It's Friday the 13th

I just noticed it is Friday the 13th. What can go wrong today?---BBB

Friday the 13th
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Friday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on a Friday, which superstition holds to be a day of bad luck. In the Gregorian calendar, this day occurs at least once, but at most three times a year. Any month's 13th day will fall on a Friday if the month starts on a Sunday.

Phobia

The fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigga being the name of the Norse goddess for whom "Friday" is named and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen), or paraskevidekatriaphobia[1][2] a concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή, meaning "Friday"), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς, meaning "thirteen") attached to phobía (φοβία, from phóbos, φόβος, meaning "fear"). The latter word was derived in 1911[citation needed] and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953.

History
Rossini by Henri Grevedon

According to folklorists, there is no written evidence for a "Friday the 13th" superstition before the 19th century.[4][5][6] The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in Henry Sutherland Edwards' 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini:

Rossini was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; Why Friday the 13th Is Unlucky

Consequently, several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.

One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.

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 tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, twelve gods of Olympus, 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.

A theory by author Charles Panati, one of the leading authorities on the subject of "Origins," maintains that the superstition can be traced back to ancient myth:

The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of thirteen — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as "Witches' Sabbath."

Another theory about the origin of this superstition traces to the arrest of the legendary Knights Templar.

The Knights Templar were a monastic military order founded in Jerusalem, in the year 1118. Their original mission was to guide and protect Christian pilgrims along the path from Europe to Jerusalem during the Crusades. Through this mission, the Templars developed a banking system to protect the finances of the traveling pilgrims, eventually expanding this banking system throughout their holdings in Europe. Over time, France's Philip IV amassed a substantial debt to the Knights Templar, due to their years of service to the crown. He had nearly depleted his money, from France's ongoing battles with England. In the Knights' rise to power, King Phillip became envious of them, so he set his sights on their famed fortunes. Philip devised a plan to arrest all the Knights in a single day, and charge them with crimes so heinous that no person or group would dare come to their defense. The charges against them were religious in nature, and backed by the papacy of the Vatican and Pope Clement V. His plan was swift and carefully crafted, so as not to alert the Templars in advance.
Knights Templar and Philip IV

King Phillip's orders were sent a month in advance to the King's Men and other Bailiffs, with instructions not to open the orders until dawn of Friday, October 13, 1307. The charges against the Templars were of the highest accusations of heresy: that the Knights Templar had asked members to spit on the cross and to step on it, to deny Christ, to perform homosexual acts, and so on. The king's orders were to engage and arrest every Templar in France. All Templar outposts, homes, wineries, mills, and castles were to be taken in the name of the King of France and Pope Clement V. The nationwide arrest was widely successful, with medieval torture tactics used to obtain confessions from the Knights. This act against the Templar Order is now viewed as one of the most unlucky days in History - Friday the 13th.

Following their arrest and confessions, King Phillip attempted to further disgrace the Templars in a public manner. At a large event in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral, he would have Templar Grand Master Jacques De Molay publicly admit to guilt of heresy. Instead, the incarcerated grandmaster took to the forum and apologized to the people - and to the Knights Templar - for his weakness, and for the signing of forced confessions. He rescinded his original confession, and testified to the public that he, his men, and all Knights Templar were innocent, despite their forced confessions. An embarrassed King Phillip was so enraged by the old man's actions as to have him burned at the stake, along with his second-in-command. De Molay's dying last words were to curse King Phillip and Pope Clement V, declaring that by year's end, each would meet his demise. Both men died that year, thus adding to the superstition of the Friday the 13th, and to the notion of the Templars' powers.

The connection between the Friday the 13th superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. However, some experts think that it is a relatively recent correlation and is a modern-day invention. For example, records of the superstition are rarely found before the 20th century, when it became extremely common. 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.

In Spanish-speaking countries, instead of Friday, Tuesday the 13th is considered a day of bad luck, commonly referred to as 'Martes y trece' (Literally translates to: Tuesday and thirteen). The Fall of Constantinople, when the city fell to the Ottomans, marks the end of the Byzantine Empire. It happened on Tuesday, May 29, 1453. That is why the Greeks also consider Tuesday to be an unlucky day.

Social impact

According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, an estimated 17 to 21 million people in the United States are affected by a fear of this day. Some people are so paralyzed by fear that they avoid their normal routines in doing business, taking flights or even getting out of bed. "It's been estimated that [US]$800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day". Despite this, representatives for both Delta and Continental Airlines say that their airlines do not suffer from any noticeable drop in travel on those Fridays.

Rate of accidents

There are conflicting studies about the risk of accidents on Friday the 13th. The Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) on June 12, 2008, stated that "fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays, because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home. Statistically speaking, driving is slightly safer on Friday the 13th, at least in the Netherlands; in the last two years, Dutch insurers received reports of an average 7,800 traffic accidents each Friday; but the average figure when the 13th fell on a Friday was just 7,500. However, a 1993 study in the British Medical Journal that compared the ratio of traffic accidents between Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th stated that there is a significant increase in traffic-related accidents on Friday the 13th. There are indications that there are more accidents on Fridays than average weekdays (irrespective of the date) probably because of alcohol consumption. Therefore it is less relevant for this purpose to compare Friday the 13th with any other 13th day of another month.