Very superstitious…
It’s Friday the 13th, people – a date roundly considered desperately unlucky and what’s more, it’s a full moon.
(Translation: You will turn into a beautiful, lustrously maned werewolf and then be unceremoniously run over by a bin truck.)
The last time Friday the 13th occurred in tandem with the full moon was back in 2000, and it’s not set to manifest again until 2049.
Friday The 13th - Unlucky For Some?
The event is such a rarity because it occurs only when three independent variables line up – the moon phase, the weekday and the day of the month. (It’s a simple case of arithmetic, says Vox, and they’ve helpfully done the math for you here.)
Fear of Friday the 13th is known as friggatriskaidekaphobia (named after "Frigg", the Norse goddess whom Friday is named after and "triskaidekaphobia" meaning the fear of "13".)
Superstition says it’s the unluckiest day of the year and is generally regarded as an unsuitable day to undertake journeys or begin new projects.
Among the tragedies to befall this day were the bombing of Buckingham Palace on September 13, 1940, as part of Hitler's strategic "Blitz" bombing campaign.
November 13 1970 (also a Friday) saw a massive storm kill around 300,000 people in Bangladesh, with subsequent floods killing as many as a million in the Ganges Delta.
What's more, some people say Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday the 13th.
Some websites list the birth of the Olsen twins on this date as similarly sinister....
Have you ever had an unlucky event befall you on this date? Tell us about it in comments below.
