Friday the 13th is considered by many superstitious people in the world, especially in Europe, North and South America, Australia. On that day, travel, contracts and other important things are avoided, fearing bad luck.
There are many beliefs about the origin of the superstition on Friday the 13th, starting with the fact that Eve in heaven deceived Adam with the apple on Friday, that the biblical flood occurred on that day, that God mixed the languages of the Tower of Babel on the 13th, and Jesus Christ was crucified on Friday. The "unfortunate" number 13 is also associated with the belief that exactly that many people were at the Last Supper.
However, as the most convincing belief in the origin of the myth of Friday the 13th, historians point to the event that took place on October 13, 1307, when the French King Philip IV ordered the arrest and execution of the Templar leader Jacques de Molay and sixty of his closest supporters.
The Templar chase quickly spread throughout Europe. Hundreds of members of the Christian military order Templars, formed during the first crusade in 1096, were arrested, tortured and killed to force themselves to "confess" their alleged heresy.
Pope Clement V banned the Temple Order in 1314, after which it continued to exist in secret.
From that Friday 13, 1307, the followers of the Templars consider that day as unlucky and as the day of the devil.
The superstition about Friday the 13th or the "unlucky" number 13 was fueled by the rich film and publishing production with numerous works on that very topic, including the Hollywood movie series Friday the 13th, the mysterious novella "Thirteen at Dinner" by Agatha Christie and the drama around the Apollo 13 spacecraft mission, for which a film has been made.
