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18 terrible things that happened on Friday the 13th

A photograph taken early on January 14, 2012 of the Costa Concordia after the cruise ship with more than 4,000 people on board ran aground and keeled over off the Isola del Giglio, and Italian island
The Costa Concordia began sinking on January 13, 2012.

STRINGER/AFP/Getty Images

  • December 13 is a Friday the 13th.
  • Friday the 13th has been a superstitious date for a very long time, but no one knows exactly why.
  • There are multiple examples of terrible or tragic events happening on these Fridays in history.

Friday the 13th is so famously unlucky that there's even a phobia dedicated to it: friggatriskaidekaphobia.

Even if you personally don't put stock in this fear, there are a lot of people who do. The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute even estimated in 2013 that between $800 and $900 million are lost in business every Friday the 13th because people are afraid to shop, travel, and conduct business.

Still think it's just a superstition? These events might be enough to convince even the most determined non-believer.

Buckingham Palace was bombed during WWII.
Queen Elizabeth (1900 - 2002) and King George VI (1895 - 1952) inspect the bomb damage at Buckingham Palace in London, after an air raid during the Blitz, 10th September 1940.
Queen Elizabeth and King George VI survey the damage.

Fox Photos/Getty Images

German forces during WWII bombed Buckingham Palace on September 13, 1940. The bombs hit both the palace and its chapel.

Even scarier, the king and queen were at the residence at the time of the attack. Even though the event was traumatic, Queen Elizabeth II โ€” then a princess โ€” merely stated she was "glad we have been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face," the BBC reported.

March 13, 2020, could be considered the first official day of the pandemic in the US.
In this photo illustration a woman puts a sign saying "no face mask no entry" in a shop window on September 14, 2020 in Newport, Wales
Masks were seemingly everywhere in just a few short days.

Matthew Horwood/Getty Images

After a week of increasingly heartbreaking COVID-19 updates, then-President Donald Trump declared a national emergency due to the pandemic.

Tupac Shakur died.
Rapper Tupac Shakur poses for photos backstage after his performance at the Regal Theater in Chicago, Illinois in March 1994.
Tupac Shakur was shot on a Saturday but died six days later on the 13th.

Getty/Raymond Boyd

Shakur was shot four times on September 7, 1996, in Las Vegas. He succumbed to his injuries six days later on Friday, September 13.

In September 2023, police arrested one of the last surviving witnesses to his killing for the murder. Duane "Keffe D" Davis was indicted by a jury in Clark County, Nevada, on one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, plus a gang enhancement.

The arrest came after Davis spoke multiple times publicly โ€” including in a memoir โ€” about his involvement in the case. Davis, who remains in custody, pleaded not guilty in November 2023.

A British 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning on a Friday the 13th, at 13:13.
Lightning bolts strike One World Trade Center in New York City as it fans out over the Hudson River and Jersey City, New Jersey during a thunderstorm on April 1, 2023
13:13 is 1:13 in military time.

Gary Hershorn/Getty Images

The Daily Mail reported that the unnamed teenager was struck by lightning while at an air show in England in 2010 and, incredibly, only sustained burns on his shoulder. The hospital stated he was expected to make a full recovery.

Kitty Genovese, a Queens resident, was brutally attacked and murdered.
Studio photo of Catherine "Kitty" Genovese, 28. Lips closed and no help was offered when Kitty was knifed on Austin Street in Kew Gardens, in a crime that disgraced New York City
Kitty Genovese's murder is an infamous New York story.

New York Daily News Archive/NY Daily News/Getty Images

The murder of Kitty Genovese took place on March 13, 1964. The New York Times reported Genovese was assaulted and killed by Winston Moseley inside her apartment building. The crime is famous because, reportedly, 38 people heard the attack, and none of them called the police โ€” making the "bystander effect" a household term.

It was later suggested that the reporting of the crime was inaccurate and greatly exaggerated. But no matter the specifics, an innocent woman died.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy.
Costa Concordia
The Costa Concordia laid on its side.

REUTERS / Tony Gentile

The Costa Concordia sank into the ocean on January 13, 2012. It became the largest passenger ship ever wrecked, with almost double the number of people on board than on the Titanic.

Thirty-two people died, and the captain was convicted of manslaughter in 2015.

Kansas experienced record-breaking amounts of rain and flooding.
kansas flood 1951
People pushed boats through flood water in Kansas in 1951.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

On July 13, 1951, the state of Kansas was hit with over 25 inches of rain. The cities of Manhattan, Lawrence, and Topeka were most affected, and over 2 million acres of land were damaged by the flood.

The storm also affected oil tanks, some of which caught on fire and exploded. There were passengers stuck on trains for four days. And, at its highest, the flooding exceeded previous records by 4 to 9 feet.

The people of Kansas were not wrong to call this day "Black Friday."

The stock market experienced a "mini-crash" in 1989.
A trader reacts during the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on February 28, 2020 at Wall Street in New York City
"Mini" is a relative term.

JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

After the buyout of United Airlines fell through on October 13, 1989, the ripples were felt throughout the stock market, specifically the junk bond market.

CNBC reported this resulted in a 7% sell-off in the Dow, and the S&P 500 lost 6%. Essentially, a lot of people lost a lot of money.

A flight through the Andes ended in disaster and death.
andes plane crash
This event has been dramatized in multiple films.

Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images

Uruguayan Flight 571 was headed toward Chile when it crash-landed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. In the following days, the survivors were reduced to hiding in the fuselage of the plane and eating deceased passengers.

The rescue efforts were called off only 10 days after the crash, so it was shocking when two men appeared 72 days later and alerted the authorities that there were 16 other survivors trapped in the mountains.

On that same day, another flight crashed in Russia.
The Sukhoi Superjet 100 owned by CITYJET an Irish airline, leased to Brussels Airlines. Brussels airlines leased 5 of the SSJ100 aircrafts from CITYJET.
The plane was headed to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto/Getty Images

At the time, the tragedy of Aeroflot 217 was the worst plane crash in Russian history. All 174 people on board the flight (including the 10 crew members) died when the plane crashed while trying to land due to bad weather.

It's never been confirmed what the cause of the crash was โ€” some speculate it was a lightning strike. The plane ended up just 3 miles away from the runway.

The Ku Klux Klan's first Grand Wizard was born.
Two Ku Klux Klansmen with American Flag and Burning Cross
The KKK has been around since 1865.The Bhola cyclone hit Bangladesh.

Bettmann/Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Nathan Bedford Forrest was born on July 13, 1821. Forrest first rose to fame as a Confederate general and was in charge of the infamous Fort Pillow Massacre, where he and his men reportedly killed over 200 unarmed Union soldiers who had surrendered (many of whom were Black).

Forrest is widely believed to have served as the KKK's first Grand Wizard, though he would later decree that the organization should be demolished, PBS reported.

Computers fell victim to the "Friday the 13th Virus."
Node.js coding
The virus affected computers made by IBM.

Shutterstock / photovibes

On January 13, 1989, a computer virus swept through the UK. The Los Angeles Times reported hundreds of computers were affected by the virus, which deleted personal files specifically on the unlucky date.

The virus also slowed computers down, but fortunately didn't cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The Bhola cyclone hit Bangladesh.
cyclone damage
Some of the damage from the cyclone.

AP Images

The storm officially ended on November 13, 1970, but its effects are still being felt today.

The Bhola cyclone is still the deadliest storm in the Bay of Bengal โ€” the death toll is estimated to be from 150,000 to 550,000, according to NBC News. One district in Bangladesh lost over 45% of its population.

In addition to being deadly and extremely costly, the cyclone is credited with jump-starting a civil war. At the time of the storm, the area was called East Pakistan. The Pakistani mismanagement of the relief efforts was considered to be a huge event in the fight for Bangladeshi independence.

Swedish flight DC-3 vanished and was never heard from again.
baltic sea from space nasa
The Baltic Sea from space.

NASA

A Swedish flight disappeared while flying over the Baltic Sea on June 13, 1952. And for 40 years, the Swedish government stuck by the story that the plane was merely performing training exercises.

However, National Geographic wrote that in the '90s, it was leaked that the crewmembers were actually spying on the Soviet Union for NATO, even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Cold War. And Russia responded with its own confession: A Russian pilot told a Swedish diplomat that he had shot the plane down.

The city of Buffalo, New York, was hit with a freak blizzard.
Snowstorm blizzard
Buffalo is no stranger to snow.

Reuters/Rickey Rogers

It's been called the "October Surprise." From October 12 to October 13, 2006, western New York was hit with two feet of snow. Over 300,000 people were left without power, thousands of trees were damaged, and the governor of New York declared a state of emergency for the Buffalo region.

The Black Friday bushfires consumed Victoria, Australia.
california wildfires
Wildfires are common in the summer months.

Associated Press/Noah Berger

The fires in Victoria from 1939 to 1940 were the culmination of a long, dry summer. But on January 13, 1939, the Black Friday bushfires consumed the area: 71 people died directly from the fire, another 438 from the resulting heatwave, and 575,000 hectares of land were burned to a crisp.

The ash that resulted from the two days of flames was intense. There were reports of it reaching as far as New Zealand.

Daredevil Sam Patch plunged to his death in the Genesee River in 1829.
A waterfall on the Genesee River in Rochester, New York State. The High Bridge can be seen in the background
The site of Patch's last stunt.

William England/Getty Images

Sam Patch was America's first professional daredevil, according to Atlas Obscura. Throughout his life, he jumped from many great heights, including Niagara Falls twice.

So, when he decided to jump from the High Falls into the Genesee River, no one thought to be concerned, but it quickly became apparent that something was wrong.

While some speculated that he was drunk, it's never been known for sure what exactly happened to Patch when he jumped into the river. But on November 13, Patch jumped, and his body was found four months later.

In 2029, an asteroid will come extremely close to Earth.
asteroid meteor armageddon shutterstock
The asteroid was named 99942 Apophis.

Vadim Sadovski/Shutterstock

According to NASA, an asteroid, 99942 Apophis., will come within 20,000 miles of the Earth on April 13, 2029. This might not seem like a big deal, but it's actually extremely close in relation to space.

Although it's not expected to actually hit our planet, the closeness of the asteroid could cause damage on its surface โ€” the gravity of Earth might cause avalanches on Apophis.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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