"Grand!" exclaim the paraskevidekatriaphobia afflicted, Friday the 13th just after witches and the dead have been around on the 31st of Oct.
But wait, is this really an old superstition as many explain? There are many theories backdating this superstition but most of them seem just conveniently put together.
Friday the 13th superstition...

Today's vision of Friday the 13th is but a combination of those negative attributes. Like wikki says, first recorded on 1869 in a biography of Rossini - ...and if it be true that, like so many other Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday, the 13th of November, he died.

You may find that more than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor, many airports skip the 13th gate, hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13, but even then 13 is one powerful number and because of this extreme views some people may say an all or nothing number.

Very ancient traditions from China, Egypt, Greco-Roman viewed 13 as sacred and it was also very important in sacred geometry and numerology amongst Hebrew interpretation of scriptures, teachings of Merkabah and German Kabbalists.
In some civilizations like the Maya, 13 was seen to hold universal secrets and it was also associated with fertility and female power, other cultures as well as the Maya had adopted the lunar calendar with 13 months. A very powerful number in Metatron's Cube - holding within the Flower of life, a very ancient symbol said to hold many secrets of life.

Some would explain that it was 13 people at the table when Judas betrayed Jesus and therefore send him to crucifixion, on a Friday. According to scriptures Jesus dies on a Friday but is crucified on Wednesday, I think that would be very hard to prove and in any case his death is not supposed to be a bad thing for westerners.

Similar to the above, some have suggested that Friday 13th has its origin in the Norse myth of the death of Baldr; there was a gathering of 12 until Loki came in and made the blind Höðr shoot a mistletoe which kills Baldr. I still don't see how that is connected with luck.

As for Friday, which is named after the Norse goddess Frigg or Frigga, goddess associated both with the power of prophecy and medical skills - and not Freyja goddess of love and fertility as many keep mistaking - is said that when the Norse and German were assimilated by christianity, Frigg was sent to a mountain to be forgotten and in revenge she gets up to no good on Fridays and gathers with 11 other witches to make a cove of 12, with the 13th being the devil.

A few scholars seem to think that Friday the 13th comes from when King Philip order the killing of members of the order of The Knights Templar which occurred on Friday 13th, but most of the records of these event are total fabrications of the church as they didn't want to have been seen to be mocked by the Templars.

Follow the wikki links (the highlighted text) to make your own judgment, but It seems to me that the few negative connotations of number 13 and Friday may have been product of the machinery of the church at the time as an effort to discredit pagan believes and most of all the various movements of magic, divination and scripture interpretation which were gathering force in medieval Europe, yes in the 13th century - a fact which could have been used effectively by the intellectuals of the time.

But I'm amazed that those people doing so much research never new that it was Frigg who told Loki about the only ting that could kill Baldr; a shoot from the mistletoe. They could have connected both the Friday and the 13th with one single myth.

I think the superstition status of Friday the 13th got fueled by the media cover of the Thomas Lawson's "Friday the 13th" and its consequent silent film. This is not the one about Jason though, a more real subject and one that really grab people of the era, the stock market. And many times since, be it Black Friday or Friday the 13th, financiers would place big hype on the day, or even the year with three Friday 13th. Hopefully the stock market doesn't collapse today 13th of November.