The life of many people depends on whether or not they are superstitious.  Gullible people normally build their life around signs they believe in, and the mystical number 13 is probably the most fearsome of them all, especially if it falls on Friday…

Opinion polls show that every fourth European fears this number. Experts tend to believe however, that it is all because people subconsciously make themselves believe there is something fishy about this number. Man’s fear of the Friday 13 combination is rooted in ancient times with some  biblical experts insisting that Cain killed his brother Abel exactly on this day…

Friday 13 instilled fear in the hearts of many a great man of the past. On this day Johann Wolfgang Goethe always made sure he stayed in bed. Napoleon never fought battles on the 13th and Germany’s “Iron Chancellor” Otto von Bismarck never signed anything on that day.  The list of the powerful, rich and famous afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th also includes the American oil tycoon Paul Getty, and US Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The latter avoided traveling on the 13 of any month even on benign Tuesdays.  When Queen Elizabeth II was visiting in Germany in 1965, the organizers noticed, at the very last moment, that her train was to arrive on the 13th track and quickly changed the track number.  The great composers of the past, Rossini, Wagner and Chopin, were equally scared by this number. Richard Wagner was born in 1813, wrote 13 major compositions, his opera “Tannhauser” premiered on March 13 and he finished his opera “Parsifal” on January 13. And died on the 13th of February…

In the ancient Babylonian calendar 13 was symbolized by a raven and in Tarot signifies the death card.  Pythagoras believed the number held the key to the secrets of all things, unlike 12 which since ancient times has been seen as perfect: there are 12 signs of the Zodiac surrounding the Sun, we have a 12-hour day and a 12-hour night and there are 12 months in each year we live in.  Ancient Egyptians and Mayans held 13 as a symbol of godly benevolence. 

In 1791 the British government sought to quell once and for all the widespread superstition among seamen that setting sail on Fridays was unlucky.  A special ship was commissioned, named H.M.S. Friday. They laid her keel on a Friday, selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a Friday, and was never seen or heard from again… 

So a lot of people think Friday 13 is an unlucky day, but why? Research shows that the combination is by no means more dangerous than any other Friday. Edgar Wunder, a fellow at a parapsychology center in Zonderhaus, Germany, analyzed 150,000 accidents that happened on Fridays between 1985 and 1999 and determined that the so called bad Fridays did not really differ from all other Fridays. And still people traditionally associate Friday 13 with misfortune trying to avoid embarking on journeys or starting important projects on this day. Probably as many people in many countries, however, believe that Friday 13 is a lucky day, buying up lottery tickets hoping to win big…

Some people say Friday’s bad reputation goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden…

It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit.  

During the Last Supper Jesus Christ was accompanied at the table by 12 disciples, including the traitorous Judas, who was thus 13th.

According to the latest opinion polls, millions of people in the United States are still in the grips of this very old superstition. In many American hotels you will never find a 13th floor and the handful of apartments bearing this number are available at half their actual price. Many Americans believe they live in a cursed country.  Indeed, looking at the reverse side of a one dollar bill we can see there an unfinished pyramid with 13 steps. To its right there is a bold eagle holding olive branches with 13 leaves and as many arrows in its talons. 13 stars are above the eagle and a shield with 13 stripes is in front of the eagle. What people seem to forget, however, is that the 13 starts symbolize the 13 former British colonies that once came together and formed what we now know as the United States of America…

And lastly, if he’d lived, the great American moviemaker Alfred Hitchcock, of Friday the 13 fame, would have marked his 105 birthday on exactly Friday 13 of 2004…