Friday the Thirteenth

[I’m currently working on a prospective new post—nearing its completion, I hope—and one of the subject’s most traumatic experiences happened to him on Friday the 13th (April 1934).  There are from one to three Friday the 13th's every year (2019 will have had two, today and in December).  Why is Friday the 13th believed to be unlucky?  I found three interesting articles on line that might offer some explanation of that question.

[There are, of course, many superstitions about occurrences and objects that are supposed to bring bad luck—and I’m only familiar with the ones we hold to in the U.S.  Other cultures have different bad-luck signs and symbols.  Most Americans know not the walk under ladders, avoid letting black cats cross their paths, sit 13 diners at a table, play poker with a hand of a pair of aces and a pair of eights (known as the “Dead Man’s Hand” because legend says that Wild Bill Hickok was holding that hand when he was murdered), or light three cigarettes with a single match—especially if you’re the third smoker!  (Excellent reason to give it up.) 

[There are even specialized bad luck-bringers for different professions; I’m a theater guy, so I know not to whistle back stage or, most dangerous, utter the title of “The Scottish Play” within a theater building.  (Okay, I’m not  in a theater now, so I’ll tell the uninitiated that the play is Macbeth.  According to legend and lore, disasters of one kind or another accompany productions of that Shakespearean play, so the belief grew up around it.)  Probably the most common bad-luck taboo in theater is wishing fellow actors and stage crew members good luck—so we tell each other “Break a leg” instead.  Even non-theater folks have heard that one.

[One of the biggest fears for most superstitious Americans (and some others—German, Polish, and Portuguese  cultures) is the appearance of the number 13.  That’s called triskaidekaphobia, as you’ll see below.  (Fear of Friday the 13th is called either paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words paraskevi,’Friday,’ and dekatreís, ‘thirteen,’ or friggatriskaidekaphobia; Frigga is the Norse name for Freya, the wife of Odin and the source for the name of Friday.   

[My building doesn’t have a 13th floor—at least not a floor with that designation; obviously, the floor numbered 14 is the 13th story in the building—so no one lives in an apartment designated 13A, B, or C here.  Most buildings are that way—though not the Empire State Building, which has a floor numbered 13.  There is, however, a 13th Street in Manhattan, just three blocks south of my apartment building.  There even used to be a 13th Avenue on the far West Side of Manhattan along the Hudson on landfill, but it was removed, along with the landfill, in the early 20th century in order to build longer Hudson River piers for the larger ships being launched at the time.  Brooklyn also has a 13th Street and a 13th Avenue. ]

WHY IS FRIDAY THE 13th CONSIDERED UNLUCKY?

By Sean Hutchinson

[This article appeared on the website Mental Floss on 13 July 2018 (https://mentalfloss.com/article/598432/how-siri-got-its-name).]

Today, people around the globe will feel uneasy about getting out of bed, leaving their homes, or going about their normal daily routines, all because of a superstition. These unfortunate folks suffer from paraskavedekatriaphobia, a common neurosis familiar to us all: the fear of Friday the 13th. But just where did this superstitious association come from, and how did it catch on?

The truth is that no one is absolutely sure where the idea that Friday the 13th is unlucky originated. Donald Dossey, the founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, suspects the fear can be traced back to a Norse myth about 12 gods who had a dinner at Valhalla—the fabled hall where legendary Norse heroes feasted for eternity after they died—that was interrupted by a 13th guest, the evil and mischievous god Loki.

According to legend, Loki tricked Höðr (the blind god of winter and son of Odin, the supreme god in Norse mythology [pronounced HOTHR]) into shooting his brother Baldr (the benevolent god of summer who was also a son of Odin) with a magical spear tipped with mistletoe—the only substance that could defeat him. Thus the number 13 was branded as unlucky because of the ominous period of mourning following the loss of such powerful gods by this unwanted 13th guest.

For whatever reason, among many cultures, the number 12 emerged throughout history as a “complete” number: There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 Gods of Olympus, 12 sons of Odin, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 Jyotirlingas or Hindu shrines where Shiva is worshipped, 12 successors of Muhammad in Shia Islam, and 12 tribes of Israel. In Christianity, Jesus was betrayed by one of his 12 Apostles—Judas—who was the 13th guest to arrive for the Last Supper. Surpassing the number 12 ostensibly unbalances the ideal nature of things; because it is seen as irregular and disrespectful of a sense of perfection, the number 13 bears the stigma of misfortune and bad luck we know today.

WHY FRIDAY?

Friday joins in the mix mostly because all of the early accounts of Jesus’s crucifixion agree that it took place on Friday—the standard day for crucifixions in Rome. As Chaucer noted in The Canterbury Tales, “And on a Friday fell all this mischance.” Yet perpetuating Friday as an unlucky day in America came from the late 19th-century American tradition of holding all executions on Fridays; Friday the 13th became the unluckiest of days simply because it combined two distinct superstitions into one. According to the Oxford University Press Dictionary of Superstitions, the first reference to Friday the 13th itself wasn’t until 1913. (So despite actually occurring on Friday, October 13, 1307, the popular notion that the Friday the 13th stigma comes from the date on which the famed order of the Knights Templar were wiped out by King Philip of France is just a coincidence.)

The repercussions of these phobias reverberated through American culture, particularly in the 20th century. Most skyscrapers and hotels lack a 13th floor, which specifically comes from the tendency in the early 1900s for buildings in New York City to omit the unlucky number (though the Empire State Building has a 13th floor). Some street addresses also skip from 12 to 14, while airports may skip the 13th gate. Allegedly, the popular Friday the 13th films were so-named just to cash in on this menacing date recognition, not because the filmmakers actually believed the date to be unlucky.

So, is Friday the 13th actually unlucky? Despite centuries of superstitious behavior, it largely seems like psychological mumbo jumbo. One 1993 study seemed to reveal that, statistically speaking, Friday the 13th is unlucky, but the study’s authors told LiveScience that though the data was accurate, “the paper was just a bit of fun and not to be taken seriously.” Other studies have shown no correlation between things like increased accidents or injuries and Friday the 13th.

And Friday the 13th isn’t a big deal in other cultures, which have their own unlucky days: Greeks and Spanish-speaking countries consider Tuesday the 13th to be the unluckiest day, while Italians steer clear of Friday the 17th. So today, try to rest a little easy—Friday the 13th may not be so unlucky after all.

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STATISTICALLY SPEAKING, IS FRIDAY THE 13th REALLY UNLUCKY?

by Remy Melina

[The article below was originally published on the website Live Science on 13 January 2012 (https://www.livescience.com/17900-statistically-speaking-friday-13th-unlucky.html).]

The number 13 is synonymous with bad luck. It’s considered unlucky to have 13 guests at a dinner party, many buildings don’t have a 13th floor and most people avoid getting married or buying a house on a day marked by this dreaded number. Especially superstitious folks even avoid driving on Friday the 13th.

But is there any statistical proof to support the superstition that Friday the 13th — or even just the number 13 itself — is unlucky?

“No data exists, and will never exist, to confirm that the number 13 is an unlucky number,” said Igor Radun of the Human Factors and Safety Behavior Group at the University of Helsinki’s Institute of Behavioural Sciences in Finland. “There is no reason to believe that any number would be lucky or unlucky.” 

Radun might very well be correct, but there are a few bits of scientific research that have given superstitious folk a little more cause for concern, even if the scientists who performed the work aren’t necessarily alarmed by their findings. [10 Weird Things Humans Do Every Day, and Why ]

For starters, a 1993 study published in the British Medical Journal indicates otherwise. Researchers analyzed the traffic flow and number of injuries from car accidents on the southern section of London’s M25 motorway during the five months that the 13th fell on a Friday between 1990 and 1992.

They compared these numbers to data collected on Friday the 6th of the same months, and found that although there are consistently fewer vehicles on the road during the 13th — possibly as a result of superstitious people choosing not to drive that day, the researchers proposed — “the risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent” on the 13th.

But before triskaidekaphobics, or those who fear the number 13, say “I told you so,” it should be noted that although the data were authentic, the authors didn’t mean for their conclusions to be taken seriously.

“It’s quite amusing and written with tongue firmly in cheek,” said Robert Luben, a researcher at the school of clinical medicine at the University of Cambridge and one of the study’s authors. “It was written for the Christmas edition of the British Medical Journal, which usually carries fun or spoof articles.”

Many people took the study at face value and it continues to be cited as valid evidence regarding the misfortune of both the number 13 and Friday the 13th .

“(Some people) clearly didn’t understand that the paper was just a bit of fun and not to be taken seriously,” Luben told Life’s Little Mysteries. “Many also assumed that the authors were ‘believers.’ I’m sure that most of these people hadn’t read the paper, which suggests that people being superstitious affects their behavior.”

Since the 1993 study, other studies have been written showing that it’s just women who have more accidents on Friday the 13th , with further studies determining that that’s actually not the case. Other research results attempting to measure just how unlucky the number 13 is are mixed.

For example, in 2005, the United Kingdom newspaper The Telegraph analyzed the winning lottery balls dating back to when the UK National Lottery began in 1994. They found that the number 13 is the unluckiest ball, since it was drawn a total of 120 times since 1994, compared with the luckiest ball, number 38, which was drawn a total of 182 times. But, “of course, there is no way of predicting which balls will be luckiest in the future,” the article cautions.

Not everyone has found similar patterns.

“Unfortunately, most of studies dealing with Friday the 13th and the number 13 are solely focused on statistical data, such as accident data, stock exchange data, etc., without any attempt to establish a ‘direct’ relationship between belief, or superstition, and behavior,” said Radun, who is co-author of the 2004 study “Females Do Not Have More Injury Road Accidents on Friday the 13th,” which was published in the journal BMC Public Health. “Therefore, it is not surprising that contradictory results may occur … In our study, we did not find that either women or men have more injury road accidents on Friday 13th compared to previous and following Fridays.” [Superstitions Bring Real Luck, Study Reveals ]

Luben agrees that studies about statistics surrounding the number 13 should acknowledge how people’s superstitions influence how they act. He wrote in his study that “superstitions affect behavior in all cultures in all parts of the world in some form or other.” So whether you vow to never play the number 13 in a lottery or declare that 13 is your lucky number just to go against the grain, the stigma surrounding the number still influenced your decision.

“There are no lucky or unlucky numbers; they exist only in our heads – or in the heads of some of us – and they might become lucky or unlucky only if we make them as such,” Radun said.

But many triskaidekaphobics, who count author Stephen King and former president Franklin Roosevelt among their ranks, don’t need statistical evidence or hard facts to back up their conviction that the number is truly cursed. As with any superstition, no matter how irrational it may be, some people will still choose to believe in it.

[This story was provided by Life’s Little Mysteries, a sister site of Live Science.]

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17 TERRIBLE THINGS THAT HAVE HAPPENED ON FRIDAY THE 13th

by Gabbi Shaw

[The article below first appeared on the website Insider, created, according to its metadata, on 27 December 2017 (https://www.insider.com/worst-things-friday-the-13th-2017-12).]

Friday the 13th is so famously unlucky that there’s even a phobia dedicated to it: friggatriskaidekaphobia.

Even if you personally don’t put stock in this fear, there are a lot of people who do. According to CNBC, the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimated that between $700 to $800 million dollars are lost every Friday the 13th because people are afraid to shop, travel, and conduct business.

Still think it’s just a superstition? These events might be enough to convince even the most determined non-believer.

Buckingham Palace was bombed during WWII.

According to the New York Daily News, the German forces during WWII bombed Buckingham Palace on September 13, 1940. The bombs hit both the palace and its chapel.

Even scarier, the King and Queen were both at the residence at the time of the attack. Even though the event was traumatic, Queen Elizabeth merely stated she was “glad we have been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face.”

Tupac Shakur passed away.

The murder of Tupac Shakur is one of the most famous unsolved cases in recent history. Some say he was taken out by his friend Suge Knight, others are convinced it was Christopher Wallace (a.k.a the Notorious B.I.G.), while others still think the FBI conspired to kill Shakur in order to end the violent East Coast vs West Coast feud.

The details we do know: Shakur was shot four times on September 7, 1996 in Las Vegas. He succumbed to his injuries six days later on Friday, September 13.

A British 13-year-old was struck by lightning on Friday the 13th, at 13:13.

While getting struck by lightning is definitely horrible, this incident ended up being a miracle. According to the Daily Mail, the unnamed teenager was struck by lightning while at an air show in England and was treated only for burns on his shoulder. The hospital stated he was expected to make a full recovery.

Kitty Genovese, a Queens resident, was brutally attacked and murdered.

The murder of Kitty Genovese took place on March 13, 1964. According to the New York times, Genovese was raped and killed by Winston Moseley inside of her apartment building. The crime is famous because, allegedly, 38 people heard the attack, and none of them called the police — making the “bystander effect” a household term.

It was later suggested that the reporting of the crime was inaccurate and greatly exaggerated. But no matter the specifics, an innocent woman died, which is truly tragic.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy.

The Costa Concordia sank into the ocean on January 13, 2012. According to Vanity Fair, it became the largest passenger ship ever wrecked, with almost double the amount of people on board than on the Titanic.

When all was said and done, 32 people died and the captain was convicted of manslaughter in 2015.

Kansas experienced record-breaking amounts of rain and flooding.

On July 13, 1951, the state of Kansas was hit with over 25 inches of rain. The cities of Manhattan, Lawrence, and Topeka were most affected, and over two million acres of land were damaged by the flood.

The storm also affected oil tanks, some of which caught on fire and exploded. There were passengers that were stuck on trains for four days. And, at its highest, the flooding exceeded previous records by four to nine feet.

The people of Kansas were not wrong to call this day “Black Friday.”

The stock market experienced a “mini-crash” in 1989.

After the buyout of United Airlines fell through on October 13, 1989, the ripples were felt throughout the stock market, specifically the junk bond market.

According to CNBC, this resulted in a seven percent sell-off in the Dow, and the S&P 500 lost six percent. Essentially, a lot of people lost a lot of money.

A flight through the Andes ended in disaster and death.

Uruguayan Flight 571 was headed towards Chile when it crash-landed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. In the following days after the crash, the survivors were reduced to hiding in the fuselage of the plane and eating deceased passengers, according to People.

The rescue efforts were called off only 10 days after the crash, so it was shocking when two men appeared 72 days later, and alerted the authorities that there were 16 other survivors trapped in the mountains.

On that same day, another flight crashed in Russia.

At the time, the tragedy of Aeroflot 217 was the worst plane crash in Russian history. All 174 people on board the flight (including the ten crew members) died when the plane crashed while trying to land due to bad weather.

It’s never been confirmed what the cause of the crash was — some speculate it was a lightning strike. The plane ended up just three miles away from the runway.

The Klu Klux Klan’s first Grand Wizard was born.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was born on July 13, 1821. Forrest first rose to fame as a Confederate general and was in charge of the infamous Fort Pillow Massacre, where he and his men allegedly killed over 200 unarmed Union soldiers that had surrendered (many of whom were black).

Forrest is widely believed to have served as the KKK’s first Grand Wizard, though he would later decree that the organization should be demolished.

Computers fell victim to the “Friday the 13th Virus.”

On January 13, 1989, a computer virus swept through the UK. According to the LA Times, hundreds of computers were affected by the virus, which deleted personal files specifically on the unlucky date.

The virus also slowed computers down, but fortunately didn’t cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The Bhola cyclone hit Bangladesh.

The storm officially ended on November 13, 1970 but the effects are still being felt to this day. The Bhola cyclone is still the deadliest storm in the Bay of Bengal — the death toll is estimated to be from 150,000 to 550,000, according to NBC News. A specific district in Bangladesh lost over 45% of its population, Hurricane Science reports.

In addition to being deadly and extremely costly, the cyclone is credited with jump starting a civil war. At the time of the storm, the area was called East Pakistan. The Pakistani mismanagement of the relief efforts are considered to be a huge event in the fight for Bangladeshi independence.

Swedish flight DC-3 vanished and was never heard from again.

According to National Geographic, a Swedish flight disappeared while flying over the Baltic Sea on June 13, 1952. And for 40 years, the Swedish government stuck by the story that the plane was merely performing training exercises.

However, National Geographic reported that in the ‘90s it was leaked that the crewmembers were actually spying on the Soviet Union for NATO — even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Cold War. And Russia responded with its own confession. A Russian pilot told a Swedish diplomat that he had shot the plane down.

The city of Buffalo was hit with a freak blizzard.

It’s been called the “October Surprise.” From October 12 to October 13, 2006, western New York was hit with two feet of snow. Over 300,000 people were left without power, thousands of trees were damaged, and the Governor of New York declared a State of Emergency for the Buffalo region.

The Black Friday bushfires consumed Victoria, Australia.

Victoria from 1939 to 1940 were the culmination of a long, dry summer. But on January 13, 1939 the Black Friday bushfires consumed the area: 71 people died and 575,000 hectares of land were burned to a crisp.

The ash that resulted from the two days of flames was intense. There were reports of it reaching as far as New Zealand.

Sam Patch plunged to his death in the Genesee River.

Sam Patch was America’s first professional daredevil. Throughout his life, he jumped from many great heights, including Niagara Falls twice.

So, when he decided to jump from the High Falls into the Genesee River, no one thought to be concerned. But it became apparent quickly that something was wrong. While some speculated that he was drunk, it’s never been known for sure what exactly happened to Patch when he jumped into the river. But on November 13, Patch took his eerily predicted last jump — his body was found four months later.

In 2029, an asteroid will come extremely close to Earth.

According to Geek.com, an asteroid will come within 22,000 miles of the Earth on April 13, 2029. This might not seem like a big deal, but it’s actually extremely close in relation to space.

Although it’s not expected to actually hit our planet, the closeness of the asteroid could cause damage on its surface — the gravity of Earth might cause avalanches on Apophis.

So it’s not time to call these guys in yet, but there is a one-in-100,000 chance it could collide with us.

[Today isn’t just Friday the 13th, but across the country, tonight is also the night of the “harvest moon.”  There’s nothing ominous about this phenomenon, although it’s rare for it to happen on a Friday the 13th.  A harvest moon is just a full moon that occurs around the fall harvest time.  Because this one is at the farthest point from the Earth in the moon’s orbit (lunar apogee), it appears smaller that the full moon of any other point on its loop; it’s called a “mini moon,” as distinguished from a “supermoon,” when the Earth’s satellite is closest to the Earth (lunar perigee) and seems larger than normal.  This is the first time the harvest moon coincided with Friday the 13th since October 2000 and will be the last time until August 2049.  In the Eastern Time Zone, the moon will be fully visible after midnight Friday/Saturday; in the time zones west of here, the harvest moon is visible earlier this evening.

[So we’re getting two . . . two . . . two phenoms in one!  (Sorry.  I’m old.  Old enough to remember that TV ad!)]