Happy Friday the 13th! Brand Engagement Director Brianna here to talk to you about the history and lore behind this supposedly unlucky day.

Before masked mothers and sons started tormenting campers, there was fear surrounding the number 13 in combination with Fridays. The fear of the number 13 even has a name: triskaidekaphobia. Why is this number and day so haunting to us?

As with many superstitions, it likely goes back to a mythological and/or religious origin. In Norse mythology, Loki supposedly crashed a banquet at Valhalla, which increased the godly attendance from 12 to 13. Loki, being the trickster god he is, deceived the blind god Hodr; Hodr shot his brother Baldur, the god of light, joy, and goodness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow, killing him instantly.

By the beginning of the Christian era, this fear of 13 was well-established thanks to Norse mythology’s spread from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean. Judas allegedly made things a lot worse by arriving 13th at the Last Supper, before his eventual betrayal of Jesus. Add on top of that the significance of Fridays in this particular story, and we get the superstition we carry to this day.

Despite ancient origins, the concept of Friday the 13th as a particularly bad day didn't start to pop up in our collective consciousness until the 19th century. It became cemented culturally in the early 20th century thanks to Thomas William Lawson’s novel “Friday, the 13th,” depicting a stock broker selecting it as the day in which he will set about events that would devastate Wall Street.

Outside of fiction, has anything bad actually happened on Friday the 13th? Seeing as it is more common in the Gregorian calendar for the 13th of the month to fall on a Friday than any other day of the week, yes:

The “Black Friday” fires (January 1939): 71 people died as a direct result, and 438 more died due to the resulting heat wave.
The German bombing of Buckingham Palace (September 1940): That this led to only one death is astonishing.
A cyclone in Bangladesh (November 1970): This storm killed more than 300,000 people.
The disappearance of a Uruguayan Air Force plane in the Andes, and a similarly devastating plane crash in Russia — the worst in the nation’s history (October 1972): While there were many casualties, at least 16 individuals survived in the Andes. Unfortunately, all 174 passengers on the Russian plane died.
The death of rapper Tupac Shakur (September 1996): Perhaps justice will be coming in this case.
The crash of the Costa Concordia cruise ship off the coast of Italy (January 2012): It ended up killing 30 people.
The COVID-19 pandemic officially starts in the U.S. (March 2020): It was the beginning of a totally chill and unifying time.

But is this a true curse, or simply a self-fulfilling prophecy? After all, there is historical evidence of humanity ascribing luck to the number 13.

In some pre-Christian cultures, the number 13 may have been considered fortuitous due to its connection to the number of lunar cycles in a year and its connotations with fertility. To demonstrate this, we have The Venus of Laussel: a prehistoric limestone carving that depicts a feminine figure cradling a pregnant stomach with one hand and holding a crescent-shaped horn in the other. The horn bears 13 notches; if this carving represented a goddess of fertility, as many scholars believe, then 13 may have been considered lucky for reproductive health.

For any remaining skeptics, consider the plenty of good things that have happened on a Friday the 13th:

The accordion was patented (January 1854): We dare you to suggest Weird Al’s beloved instrument being patented is a bad thing.
The first woman flight instructor was licensed (October 1939): Talk about feminine power.
LBJ signed an executive order designed to eliminate gender discrimination in hiring (October 1967): And this was just the start of equal employment opportunities expansions!
Malta became a republic (December 1974): We love that independence journey for them.
“Super Mario Bros.” was released in Japan (September 1985): It came to the U.S. a month later.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s births (June 1986): Elder Millennials are forever grateful for our passports to Paris.
Taylor Swift’s 13th birthday (December 2002): Swift has often regarded 13 as her lucky number, for a host of reasons. Despite your opinion of her music, her tour did stimulate the economy so maybe she’s onto something.
Water was found on the Moon (November 2009): Let’s hope we don’t need it for a while.
Finland uses Friday the 13th as an excuse to improve safety awareness (September 2013): For the past 10 years, the country has held Accident Day on a Friday the 13th to increase awareness of road and workplace accidents, in hopes of seeing fewer people die in these incidents.

And on an extremely personal note, one of my best friends in this world was born on a Friday the 13th, and goodness knows how lucky I am to have Ashley in my life for 26 years and counting.

So there you have it: the history behind the superstition, the confirmation bias that makes this superstition stronger, and a few reasons to talk yourself out of feeling spooked today. Go forth with your Friday the 13th as you wish!