By: Lexi Jenkins, Jonathan Drake, and Morgan Blechshmid
March 11, 2020
Friday the 13th is a day most people associate with bad luck/bad vibes due to its dark history. However, most people don’t know the actual history behind this day and why it is so popular.
Why is Friday the 13th so unlucky?
“According to biblical tradition, 13 guests attended the Last Supper, held on Maundy Thursday, including Jesus and his 12 apostles (one of whom, Judas, betrayed him). The next day, of course, was Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ crucifixion. The seating arrangement at the Last Supper is believed to have given rise to a longstanding Christian superstition that having 13 guests at a table was a bad omen—specifically, that it was courting death,” (History.com).
Dating back to the 19th century, Friday the 13th has been considered a harbinger of bad luck. The day has inspired a secret society, an early 20th-century novel, a horror franchise, and two psychological terms: paraskavedekatriaphobia and friggatriskaidekaphobia – both words simply meaning to fear Friday the 13th.
An important milestone in the history of the Friday the 13th legend specifically occurred in 1907, with the publication of the novel Friday the Thirteenth written by Thomas William Lawson.
The horror movie Friday the 13th, released in 1980, introduced the world to a character named Jason who was a hockey-mask-wearing killer and is perhaps the best-known example of this famous superstition.
In the late 19th century, a New Yorker named Captain William Fowler (1827-1897) sought to remove the stigma around the number 13. Every 13th day of the month in room 13 of the Knickerbocker Cottage, before the 13-course meal, members would pass beneath a ladder and a banner that read “Morituri te Salutamus,” which in Latin meant, “Those of us who are about to die salute you.”
Some tragedies that have occurred on this day over the years are as follows: the death of Tupac Shakur (September of 1996), the bombing of the Buckingham Palace (September of 1940), and the Cyclone attack in Bangladesh (November of 1970).
Beware of black cats… avoid ladders… and whatever you do- DO NOT approach a man walking out of a lake wearing a hockey mask!
By the way, you only have two days to prepare.
THE RETURN OF THE EYE 