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Friggatriskaidekaphobics , mind : Today is the first of three Friday the 13ths this yr . ( The other two gloam in March and November . )
This date , of course , is associated with bad luck and superstitious notion , which is why it has its own phobic disorder — " Frigg " was a Norse goddess who originally lent her name to the give-and-take that became " Friday , " and " triskaidekaphobia " is thefear of the phone number 13 . Statistically speaking , the sidereal day isnot more unsafe than any other . But even the great unwashed who do n’t forefend black Caterpillar or fear walking under ladders can have a lilliputian fun with Friday the 13th .
Read on for some of the unknown , most tragic and but ill-famed events that have occurred on Friday the 13ths throughout chronicle . [ What Really Scares masses : Top 10 Phobias ]
1 . A hothead ’s death leap
PerhapsFriday the 13thwasn’t the best sidereal day to stage a bound into New York ’s Genesee River . But then again , concern over the date may never have occurred to Sam Patch , an other daredevil who made his name by spring off a cliff near Niagara Falls on Oct. 17 , 1829 . Patch , who was born around 1800 , lived before Friday the 13th superstition were prevalent . ( They probably issue nigher to the end of the 1800s , or at least that ’s whenfolklorists discover the first written phonograph recording . )
A child John Stuart Mill actor , Patch would get an adrenaline rush by bound off of mill decameter — a talent he eventually spun into public stunt shows for cash . The Niagara leap made him a national name . Less than a calendar month later , however , Patch get in Rochester " one-half drunk , " according to " Sam Patch , the Famous Jumper " ( Hill and Wang , 2003 ) by Paul E. Johnson . Some 10,000 multitude amass to watch Patch saltation from Genesee Falls on Friday , Nov. 13 , 1829 .
What happen next is mislay to history , but an1883 clause in The New York Timesreported that Patch " did not keep the position while descend or strike the water as he did on the former occasion , " when he had antecedently made a standardized jump . Whatever occurred , the Friday the 13th leaping was Patch ’s last .
2 . The " Black Friday " fire
On Jan. 13 , 1939 , a bushfire tore through Australia ’s Victoria province , killing 36 the great unwashed in one day . This " Black Friday " flame was the deadly icing on top of a terrible fire season for the province . According to Australian Emergency Management , a total of 71 masses died that January , and 75 percent of the state was affected by the flames .
Drought exacerbated the already - ironical Australian summer that class , and amateur attempts to back - burn dry flora all too often spread out of control , contributing to the blazes that pass around across the state . All told , about 1,300 buildings , including 700 home , were destroy in the January blaze . [ Top 10 Deadliest Natural Disasters in History ]
3 . Buckingham Palace bombed
DuringWorld War II , Nazi Germany set about an intensive bombing campaign against the United Kingdom , targeting London in especial . On 16 occasions , Buckingham Palace itself was hit , according to the City of Westminster Archives Centre .
One of the most destructive of these hit go on on a Friday the 13th . On Sept. 13 , 1940 , Queen Elizabeth and King George VI were at tea , according to the Archives . Five bombs strike the palace , one of which destroyed the interior of the Royal Chapel . Another ruptured a water briny . Three people were wound , one fatally .
Additional bombings would follow , but the palace survived the state of war with only slight price .
4 . Kansas floods
July 13 , 1951 , was an exceedingly inauspicious day for northeastern Kansas . The rains had been coming down intemperately and gravid since July 9 , bringing up to 16 in ( 40 centimeters ) of hurry to the Kansas , Neosho , Verdigris and Marais Des Cygnes rivers . On that Friday the 13th , records were split . In Topeka , the Kansas River rose to 40.8 feet ( 12.4 meters ) , which was 14.8 human foot ( 4.5 m ) above flood level and 6 foot ( 1.8 m ) higher than any flood ever measured to that date , according to the National Weather Service ( NWS ) .
Topeka was swamped , as was Lawrence . In the Manhattan , Kansas , business territory , the water stand at 8 foot ( 2.4 molar concentration ) cryptic . It was the undivided worst sidereal day offlood destructionin the Midwest to that date , according to the NWS . Twenty - eight people died , and another 500,000 were displaced until the water receded . The NWS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers approximate the price amount to $ 935 million at the meter , which is tantamount to $ 6.4 billion in today ’s dollar bill .
5 . A Cold War crisis
On Friday , June 13 , 1952 , theCold Warturned red-hot when the Soviet Union shot down a Swedish military transport carpenter’s plane . Eight people were on add-in the plane , which the Swedish authorities assert was merely on a breeding flight . For its part , the Soviet Union adjudge it had no involvement in shoot down the lost DC-3 .
However , a life sentence raft with shrapnel damage was happen during the lookup for the wreckage , according to the Swedish Air Force Museum . And one of the rescue planing machine ( a Catalina ) was shot down by Soviet fighters bare day after the DC-3 disappeared .
Both Sweden ’s and the Soviet Union ’s stories eventually fell asunder . Almost 40 years after the so - called " Catalina Affair , " Swedish officials admit that the sheet was a spy plane . similarly , in 1991 , the Soviet Union admitted to shooting the planer down . In 2003 , the wreckage of the drop off plane was rule on the level of theBaltic Sea . Four crewmembers were name , but the other four stay missing . The remains of the woodworking plane are on video display at the Swedish Air Force Museum . [ vanish Saucers to Mind Control : 7 Declassified & Military Secrets ]
6 . A murder goes cut
One of New York ’s most bestial and notorious murders occurred on Friday the 13th . On March 13 , 1964 , bar managing director Kitty Genovese was stabbed and knock by a stranger , Winston Moseley . The attack took more than a half - hour , and anearly New York Times articlereported that 38 mass witness the attack and failed to call the police . The tragical casing became a staple fiber in psychology classes as a way to illustrate the " bystander essence , " or " Kitty Genoese syndrome , " which happens when people fail to represent in a situation because they assume someone else will step in .
The narration come along to be more complicated , however;subsequent journalistic investigationsrevealed that this initial clause inflated the numeral of witness and the routine of onslaught , and that it mistakenly claim that Genovese was already dead by the time ambulances go far . Several witnesses did see parts of the fire and turned away , but most get a line only snippet and did not understand the somberness of the situation , or did interpose , albeit not quick enough to save Genovese ’s aliveness .
7 . A baneful cyclone strikes
The pestilent tropic cyclone in story struck on Friday , Nov. 13 , 1970 , in Bangladesh . get landfall that Thursday night , the Bhola cyclone killed at least 300,000 people , according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research .
The storm was equivalent to a family 3 hurricane , with sustained malarkey of 115 mph ( 185 klick / h ) . Even more annihilative was the tempest tide . funnel by the shallow geography of the Bay of Bengal , the ocean push onto landed estate . According to a1970 reportfrom the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration , the surge force piss up to 16 feet ( 5 m ) high . With nowhere to empty to , people climbed trees to run away the rise waters ; many were swept away .
" The in high spirits survival charge per unit was that for adult Male aged 15 to 49 , " researchers report in a1972 article in the diary The Lancet , " which is consistent with the depression that those too infirm to cling to Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree — the old , young , sick and malnourished , and females in cosmopolitan — were selectively lost in the storm . "
8 . An infamous history of survival begins
On Friday the 13th in October 1972 , the Uruguayan Old Christians Club rugby football team boarded a turboprop plane to travel to a mates in Chile . They never made it . Because of a navigational error , the sheet careened into an Andean mint vizor , crash on a high - altitude snowfield .
But the ordeal was only the beginning for 27 of the original 45 rider who survived the clank and its immediate aftermath . Without frigid - conditions gear or much food , they were forced to extemporize water - evaporate devices and finally eat from the bodies of their lose companions — an ordeal record in the 1974 book and 1993 picture " Alive . " An avalanche killed eight more survivors at the end of October , and illness took the life story of others .
Incredibly , rescue did not follow until the end of December , after two survivor launched a end - hold feat to hike out of the tough terrain for supporter . The last of the 16 survivors were rescued on Dec. 23 , 1972 , after 72 sidereal day in the frigid wilderness .
9 . A lesser - bed plane clank vote out 174
According to a statistical analytic thinking by the Aviation Safety connection ( ASN ) , superstitious passengers need not care about fell on Friday the 13th . The " unlucky " day is no more prone to plane crash than any other . In fact , the overallrate of fatal crasheson Friday the 13th is lower than the average of all twenty-four hours .
But Oct. 13 , 1972 , was not a bully twenty-four hours to fly . The same day the turboprop plane carrying the rugger team go down in the Andes , a much turgid flying crash near Moscow ’s Sheremetyevo Airport in Russia , allot to the ASN . The Ilyushin-62 plane was carrying 164 passengers and 10 crewmembers from Paris to Moscow , with a stop in Leningrad . As the plane approached the airport , it fly into the dry land at an air speed of 385 mph ( 620 kilometre / h ) . Everyone on board was kill .
According to the ASN , the case of the accident was never determined . mechanically skillful malfunction is one possibility , or the pilot may have lost control due to a lightning strike .
10 . Tupac Shakur dies
Friday , Sept. 13 , 1996 , was a tragic Clarence Shepard Day Jr. for hip - hop , when rapper Tupac Shakur buy the farm of gunfire injuries in a Las Vegas infirmary . Shakur had been injure on Sept. 7 in a still - unsolved drive - by shooting and drop dead from those injury on Friday the 13th .
Theories on the ultimate motive for the murder rapidly proliferated : business disputes , personal feud , gang violence . Some die - hard confederacy theorizer deny to believe that Shakur really died , and importune that he is still animated somewhere , in hiding . [ 20 of the best conspiracy theories ]
11 . A headmaster of suspense turn 100
Alfred Hitchcock was born on Aug. 13 , 1899 — a Sunday . That ’s two sidereal day off of double-dyed revulsion - movie - myth kismet , but never fear : The noted film maker would have turned 100 on Aug. 13 , 1999 , which was — you venture it — a Friday .
Hitchcock ’s work as a managing director was dark and often spooky , from the homicidal " Psycho " to the creepy-crawly " Rear Window " and the obsessive " Vertigo . "
12 . junky blizzard hit Buffalo
Residents of Buffalo , New York , have come to have a bun in the oven a portion of snow in the winter month . But 22 inch ( 56 curium ) in the middle of October ?
That was the snow totality record at the Buffalo airport on Oct. 13 , 2006 , during the " Friday the 13th " blizzard . ( The townspeople of Depew and Alden , New York , aim 24 inches , or 61 cm ) . The tempest was so unprecedented that NOAA ’s history of the snowstorm can barely take itself : " Words can not do DoJ to the astounding issue which opened the 2006 - 2007 season,“reads the bureau ’s web site .
The snow that fell on Buffalo and upstate New York begin that Thursday afternoon and continuing into Friday was heavy and wet , and because the tree had not yet lose their leafage , branches break down like matchstick under the combined weighting . Almost 1 million people lost power for up to a week because of the violent storm , according to NOAA .
13 . A cruise ship capsizes
On Jan. 13 , 2012 , a passive Friday of cruising off the Tuscan coast turned chaotic as the Costa Concordia cruise ship struck a Rand off the Isola del Giglio and began to tilt . At first , rider were evacuated by lifeboat , according to the Associated Press , but as the ship came to rest on its side in the shallow water , survivor had to be lift to shore by helicopter . Thirty - two people died in the wreck .
A massive salvage operation took 19 hours toraise the shipfrom the reef where it came to rest . The maitre d’hotel of the ship , Francesco Schettino , was apprehend for multiple manslaughter and for abandoning the ship instead of directing the evacuation . Perhaps appropriately , the verdict in the compositor’s case is expected this calendar week , right around yet another Friday the 13th .
