Today is Friday the 13th. Here are some 13 facts about Friday the 13th which some people believe as a bad day.
- More than 60 million people worldwide claim to be affected by a fear of Friday 13th. Some of them won’t go to work, drive cars or get out of bed on this day.
- The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia.
- According to the British Medical Journal there is a significant increase in traffic-related accidents when the date is Friday 13th.
- Every year has at least one and at most three Friday the 13th.
- Famous people born on Friday the 13th include Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906), Margaret Thatcher (13 October 1923), Fidel Castro (13 August 1926) and Steve Buscemi (13 December 1957).
- Tupac Shakur died on Friday, September 13, 1996.
- The Uruguayan rugby team’s plane crashed in the Andes mountain range on Friday, 13 October, 1972.
- Many hospitals have no room 13, while airports don't have a Gate 13.
- Triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were said to be sufferers.
- The Athens Olympic Games opened on Friday 13th of August, 2004.
- President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.
- 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.
- The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number — 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.
