Tupac died on Friday 13[sup]th[/sup] 1996 (although shot on the 7[sup]th[/sup])
The Olsen twins were born on Friday 13[sup]th[/sup] 1986. A grim day for mankind, indeed.
June and September, respectively :smack:
Holy cow, that’s the most prolonged delivery I’ve ever heard of.
Well, Friday 13 falls on Thursday this week…
But that theory has an enormous hole in it. Which is that no one is known to have claimed that Friday the 13th was unlucky until the twentieth century. The superstition may well have been invented almost within living memory.
It is in fact an excellent example of how just because a folk belief sounds as if it ought to be old doesn’t mean that it is. What seems to have happened is that the existing but separate supersititions about Fridays and the number 13 being unlucky converged almost entirely as a result of the popularity of Thomas W. Lawson’s 1907 novel, Friday, the Thirteenth. Which means that the bad event that originally inspired the idea was a fictional one. See Nathaniel Lachenmeyer’s 13: The Story of the World’s Most Popular Superstition (2004) for a pop-history discussion of the issue.
How long are your weeks??!!! 
Friday the 13th is bad, but Saturday the 14th is worse…
10 points for whoever spots the reference.
Is it this?
I don’t think it matters if Friday wasn’t mated with the 13th until a 20th century novel. Given that both were considered unlucky in folklore, by the same logic it would be doubly unlucky when both occurred on the same day.
Yep… 10 points have been credited to your account.
You’re quite right that superstitions regarding Friday the 13th are decidedly modern and not at all ancient. I’ll note, though, that the distrust of Friday the 13th in the United States dates back at least to the late 19th century. It was certainly in place, though not widespreadly articulated, in parts of that country by the time that Lawson’s novel appeared in early 1907. (Of course, as Lachenmeyer contends, Lawson’s novel may well have popularized and reinforced notions about the day.)
By the way, a sidenote about Lachenmeyer’s book. In his discussion of Lawson’s role in popularizing Friday the 13th as a particularly ominous day Lachenmeyer somehow fails to make a connection, however peripheral, between Lawson and a rather famous nautical tragedy. (I don’t know, maybe there could’ve been a footnote.)
In addition to being a businessman and author (and a bit of a scoundrel), Lawson (1857-1925) was something of a yachtsman, participating in America’s Cup races and writing a book on the history of that competition. In fact, in 1902, a ship was named in his honor: the gargantuan Thomas W. Lawson was the first (and last) seven-masted schooner. (The behemoth was adapted to carry oil in 1906.)
In December 1907, on its maiden voyage to Europe, the Lawson wrecked on some rocks during a storm off the Scilly Islands and sank the following day. It’s often wrongly reported that thirteen souls (and a cat [1]) were lost; in fact, sixteen crewmembers and one member of the rescue crew died. (I don’t know about the cat.) To add insult to injury, neither the ship nor its contents were insured.
It bears noting that this marvel, named after the man responsible for 1907’s Friday, the Thirteenth, sank on Friday, 13 December 1907 (only the second such day after the book’s publication).
Though Lachenmeyer (oddly, I think) neglects to mention this bizarre coincidence, folks at the time certainly made the “connection.”
Having read contemporaneous newspaper reports about the sinking of the Lawson, the loss of life, and public reaction to this event, I believe this ship’s misfortune in part solidified suspicions about those Fridays that fall on the thirteenth day of the month.
– Tammi Terrell
[1] black, no doubt.
My appendix started to rupture on Friday, December 13, 1991. Ever since, I’ve kept an eye out for anything untoward happening on Fridays the 13th.
I’m afraid this comes to mind: the Bhola Cyclone, estimated to have killed a half million Bangladeshis, made landfall on the northern shore of the Bay of Bengal on Friday, 13 November 1970. (I’m ashamed to admit that I only remember this catastrophe and its Friday-the-13th “significance” because it took place on the day before my 11th birthday.)
– Tammi Terrell