History and technology 's ''Tom Temple's Career'' shows a burglar using a "dark lantern", which shines in only one direction. Before the
industrial era, night was a time of heightened insecurity. Fear of the night was common but varied in intensity across cultures. Some psychologists have concluded that prehistoric people feared real and tangible harms present during the night and that these concrete fears developed into a broader fear of night itself. Dangers increased due to lower visibility. Injuries and deaths were caused by drowning and falling into pits, ditches, and shafts. People were less able to evaluate others after dark. Due to nocturnal alcohol consumption and the anonymity of darkness, quarrels were more likely to escalate to violence. For example, in medieval
Stockholm, the majority of murders were committed while intoxicated. Crime and fear of crime increased at night. In pre-industrial Europe, criminals disguised themselves with hats, face paint, or
cloaks. Thieves would trip pedestrians with ropes laid across streets and dismount horse riders using long poles extended from the roadside shadows. They used "dark lanterns" where light could be shined through a single side. Most nocturnal thieves worked alone; organized criminal gangs were uncommon except for
burglary. With members numbering into the dozens and hundreds, burglary rings hacked, cut, smashed, and burrowed into homes when residents were sleeping. They used a range of brutality to subdue and intimidate the residents, with the French
chauffeurs infamously torturing victims with fire. With nothing comparable to a modern police force, these burglary gangs then escaped into the night, often disguised as demons, ghosts, or monsters. Burglary rings also employed arson both to create distraction and to flush people from their locked homes. Early sources of heat and illumination (such as chimneys, candles, and oil lamps) created inherent fire risks while families slept. Additionally, bakers and brewers kept fires constantly burning near stacks of wood and charcoal. Cities and towns regularly burned to the ground. One English town,
Stratford-upon-Avon, was consumed by fire four times in five years. The increased humidity of night was deemed the result of vapors and fumes. The annual movements of stars and
constellations across the
night sky were used to track the passage of time, but other changes in the night sky were interpreted as significant
omens. Many daytime religious, governmental, and local
social controls dissipated after nightfall. Fortified Christian communities announced the coming darkness with horns,
church bells, or drums. This alerted residents—like peasants working in the fields—to return home before the
city gates shut. The English engaged in a daily process of "shutting in", where valuables were brought into homes before they were bolted, barred, locked, and
shuttered. Many English and European towns attempted to impose curfews during the medieval period and gradually loosened the restrictions via exceptions. Prayer and
folk magic were more common by night.
Amulets were hung to ward off nightmares, spells were cast against thievery, and pig hearts were hung in chimneys to block demons from traveling down them. The common phrase "good night" has been shortened from "God give you a good night." In
Ottoman Istanbul, the royal palaces shifted to projecting nocturnal power through large parties lit by lanterns, candles, and
fireworks. Though
alcohol was forbidden for Muslims, after dark, Turkish Muslims went to bars and taverns beyond the Muslim areas. The night has long been a time of increased sexual activity, especially in taboo forms such as
premarital,
extramarital,
gay, and
lesbian sex. In colonial New England courtship, young unmarried couples practiced
bundling before marriage. The couples would lie down in the woman's bed, her family would wrap them tightly with blankets, and they would spend the night together this way. Some families took precautions to prevent
unintended pregnancies, like sleeping in the same room, laying a large wooden board between the couple, or pulling a single stocking over both of their daughter's legs. Historian
Roger Ekirch described pre-industrial night as a "sanctuary from ordinary existence." Artificial lighting expanded the scope of acceptable work and leisure after dark. In the 1600s, the major European cities introduced
streetlights. These were lit by lamplighters each evening outside of the summer months. Early streetlights were metal and glass enclosures housing candles or
oil lamps. They were suspended above streets or mounted on posts. The use of artificial lighting led to an increase in acceptable nightlife. In more rural areas, night remained a period of rest and nocturnal labor. Young adults, the urban poor, prostitutes, and thieves benefited from the anonymity of darkness and frequently smashed the new lanterns. Gas lighting was invented in the 1800s. A
gas mantle was over ten times brighter than an oil lamp.
Gas lighting was associated with the creation of regular police forces. In England, police departments were tasked with maintaining the gas lights, which became known as "police lamps". Daytime routines were further pushed back into the night by the
electric light bulb—invented in the late 19th century—and the widespread usage of
newer timekeeping devices like watches. Electric lights created
night shifts for traditionally daytime fields, like India's cotton industry, and created opportunities for working adults to attend
night school.
Fear of the dark The widespread usage of artificial lighting and other technologies has allowed many aspects of daily life and daytime social controls to continue after sunset.
Fear of the dark and belief in creatures of the night has decreased but remains a significant part of modern life. One side effect of measures to police and promote urban nightlife is reduced personal privacy. Another side effect is the emergence of 8-hour sleep cycles replacing
segmented sleep. Before the widespread usage of artificial lighting, sleep was typically split into two major segments separated by about an hour of wakefulness. During this midnight period, people engaged in prayer, crimes, urination, sex, and, most commonly, reflection. Without exposure to artificial light, studies show that people revert to sleeping in two separate intervals.
Fear of the dark and the night remains widespread and only amounts to a phobia in rare cases. Nighttime fears are especially common among children. These fears are typically mild, and most children grow out of them. About 1 in 5 children have persistent and intense fears that correlate with decreased sleep quality and anxiety for both the child and their family.
Lucretius and
Aristotle observed a similar fear of the dark more present among children in the classical era, and there are long traditions among various cultures of telling children bedtime stories of bogeymen and villains who prey upon disobedient children. Among adults, walking alone after dark is a common nighttime fear. It is so common, that
criminologists have used some variation of the question, "How safe do you feel or would you feel being alone in your neighbourhood after dark?" to gauge a population's fear of crime and victimization. The fear is most strongly reported by women and sexual minorities. A 1975 study found that the most common nighttime fears expressed by women were murder and sexual assault. Despite most urban crimes correlating to daytime hours of peak activity, violent crime remains most common after dark.
Folklore and religion , the Aztec "Night Wind" Diverse cultures have made connections between the night sky and the
afterlife. Many Native American peoples have described the Milky Way as a path where the deceased travel as stars. The Lakota term for the Milky Way is
Wanáǧi Thacháŋku, or "Spirit's Road". In Mayan mythology, the Milky Way's dark band is the Road of
Xibalba, the path to the
underworld. Unrelated cultures share a myth of a star-covered sky goddess who arches over the planet after sunset, like
Citlālicue, the
Aztec personification of the Milky Way. The elongated Egyptian goddess
Nut and
N!adima from
Botswana are said to consume the Sun at dusk. In the
Ancient Egyptian religion, the Sun then travels through the netherworld inside Nut's body, where it is reborn at dawn. , the personification of night in
Norse mythology, rides her horse in this 1887 painting by
Peter Nicolai Arbo. Many cultures have personified the night.
Ratri is the star-covered
Hindu goddess of the night. In the Icelandic
Prose Edda, night is embodied by
Nótt. Ratri and Nött are goddesses of sleep and rest, but it is common for personifications to be associated with misfortune. In Aztec mythology,
Black Tezcatlipoca, the "Night Wind", was associated with
obsidian and the nocturnal jaguar. In his "Precious Owl" manifestation, the Aztecs regarded Tezcatlipoca as the bringer of death and destruction. The Aztecs anticipated an unending night when the
Tzitzimīmeh, skeletal female star deities, would descend to consume all humans. In classical mythology, the night goddess
Nyx is the mother of
Sleep,
Death, Disease,
Strife, and
Doom. In
Jewish culture and
mysticism, the demon
Lilith embodies the emotional reactions to darkness, including terror, lust, and liberation. Nighttime in the pre-industrial period, often called the "night season", was associated with darkness and uncertainty. Various cultures have regarded the night as a time when
ghosts and other
spirits are active on Earth. When Protestant theologians abandoned the concept of
purgatory, many came to view reported ghost sightings as the result of demonic activity. In the sixteenth century, Swiss theologian
Ludwig Lavater began attempting to explain reported spirits as mistakes, deceit, or the work of demons. The idea of night as a dangerous, dark, or haunted time persists in modern
urban legends like the
vanishing hitchhiker. In folklore, nocturnal
preternatural beings like
goblins,
fairies,
werewolves,
pucks,
brownies,
banshees, and
boggarts have overlapping but non-synonymous definitions. The
werewolf—and its francophone variations, the
loup-garou and
rougarou—were believed to be people who transformed into beasts at night. In West Africa and among the
African diaspora, there is a widespread tradition of a type of vampire who removes their human skin at night and travels as a blood-sucking ball of light. Variation includes the
feu-follet, the Surinamese
asema, the Caribbean
sukuyan, the Ashanti
obayifo, and the Ghanaian
asanbosam. The medieval fear of night-flying
European witches was influenced by the Roman
strix. The Romans described the
strix as capable of changing between a beautiful woman and an owl-shaped monster. Common themes among these mythical nocturnal entities include
hypersexuality, predation,
shapeshifting, deception, mischief, and malice.
Nightlife ,
Midtown Manhattan Nightlife, sometimes referred to as "the night-time economy", is a range of
entertainment available and generally more popular from the late evening into the early morning. It has traditionally included venues such as
pubs,
bars,
nightclubs, live
music,
concerts,
cabarets,
theaters,
hookah lounges,
cinemas, and shows. Nightlife entertainment is often more
adult-oriented than daytime entertainment. It also includes informal gatherings like
parties,
botellón,
gymkhanas,
bingo, and amateur sports. In many cities, there has been an increasing focus on nightlife catering to tourists. Nightlife has become a major part of the economy and
urban planning in modern cities. People who prefer to be active at night are called
night owls. Social movements in the 20th century, including
feminism, black activism, the
gay rights movement, and community action, blurred the lines between political action and broader cultural activities, making political movements a part of the nightlife. Sociologists have argued that vibrant city nightlife scenes contribute to the development of culture and political movements. David Grazian cites as examples the development of
beat poetry, musical styles including
bebop,
urban blues, and early rock, and the importance of nightlife for the development of the
gay rights movement in the United States kicked off by the
riots at the Stonewall Inn nightclub in
Greenwich Village, Lower Manhattan, New York City. Modern cities treat nightlife as necessary to the city's marketability but also something to be managed in order to reduce activities viewed as disorderly, risky, or otherwise problematic.
Urban renewal policies have increased the available possibilities for nighttime consumers and decreased non-commercial nocturnal activities outside of sanctioned festivals and concerts. ==Art==