Friday The 13th Superstitions

If you are a friggatriskaidekaphobic or are paraskevidekatriaphobia, you are in for one tough year. Those big words mean that you are afraid of Friday the 13th, and today is just the first of three this year with the others in April and July.

How did this all start? Some people believe that the number 13 is an unlucky number and Friday is an unlucky day, put the two together and let the superstitions fly.

Here is some of the history of Friday The 13th according to Wikipedia:

* In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock, twelve gods of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 Descendants of Muhammad Imams, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.
* Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century's The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s. It has also been suggested that Friday has been considered an unlucky day because, according to Christian scripture and tradition, Jesus was crucified on a Friday.
* One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson's popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth, in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th. Records of the superstition are rarely found before the 20th century, when it became extremely common.
The connection between the Friday the 13th superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. However, experts agree that this is a relatively recent correlation, and most likely a modern-day invention. Although according to many Freemasons, this date corresponds with the slaughtering of the Knights Templar by the Church.

Many people believe in these superstitions, some do not. Here is a list of the 13 most common Friday the 13th Superstitions:

13: Beginners Luck

12: Find a penny, pick it up...

11. Don't walk under a ladder!

10. Black cat crossing your path.

9. A rabbits foot will bring you good luck

8. Bad luck comes in threes.

7. Don't break a mirror

6. 66 (666)

To see the top 5 Friday the 13th Superstitions, check out the rest of the list here.