Why is Friday the 13th unlucky? A look back at the history of this ominous date

Roots of superstition can be traced back to arrest of Knights Templar in Middle Ages, subsequently burnt at the stake and condemning us all to misfortune for the wrongs done to them

Today is Friday the 13th and we all know that means bad luck.

After yet another week of Brexit turmoil and England's loss in the Ashes, the sinister date's recurrence feels right on cue.

The superstition surrounding Friday the 13th is thought to originate with the Last Supper, attended by 13 people – Jesus Christ and his 12 disciples – on Maundy Thursday, the night before his crucifixion by Roman soldiers on Good Friday.

The number 13 is therefore associated with Judas Iscariot, Christ’s betrayer, and is regarded as imperfect when compared with 12, which represents the number of months in a year.

The burning of the Templars ( British Library/Robana/Rex)

The union of day and date has also been traced back to King Philip IV of France arresting hundreds of Knights Templar on Friday 13 October 1307.

The Catholic crusaders were apprehended - under pressure from Pope Clement V – over allegations made by an excommunicated former member that new recruits to the order were being forced to spit on the cross, deny Christ and engage in homosexual acts during initiation ceremonies.

The claims – seemingly entirely without foundation – were a convenient pretext for Philip to persecute the wealthy order and waive debts he owed them following war with England.

Charged with moral and financial corruption and worshipping false idols – often following confessions obtained under torture - many of the knights were later burnt at the stake in Paris.

The order’s Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, faced the flames in front of Notre Dame Cathedral and is said to have cried out a curse on those who had so gravely wronged them: “God knows who is wrong and has sinned. Soon a calamity will occur to those who have condemned us to death.”

The events initiated by the holy warriors’ arrest, according to tradition, ensured every subsequent Friday the 13th meant bad luck to one and all, De Molay’s hex ringing out through the ages.

An irrational fear of the date is known as paraskevidekatriaphobia.

In Spanish-speaking countries and in Greece, it is Tuesday the 13th that frightens people. In Italy, it is Friday the 17th. So each country has its thing.

Famous indicators of bad luck include a black cat crossing your path, breaking a mirror, walking under a ladder, opening an umbrella indoors and saying the name of Shakespeare’s “Scottish play” in a theatre.

(Source: Independent)

Ten superstitions of writers and artists

On days like today, we need all the tips, tricks, and good omens we can get. This Friday the thirteenth, we’re presenting you with the superstitions of ten artists and writers who (mostly) managed to avoid bad luck. 

Charles Dickens
Slept Facing North
Charles Dickens (1812–1870) carried a navigational compass with him at all times and always faced north while he slept—a practice he believed improved his creativity and writing.

Audrey Hepburn
Lucky Number Fifty-Five
The screen legend, humanitarian, and fashion icon Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) had a fascination with the number fifty-five. She is known to have requested the number for her dressing room—as it had also been her dressing-room number for both of the now classic films Roman Holiday and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Dr. Seuss
Wore a Hat When Blocked
The author and illustrator Theodor Seuss Geisel (1904–1991), better known as Dr. Seuss, kept an immense collection of nearly three hundred hats. When facing writer’s block, the place Dr. Seuss would go was his secret closet, where he would choose a hat to wear until he felt inspired.

Ella Fitzgerald
Same Spot on the Stage
The American jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) suffered from stage fright. The jazz historian and musician John Chilton, who played alongside her band, recalled that Ella would go through a sequence of movements on the same spot onstage prior to every performance in what appeared to be a ritual, which he believed calmed her enough to perform.

Gustav Mahler
Unlucky Number Nine
The Austrian composer and conductor Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) was hesitant to name his ninth symphony by number and called it Das Lied von der Erde instead. This was because several other composers, including Beethoven and Schubert, died after completing their ninth symphonies. According to his wife, Mahler had a heart condition and thought he could cheat death by not naming a symphony “the ninth.”

Isabel Allende
Starting Date
The Chilean American author Isabel Allende began writing her first novel on January 8, 1981. What had started as a letter to her grandfather who was dying eventually transformed into her book The House of the Spirits. Allende now begins all of her books on January 8. Initially, it was out of allegiance with her first book, but now she says she does it because she can be in solitude, since everyone knows she is not to be disturbed on that date.

James Joyce
Auspicious Number Two
The Irish novelist James Joyce (1882–1941) was nervous about a poor response to his epic novel, Ulysses, which he had worked on intensely. He chose his birthday, February 2, 1922, as the day to publish his masterpiece. Two copies of the book arrived in Paris by train on this day, one for Joyce and one for his bookseller, Shakespeare and Company. Lucky number two worked well for Joyce: Ulysses is now a classic.

Ludwig van Beethoven
Counted Coffee Beans
The master composer Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) rose at dawn and would immediately get to work. According to his secretary, coffee was the most important item in his diet, and he prepared it very methodically, counting out sixty coffee beans per cup. His routine sustained nine symphonies, thirty-two piano sonatas, and an opera.

Pablo Picasso
Held onto His “Essence”
The Spanish artist Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) would not throw away his old clothes, hair trimmings, or fingernail clippings for fear it would mean losing part of his “essence.”

Salvador Dalí
Spanish Driftwood
The Spanish surrealist painter Salvador Dalí (1904–1989) considered himself to be very superstitious and carried around a little piece of Spanish driftwood to help him to ward off evil spirits. Known for his idiosyncrasies, he nearly suffocated once while giving a lecture in a diving bell helmet and suit.

Excerpted from Recipes for Good Luck: The Superstitions, Rituals, and Practices of Extraordinary People, by Ellen Weinstein, published by Chronicle Books this year.

(Source: The Paris Review)

After Trump saved Drumstick, we still have to ask: Why do we pardon a bird every year?

According to the White House Historical Association, the tradition of pardoning dates back to President Abraham Lincoln's clemency to a turkey, a speech given in 1863. "A live turkey had been brought home for the Christmas dinner, but [Lincoln's son Tad] interceded in behalf of its life. . . . [Tad's] plea was admitted and the turkey's life spared," White House reporter Noah Brooks wrote in an 1865 dispatch recalling the event, writes Melissa Kravitz in Mic. Read on: 

While millions of Americans are picking out their perfect, plastic-wrapped turkeys at supermarkets across the nation, President Trump is protecting one lucky turkey from a roasted fate.

In his first poultry-pardoning act as president, Trump pardoned a turkey named Drumstick. (A turkey named Wishbone, the runner-up in a White House Twitter poll, was not publicly pardoned but will join Drumstick in turkey retirement at Virginia Tech). Trump made several attempts to deliver jokes during the pardoning, including a jab at President Barack Obama, who pardoned two turkeys named Tater and Tot in 2016.

"As many of you know, I have been very active in overturning a number of executive actions by my predecessor. However, I have been informed by the White House counsel office, that Tater and Tot's pardons cannot, under any circumstances, be revoked," Trump said during this year's turkey pardon.

But why does the commander in chief of the United States of America, whose responsibilities most of the year have absolutely nothing to do with farm animals, pardon a turkey before Thanksgiving every year? Though President George Washington officially declared Thanksgiving as a national holiday in 1789, the tradition of pardoning a turkey came decades later.

According to the White House Historical Association, the tradition of pardoning dates back to President Abraham Lincoln's clemency to a turkey, a speech given in 1863. "A live turkey had been brought home for the Christmas dinner, but [Lincoln's son Tad] interceded in behalf of its life. . . . [Tad's] plea was admitted and the turkey's life spared," White House reporter Noah Brooks wrote in an 1865 dispatch recalling the event. Leave it to Honest Abe's son to continue the family legacy.

President Ronald Reagan with a White House turkey  Ron Edmonds/AP

In the 1870s, Rhode Island poultry farmer Horace Vose, known as "The Poultry King," sent slaughtered and dressed birds to presidents as gifts. Starting with President Ulysses S. Grant, these Vose turkeys, served at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, became a four-decade tradition, though there's no historical evidence that any turkeys were pardoned following the Lincoln era. 

When Vose passed away in 1913, the gifting of turkeys became fair game, and "turkey gifts had become established as a national symbol of good cheer," the White House Historical Association wrote.

These gifted turkeys, however, were all dead and ready for roasting, until 1947, when the National Turkey Federation and the Poultry and Egg National Board gifted live turkeys to President Harry Truman. Making a show of it, Truman staged a photo op with his 42-pound Texas tom, in an image that has become iconic with historic presidential pardoning.

President Harry Truman with a turkey in 1952  Henry Griffin/AP

The Truman Library, however, notes it has "no documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records in our holdings which refer to Truman pardoning a turkey that he received as a gift in 1947, or at any other time during his Presidency." That turkey's fate was to end up on a platter for Christmas dinner.

President Bill Clinton pardons a turkey in 1999  PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

Several years later, President John F. Kennedy was said to have pardoned a live turkey at a 1963 celebration in which the turkey gifted to him had a sign hung around its neck reading, "Good eating, Mr. President." Nothing like a live turkey to put you off drumsticks! "We'll just let this one grow," Kennedy said of his gifted turkey and the LA Times headlined that event as a "presidential pardon," though it's unclear if the turkey actually survived beyond the holiday season.

During his term, President Richard Nixon chose to send the birds gifted to him to a local petting zoo rather than the White House kitchen, though, that was not deemed a pardon but rather perhaps an avoidance of guilt about eating an animal with which he had become acquainted. This event was not called Turkeygate, but it's never too late to go back and rename historical events.

In a Nov. 23, 1987 informal exchange with reporters, President Ronald Reagan became the first president in office to use the word "pardon," to distract from political conversation, specifically about the Iran-Contra affair. He referred jokingly to Charlie, a turkey gifted to him by The National Turkey Federation that was sent to a petting zoo, at the aptly named Frying Pan Farm in Fairfax, Virginia, and pardoned, the Guardian reported.

George H.W. Bush with a turkey at the White House  Marcy Nighswander/AP

It wasn't until November 17, 1989, that the tradition of turkey pardoning as we now know it took place. In his first Thanksgiving in office, President George H. W. Bush officially pardoned a Thanksgiving bird. "Let me assure you, and this fine tom turkey, that he will not end up on anyone's dinner table, not this guy. He's granted a presidential pardon as of right now," Bush told reporters. He also noted that the turkey looked nervous, a comment that his son, George W. Bush would reuse in his own future turkey pardoning, TIME noticed.

Every November since 1989, presidents have continued to pardon American turkeys, though that hasn't stopped them from gobbling down turkey at the White House's annual Thanksgiving dinner. Politics, ey?

What’s the real history of Black Friday?

It makes sense that the term “Black Friday” might refer to the single day of the year when retail companies finally go “into the black” (i.e. make a profit). The day after Thanksgiving is, of course, when crowds of turkey-stuffed shoppers descend on stores all over the country to take advantage of the season’s biggest holiday bargains. But the real story behind Black Friday is a bit more complicated—and darker—than that.

The first recorded use of the term “Black Friday” was applied not to holiday shopping but to financial crisis: specifically, the crash of the U.S. gold market on September 24, 1869. Two notoriously ruthless Wall Street financiers, Jay Gould and Jim Fisk, worked together to buy up as much as they could of the nation’s gold, hoping to drive the price sky-high and sell it for astonishing profits. On that Friday in September, the conspiracy finally unraveled, sending the stock market into free-fall and bankrupting everyone from Wall Street barons to farmers.

The most commonly repeated story behind the post-Thanksgiving shopping-related Black Friday tradition links it to retailers. As the story goes, after an entire year of operating at a loss (“in the red”) stores would supposedly earn a profit (“went into the black”) on the day after Thanksgiving, because holiday shoppers blew so much money on discounted merchandise. Though it’s true that retail companies used to record losses in red and profits in black when doing their accounting, this version of Black Friday’s origin is the officially sanctioned—but inaccurate—story behind the tradition.

In recent years, another myth has surfaced that gives a particularly ugly twist to the tradition, claiming that back in the 1800s Southern plantation owners could buy slaves at a discount on the day after Thanksgiving. Though this version of Black Friday’s roots has understandably led some to call for a boycott of the retail holiday, it has no basis in fact.

The true story behind Black Friday, however, is not as sunny as retailers might have you believe. Back in the 1950s, police in the city of Philadelphia used the term to describe the chaos that ensued on the day after Thanksgiving, when hordes of suburban shoppers and tourists flooded into the city in advance of the big Army-Navy football game held on that Saturday every year. Not only would Philly cops not be able to take the day off, but they would have to work extra-long shifts dealing with the additional crowds and traffic. Shoplifters would also take advantage of the bedlam in stores to make off with merchandise, adding to the law enforcement headache.

By 1961, “Black Friday” had caught on in Philadelphia, to the extent that the city’s merchants and boosters tried unsuccessfully to change it to “Big Friday” in order to remove the negative connotations. The term didn’t spread to the rest of the country until much later, however, and as recently as 1985 it wasn’t in common use nationwide. Sometime in the late 1980s, however, retailers found a way to reinvent Black Friday and turn it into something that reflected positively, rather than negatively, on them and their customers. The result was the “red to black” concept of the holiday mentioned earlier, and the notion that the day after Thanksgiving marked the occasion when America’s stores finally turned a profit. (In fact, stores traditionally see bigger sales on the Saturday before Christmas.)

The Black Friday story stuck, and pretty soon the term’s darker roots in Philadelphia were largely forgotten. Since then, the one-day sales bonanza has morphed into a four-day event, and spawned other “retail holidays” such as Small Business Saturday/Sunday and Cyber Monday. Stores started opening earlier and earlier on that Friday, and now the most dedicated shoppers can head out right after their Thanksgiving meal. According to a pre-holiday survey this year by the National Retail Federation, an estimated 135.8 million Americans definitely plan to shop over the Thanksgiving weekend (58.7 percent of those surveyed), though even more (183.8 million, or 79.6 percent) said they would or might take advantage of the online deals offered on Cyber Monday.

(Source: History)