Thursday 13 ~ #13

I feel like I should do something creepy for this one since it is the 13th one I am doing on Thursday 13... Maybe I should do 13 interesting things about the number 13....

1. In spoken English, the numbers 13 and 30 are often confused.

2. There’s an old superstition that says if you have 13 letters in your name, you’re bound to have the devil’s luck. Silly, yes, but slightly more convincing when you consider that Charles Manson, Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all contain 13 letters 

3. In Judaism, 13 signifies the age at which a boy matures and becomes a Bar Mitzvah, i.e., a full member of the Jewish faith (counts as a member of Minyan).

4. The number 13 had been considered sinister and wicked in ancient Iranian civilization and Zoroastrianism.

5. The number 13 is considered an unlucky number in some countries

6. At Jesus Christ's last supper, there were thirteen people around the table, counting Christ and the twelve apostles.

7. On Friday 13 October 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar and most of the knights were tortured and killed.

8. A year with 13 full moons instead of 12 posed problems for the monks in charge of the calendars. "This was considered a very unfortunate circumstance, especially by the monks who had charge of the calendar of thirteen months for that year, and it upset the regular arrangement of church festivals. For this reason thirteen came to be considered an unlucky number.

9. In Italy, 13 is also considered a lucky number

10. Apollo 13 was a NASA Moon mission famous for being a "successful failure" in 1970.

11. There’s a Norse legend that has 12 gods sitting down to a banquet when the 13th (uninvited) god, Loki, shows up. Loki killed one of the other gods, which led to events that eventually resulted in Ragnarok — the death of a bunch of gods, a slew of natural disasters, and the eradication of everything on earth save for two human survivors. There’s a lot more to the story than that, but you get the general idea.

12. Traditionally, there used to be 13 steps leading up the gallows.

13. Apollo 13 is the only unsuccessful moon mission (intended to get men on the moon, anyway) thus far. An oxygen tank exploded and the survival of the astronauts on board was pretty touch-and-go for several days, but they did all come home safely in the end (but you already knew that).