Rosa Louise McCauley—known to history by her married name, Rosa Parks—is born in Tuskegee, Alabama on February 4, 1913. A lifelong civil rights activist, Parks’ name has become synonymous with her refusal to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated bus in 1955, a defining
Long considered a harbinger of bad luck, Friday the 13th has inspired a late 19th-century secret society, an early 20th-century novel, a horror film franchise and not one but two unwieldy terms—paraskavedekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia—that describe the fear of this supposedly unlucky day.
Just like walking under a ladder, crossing paths with a black cat or breaking a mirror, many people hold fast to the belief that Friday the 13th brings bad luck. Though it’s uncertain exactly when this particular tradition began, negative superstitions have swirled around the number 13 for centuries.
While Western cultures have historically associated the number 12 with completeness (there are 12 days of Christmas, 12 months and zodiac signs, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 gods of Olympus and 12 tribes of Israel, just to name a few examples), its successor 13 has a long history as a sign of bad luck.
The ancient Code of Hammurabi, for example, reportedly omitted a 13th law from its list of legal rules. Though this was probably a clerical error, superstitious people sometimes point to this as proof of 13’s longstanding negative associations.
Fear of the number 13 has even earned a psychological term: triskaidekaphobia.
According to biblical tradition, 13 guests attended the Last Supper, held on Maundy Thursday, including Jesus and his 12 apostles (one of whom, Judas, betrayed him). The next day, of course, was Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion.
The seating arrangement at the Last Supper is believed to have given rise to a longstanding Christian superstition that having 13 guests at a table was a bad omen—specifically, that it was courting death.
Though Friday’s negative associations are weaker, some have suggested they also have roots in Christian tradition: Just as Jesus was crucified on a Friday, Friday was also said to be the day Eve gave Adam the fateful apple from the Tree of Knowledge, as well as the day Cain killed his brother, Abel.
In the late-19th century, a New Yorker named Captain William Fowler (1827-1897) sought to remove the enduring stigma surrounding the number 13—and particularly the unwritten rule about not having 13 guests at a dinner table—by founding an exclusive society called the Thirteen Club.
The group dined regularly on the 13th day of the month in room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage, a popular watering hole Fowler owned from 1863 to 1883. Before sitting down for a 13-course dinner, members would pass beneath a ladder and a banner reading “Morituri te Salutamus,” Latin for “Those of us who are about to die salute you.”
Four former U.S. presidents (Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison and Theodore Roosevelt) would join the Thirteen Club’s ranks at one time or another.
An important milestone in the history of the Friday the 13th legend in particular (not just the number 13) occurred in 1907, with the publication of the novel Friday, the Thirteenth written by Thomas William Lawson.
The book told the story of a New York City stockbroker who plays on superstitions about the date to create chaos on Wall Street, and make a killing on the market.
The horror movie Friday the 13th, released in 1980, introduced the world to a hockey mask-wearing killer named Jason, and is perhaps the best-known example of the famous superstition in pop culture history. The movie spawned multiple sequels, as well as comic books, novellas, video games, related merchandise and countless terrifying Halloween costumes.
On Friday, October 13, 1307, officers of King Philip IV of France arrested hundreds of the Knights Templar, a powerful religious and military order formed in the 12th century for the defense of the Holy Land.
Imprisoned on charges of various illegal behaviors (but really because the king wanted access to their financial resources), many Templars were later executed. Some cite the link with the Templars as the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition, but like many legends involving the Templars and their history, the truth remains murky.
In more recent times, a number of traumatic events have occurred on Friday the 13th, including the German bombing of Buckingham Palace (September 1940); the murder of Kitty Genovese in Queens, New York (March 1964); a cyclone that killed more than 300,000 people in Bangladesh (November 1970); the disappearance of a Chilean Air Force plane in the Andes (October 1972); the death of rapper Tupac Shakur (September 1996) and the crash of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the coast of Italy, which killed 30 people (January 2012).
“The Origins of Unlucky Friday the 13th,” Live Science.
“Friday the 13th: why is it unlucky and other facts about the worst day in the calendar,” The Telegraph.
“13 Freaky Things That Happened on Friday the 13th,” Live Science.
“Here’s Why Friday the 13th is Considered Unlucky,” Time.
“Friggatriskaidekaphobes Need Not Apply,” New-York Historical Society.
history.com
There are Three Friday 13th days in 2026 !!!!
0607 – The 12th recorded passage of Halley’s Comet occurred.
1519 – Cortez landed in Mexico.
1639 – Harvard University was named for clergyman John Harvard.
1660 – A statute was passed limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia.
1777 – The U.S. Congress ordered its European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send troops to reinforce the American army.
1781 – Sir William Herschel discovered the planet Uranus.
1852 – The New York “Lantern” newspaper published the first “Uncle Sam cartoon”. It was drawn by Frank Henry Bellew.
1865 – Jefferson Davis signed a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy.
1868 – The U.S. Senate began the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.
1877 – Chester Greenwood patented the earmuff.
1878 – The first collegiate golf match was played between Oxford and Cambridge.
1884 – Standard time was adopted throughout the U.S.
1900 – In South Africa, British Gen. Roberts took Bloemfontein.
1901 – Andrew Carnegie announced that he was retiring from business and that he would spend the rest of his days giving away his fortune. His net worth was estimated at $300 million.
1902 – In Poland, schools were shut down across the country when students refused to sing the Russian hymn “God Protect the Czar.”
1902 – Andrew Carnegie approved 40 applications from libraries for donations.
1908 – The people of Jerusalem saw an automobile for the first time. The owner was Charles Glidden of Boston.
1911 – The U.S. Supreme Court approved corporate tax law.
1915 – The Germans repelled a British expeditionary force attack in France.
1918 – Women were scheduled to march in the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York due to a shortage of men due to wartime.
1925 – A law in Tennessee prohibited the teaching of evolution.
1930 – It was announced that the planet Pluto had been discovered by scientist Clyde Tombaugh at the Lowell Observatory.
1933 – U.S. banks began to re-open after a “holiday” that had been declared by President Roosevelt.
1935 – Three-thousand-year-old archives were found in Jerusalem confirming some biblical history.
1940 – The war between Russia and Finland ended with the signing of a treaty in Moscow.
1941 – Adolf Hitler issued an edict calling for an invasion of the U.S.S.R.
1942 – Julia Flikke of the Nurse Corps became the first woman colonel in the U.S. Army.
1943 – Japanese forces ended their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville.
1946 – Reports from Iran indicated that Soviet tanks units were stationed 20 miles from Tehran.
1946 – Premier Tito seized wartime collaborator General Draja Mikhailovich in a cave in Yugoslavia.
1951 – Israel demanded $1.5 billion in German reparations for the cost of caring for war refugees.
1951 – The comic strip “Dennis the Menace” appeared for the first time in newspapers across the country.
1957 – Jimmy Hoffa was arrested by the FBI on bribery charges.
1963 – China invited Soviet President Khrushchev to visit Peking.
1969 – The Apollo 9 astronauts returned to Earth after the conclusion of a mission that included the successful testing of the Lunar Module.
1970 – Cambodia ordered Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to leave.
1970 – Digital Equipment Corp. introduced the PDP-11 minicomputer.
1972 – “The Merv Griffin Show” debuted in syndication for Metromedia Television.
1974 – The U.S. Senate voted 54-33 to restore the death penalty.
1974 – An embargo imposed by Arab oil-producing countries was lifted.
1980 – A jury in Winamac, IN, found Ford Motor Company innocent of reckless homicide in the deaths of three young women that had been riding in a Ford Pinto.
1988 – The board of trustees off Gallaudet University in Washington, DC, chose I. King Jordan to be its first deaf president. The college is a liberal arts college for the hearing-impaired.
1990 – The U.S. lifted economic sanctions against Nicaragua.
1991 – Exxon paid $1 billion in fines and for the clean-up of the Alaskan oil spill.
1995 – The first United Nations World Summit on Social Development concluded in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1997 – Sister Nirmala was chosen by India’s Missionaries of Charity to succeed Mother Teresa as leader of the Catholic order.
2002 – Fox aired “Celebrity Boxing.” Tonya Harding beat Paula Jones, Danny Banaduce beat Barry Williams and Todd Bridges defeated Vanilla Ice.
2003 – Japan sent a destroyer to the Sea of Japan amid reports that North Korea was planning to test an intermediate-range ballistic missile.
2003 – A report in the journal “Nature” reported that scientists had found 350,000-year-old human footprints in Italy. The 56 prints were made by three early, upright-walking humans that were descending the side of a volcano.
2006 – In New York, the official start of construction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum began.
2012 – After 244 years of publication, Encyclopædia Britannica announced it would discontinue its print edition.
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