13 Things To Know About Friday The 13th

It's Friday the 13th, and that means....

1. For some folks, National Geographic has found, Friday the 13th means a tough day at the store. "It's been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do," said Donald Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, NC, in an article on Friday the 13th.
2. So how did this all happen? According to Time magazine, some historians say it all began because 13 people attended the Last Supper. Others note, however, that the superstition dates at least to 1700 BC, as ancient Babylon's Code of Hammurabi omits the number 13 in its list of laws.
3. Fridays have been considered unlucky since at least the 14th century, and Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes since the 1800s.
4. In Norse mythology, "Friday" is named for Frigga, the goddess of love and fertility. According to Wood TV, "When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of 13 — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as 'Witches' Sabbath.'"
5. Another theory broaches that the superstition involves Paganism, Christianity, and the Battle of Hastings. For many, the number 13 was considered lucky (such as 13 lunar cycles each year), but as Christianity attempted to degrade all things Pagan, it promoted 13 as an unlucky number.
6. On Friday the 13th of October 1066, the decision was made by King Harold II to go to battle on Saturday, Oct. 14, rather than allow his troops a day of rest (despite his army having made a long and arduous march from a battle near York just three weeks earlier).
7. According to history.com, biblical sources say Friday was the day on which Eve offered Adam the forbidden fruit and Jesus was crucified.
8. Another popular theory links the superstition to the demise of the Knights Templar, a monastic military order whose members were arrested en masse by France’s King Philip IV on Friday, October 13, 1307.
9. One of the experts National Geographic interviewed said that one-quarter of the 2,068 people questioned in a 2003 survey associate the number 13 with bad luck.
10. Friday the 13th superstitions around the globe seem to bear out this notion. Click here to see a photo gallery of some of the oddest .
11. There are three Friday the 13ths this year: this one, one in April, and one in July.
12. Any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th. 

  14. Come on. You didn't really think I'd have a 13, did you?