It's that dreaded date again today: FRIDAY 13TH. The day when bad luck is said to strike. When misfortune pounces when you least expect it, more so than on any other day. But why? Though it's clear that superstitions associating Fridays and the number 13 with misfortune date back to the ancient times, some sources assign the precise origin of the black spot on the day itself, Friday the 13th, to a specific historical event,"
It was on Friday, Oct. 13, 1307, that France's King Philip IV had the Knights Templar rounded up for torture and execution. The Knights Templar were an order of warriors within the Roman Catholic Church who banded together to protect Christian travellers visiting Jerusalem in the centuries after the Crusades. The Knights eventually became a rich, powerful ‹ and allegedly corrupt order within the church and were executed for heresy.
So, who knows? The date may be forever cursed by one event that occurred nearly 700 years ago, or by a series of cosmic coincidences.
Or it may be a figment of human beings' collective imaginations.
