Why Friday the 13th is seen as unlucky

Kids of the 1980s grew up haunted by Jason, the character wearing a hockey mask in the "Friday the 13th" films. There are currently 12 slasher movies in the horror franchise, and a 13th one has been in production for years. Its release date has been pushed back from one Friday the 13th to the other — until it was finally indefinitely postponed. A cursed project?

In the 19th century, the idea started spreading that the disciple who betrayed Jesus, Judas, showed up late and was the 13th person to sit at the table during the Last Supper. Catholics also believe that Jesus died on a Friday. This classic painting depicting the famous final meal was painted by Leonardo da Vinci.

An often quoted Viking myth establishing 13 as an unlucky number involves the mischievous god Loki (depiction above by Jakob Sigurdsson, from 1760). He crashed a reunion of 12 gods in Valhalla and was responsible for the death of Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and sadness. The "Prose Edda," relating this story, was written in the early 13th century.

According to Dan Brown in the book "The Da Vinci Code," events that occurred on Friday, October 13, 1307 are responsible for the superstition. That day, France's King Philip IV had the Grand Master of the Knights Templar arrested, accusing the secret order of sacrilege. Other experts on the question claim this is a modern-day invention.

In the 14th century, English poet Geoffrey Chaucer mentioned Fridays as being unlucky in his famous collection, "The Canterbury Tales." "And on a Friday fell all this mischance," he wrote. By the 17th century, many popular writers advised against undertaking any new project on a Friday. Hangings would also take place on Fridays in the UK.

An early reference in English of the superstition surrounding this date is found in Henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of the Italian opera composer Gioachino Rossini: "And if it be true that, like so many Italians, he regarded Fridays as an unlucky day and 13 as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday 13th of November he passed away."

About a decade later, in the 1880s, the Thirteen Club was created to regularly demonstrate that no one would die when 13 people sat together at a table. Over time, honorary members of the club included five US presidents: Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt (picture).

Contributing to popularizing the superstition, a 1907 novel by US businessman and author Thomas W. Lawson, "Friday the Thirteenth," depicts a stockbroker who takes advantage of that day to bring down Wall Street. Curiously, his namesake ship, the "Thomas W. Lawson," was wrecked near the UK on Saturday, December 14 that same year: It was still Friday the 13th in the US when the news broke.

To this day, it is commonplace for US skyscrapers to omit the 13th floor, often designated as level 14 instead, or "M" — the 13th letter of the alphabet. Many pop culture stories have imagined that the missing level was actually used for something clandestine. In a 1975 Superman story, a secret 13th floor is used to teleport alien tourists visiting the Earth.

Among the incidents related to unlucky 13 is the Apollo 13 space mission (depicted in a 1995 movie starring Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Tom Hanks, pictured). On April 13, 1970, a Monday, one of its oxygen tanks exploded — but it returned safely to Earth afterwards. The fear of the number 13 is called "triskaidekaphobia," and dreading Friday the 13th is "friggatriskaidekaphobia."

The famous inventor of the 12-tone technique had a serious case of triskaidekaphobia. Apparently, he was sure he would die during during a year that was a multiple of 13. An astrologer warned him that turning 76 could be fatal (7+6=13). The information depressed the composer to a point that he died of anxiety at that age, on Friday 13, in July 1951.

The leading Yiddish author and playwright is best known for his character Tevye the Dairyman, who was at the center of the musical "Fiddler on the Roof." Like Schoenberg, he also mortally feared the number 13. He avoided it in his manuscripts by numbering the 13th pages as 12a. He died from tuberculosis on May 13, 1916 — but that was a Saturday.