Friday the 13th Again

March13

Friday the 13th for 2 months in a row last happened 11 years ago and it will happen again in 2015. Last month I posted a little trivia about Friday the 13th superstition. This time I found some calendar facts that I thought you might like to see.

National Geographic News has an article about the ominous date that says the max number of Friday the 13ths in a single year can only be three. 2009 is going to have all three, November will hold the next date. The article also says,

But three Friday the 13ths is the yearly maximum, as long as societies continue to mark time with the Gregorian calendar, which Pope Gregory XIII ordered the Catholic Church to adopt in 1582.

The rest of the article goes on to discuss the mathy stuff that you calculating peps might like but I glossed over. Live Science listed their favorite facts about the legendary date, here they are:

Here are five favorite Friday-the-13th facts:

1. Fear of Friday the 13th — one of the most popular myths in science— is called paraskavedekatriaphobia as well as friggatriskaidekaphobia. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.

2. Many hospitals have no room 13, while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor and some airline terminals omit Gate 13.

3. President Franklin D. Rooseveltwould 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.

4.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.

5. 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.