13 Fun Freaky Facts for Friday 13th

If you looked at your calendar this week and panicked when you saw that today is Friday 13th you are not alone.

Here’s 13 Fun, Freaky Facts About Friday The 13th.

1. Fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia (also known as friggatriskaidekaphobia). Just like some people are afraid of spiders and the dark, others suffer from a deep-rooted fear of this day surrounded in superstition. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.
2. It’s not clear when or why Friday the 13th became associated with bad luck. The association may be biblical, given that the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus. His crucifixion was the next day, apparently a Friday. Or maybe 13 suffers from coming after the more-pleasing number 12, which gets to number the months, the days of Christmas and even the eggs in a dozen. (There are also 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel and 12 apostles of Jesus.)
3. Many hospitals have no room 13, while airports don’t have a Gate 13. Hotels and skyscrapers also tend to dismiss the unlucky floor by skipping straight from 12 to 14.
4. For pagans, 13 is actually a lucky number. It corresponds with the number of full moons in a year.
5. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. “It was bad luck,” Twain later told the friend. “They only had food for 12.” Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.
6. Every year has at least one and at most three Friday the 13ths.
7. The longest period that can occur without a Friday the 13th is 14 months.
8. The independent horror flick Friday the 13th was released in May 1980 and despite only having a budget of $550,000 it grossed $39.7million at the box office in the United States – pretty lucky, really.
9. Franklin Delano Roosevelt would never host a dinner party with 13 guests and refused to travel on the 13th day of any month!
10. British filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense, was born on Aug. 13, 1899, which was a Friday. He was supposed to make his directorial debut with a film called “Number 13,” which never saw the light of the day owing to financial troubles.
11. Famous people born on Friday the 13th include Margaret Thatcher (October 13, 1923) and Fidel Castro (August 13, 1926).
12. For a month to have a Friday on the 13th day, it must begin on a Sunday.
13. Friday the 13th occurs twice in 2017 – in January and October.