# It's Friday the 13th again!



## David Baxter PhD (Mar 13, 2020)

Are you bothered by Friday the 13th, by itself or in combination with other "bad luck" superstions?

*Friday the 13th - Wikipedia*

The irrational fear of the number 13 has been given a scientific name: "triskaidekaphobia"; and on analogy to this the fear of Friday the 13th is called  _paraskevidekatriaphobia_, from the Greek words _Paraskeví_ (Παρασκευή, meaning "Friday"), and _dekatreís_ (δεκατρείς, meaning "thirteen").



 
_The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci_

The superstition surrounding this day may have arisen in the Middle Ages, "originating from the story of Jesus' last supper and crucifixion" in which there were 13 individuals present in the Upper Room on the 13th of Nisan Maundy Thursday, the night before his death on Good Friday. While there is evidence of both Friday  and the number 13 being considered unlucky, there is no record of the  two items being referred to as especially unlucky in conjunction before  the 19th century.

An early documented reference in English occurs in Henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini, who died on a Friday 13th:

He [Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring  friends; and if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded  Fridays as an unlucky day and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is  remarkable that on Friday 13th of November he passed away.
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_Rossini by Henri Grevedon_

It is  possible that the publication in 1907 of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel _Friday, the Thirteenth_, contributed to disseminating the superstition. In the novel, an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.

A suggested origin of the superstition-Friday, 13 October 1307, the date Philip IV of France arrested hundreds of the Knights Templar-may not have been formulated until the 20th century. It is mentioned in the 1955 Maurice Druon historical novel _The Iron King_ (_Le Roi de fer_), John J. Robinson's 1989 work _Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry_,  Dan Brown's 2003 novel _The Da Vinci Code_ and Steve Berry's _The Templar Legacy_ (2006).


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## GaryQ (Nov 19, 2020)

Speaking historically last Friday was Friday the 13th.


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## David Baxter PhD (Nov 19, 2020)

Yes it was. Nothing bad out of the ordinary (ordinary for the world of COVID-19) happened as far as I know.

I found this on Facebook and used it as a notice on one of the forums I manage:



> Friday the 13th? In 2020? How bad could it... {gets hit by ACME anvil}


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