Today is the second of two days to acknowledge a Friday the 13th 2017 and I thought it would be fun to share some random little factoids about this day.

1. Some people think any Friday the 13th is unlucky and in some cultures 13 guests at a meal are strictly forbidden. Some people think it's because the 13th guest at the Last Supper was Judas of Iscariot, who betrayed his friend Jesus to the men who would eventually be responsible for his death. While I never thought about that before, I would HOPE no 13th guest at MY house would ever do that to me!
2. And there are other people who think it's really risky to drive anywhere on Friday the 13th but there are some studies that have used actual data from accident statistics and it turns out Friday the 13th is historically one of the SAFEST days to drive!
3. The famous “Hollywood” sign was unveiled on July 13th, 1923. It originally read “Hollywoodland”, advertising a new housing development. Though the sign was the site of one suicide, it has been well tended to and replaced several times as a testament to the film industry.
4. During a crucial baseball game between the Cubs and the Mets in 1969, a black cat ran out onto the field, blew past the Mets and eerily stared into the Cubs' dugout for a full 10 seconds. The Cubs lost that game and then EIGHTEEN of the next 27 games. Did the cat double down on its OWN “curse”? We will never know but it makes for a fun tale.
5. In 2010, a 13 year old boy in England was struck by lightning on Friday the 13th at 13:13 (military time for 1:13 pm). He had a slight burn but was otherwise unhurt!  That's a LOT of “13”s!!!
6. Taylor Swift might also be that lucky. She was born on the 13th, turned 13 years old on a Friday the 13th, her first album went gold in 13 weeks, and her first song to hit Number One had a 13 second intro. Swift also says every time she's won an award she has been sitting in either the 13th row, 13th seat, 13th section or row M, which is the 13th letter. Freaky, right?
7. In 1972, in October on Friday the 13th, the airplane carrying the soccer team from Uraguay crashed in the mountains in Chile and the few survivors who remained were not found for two more months. That experience was made into a movie, Alive!, which showed how they were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive.
8. Fear of the number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia and fear of Friday the 13th is called friggatriskaidekaphobia (sounds like a bad word!).
9. In 2006, again in October, half a million people lost power in and around Buffalo, NY when they got TWO FEET of snow!
10. Every Friday the 13th, the world's economy loses about $900 Million because people are afraid to go to work or travel. That's a lot of superstition!

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