around the time of Halloween for this reason. Occasionally, the damage can escalate to include the spray-painting of buildings and homes. Less destructive is the prank known as "Knock, Knock, Ginger". [Knock, Knock, Ginger involves knocking on the front door (or ringing the doorbell) of a victim, then running away before the door can be answered.]
Mischief Night is also known as Gate Night, Goosey Night, Moving Night, Cabbage Night and Mat Night.
In rural Niagara Falls, Ontario, during the 1950s and 1960s, Cabbage Night referred to the custom of raiding local gardens for leftover rotting cabbages and hurling them about to create mischief in the neighborhood. Today, the night is still celebrated in Ontario but is also commonly known as "Cabbage Night" in parts of the United States areas of Vermont; Connecticut; Bergen County, New Jersey; Upstate New York; Northern Kentucky; Newport, Rhode Island; and Western Massachusetts.
This is also known as "Gate Night" in New Hampshire, West Kootenay (British Columbia), Vancouver Island, Winnipeg, Thunder Bay (Ontario), Bay City (Michigan), Rockland County (New York), North Dakota and South Dakota; as "Mat Night" in English-speaking Quebec.
October 30 has a dark history even away from Mischief Night. Orson Welles aired his now famous radio adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, causing a massive panic in some of the audience in the United States.
South Carolina murderer Larry Gene Bell was born on October 30 1949.
Sarah Carter who appeared in the films “Red Mist,” “Final Destination 2”, “Wishmaster 3: Beyond the Gates of Hell” and “Falling Skies" (TV Series) was born on October 30 1980.
Halloween II was released on this day in 1981.
Twenty people died in the Donora Smog on this day in 1948. The Donora Smog was an ominous thick, yellow cloud comprised of a lethal mixture of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and metal dust from the nearby zinc plant and steel mill, and was trapped over the city by a pocket of cold air which pressed the gasses down.
