19 terrible things that happened on Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th is so famously unlucky that there’s even a phobia dedicated to it: friggatriskaidekaphobia.

Even if you personally don’t put stock in this fear, there are a lot of people who do. The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute even estimated in 2013 that between $800 and $900 million are lost in business every Friday the 13th because people are afraid to shop, travel, and conduct business.

Luckily for believers, this is the only Friday the 13th of 2025. The next one isn’t until February 2026.

But if you still think it’s just a superstition, these events might be enough to convince even the most determined skeptic.

Buckingham Palace was bombed during WWII.

German forces during WWII bombed Buckingham Palace on September 13, 1940. The bombs hit both the palace and its chapel.

Even scarier, the king and queen were at the residence at the time of the attack. Even though the event was traumatic, Queen Elizabeth II — then a princess — merely stated she was “glad we have been bombed. Now I can look the East End in the face,” the BBC reported.

March 13, 2020, could be considered the first official day of the pandemic in the US.

After a week of increasingly heartbreaking COVID-19 updates, then-President Donald Trump declared a national emergency due to the pandemic.

Tupac Shakur died.

Shakur was shot four times on September 7, 1996, in Las Vegas. He succumbed to his injuries six days later on Friday, September 13.

In September 2023, police arrested one of the last surviving witnesses to his killing for the murder. Duane “Keffe D” Davis was indicted by a jury in Clark County, Nevada, on one count of murder with the use of a deadly weapon, plus a gang enhancement.

The arrest came after Davis spoke multiple times publicly — including in a memoir — about his involvement in the case. Davis, who remains in custody, pleaded not guilty in November 2023.

A British 13-year-old boy was struck by lightning on a Friday the 13th, at 13:13.

The Daily Mail reported that the unnamed teenager was struck by lightning while at an air show in England in 2010 and, incredibly, only sustained burns on his shoulder. The hospital said he was expected to make a full recovery.

Kitty Genovese, a Queens resident, was brutally attacked and murdered.

The murder of Kitty Genovese took place on March 13, 1964. The New York Times reported Genovese was assaulted and killed by Winston Moseley inside her apartment building. The crime is famous because, reportedly, 38 people heard the attack, and none of them called the police, making the “bystander effect” a household term.

It was later suggested that the reporting of the crime was inaccurate and greatly exaggerated. No matter the specifics, an innocent woman died.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy.

The Costa Concordia sank into the ocean on January 13, 2012. It became the largest passenger ship ever wrecked, with almost double the number of people on board than on the Titanic.

Thirty-two people died, and the captain was convicted of manslaughter in 2015.

Kansas experienced record-breaking amounts of rain and flooding.

On July 13, 1951, the state of Kansas was hit with over 25 inches of rain. The cities of Manhattan, Lawrence, and Topeka were most affected, and over 2 million acres of land were damaged by the flood.

The storm also affected oil tanks, some of which caught on fire and exploded. There were passengers stuck on trains for four days. And, at its highest, the flooding exceeded previous records by 4 to 9 feet.

The people of Kansas were not wrong to call this day “Black Friday.”

The stock market experienced a “mini-crash” in 1989.

After the buyout of United Airlines fell through on October 13, 1989, the ripples were felt throughout the stock market, specifically the junk bond market.

CNBC reported this resulted in a 7% sell-off in the Dow, and the S&P 500 lost 6%. Essentially, a lot of people lost a lot of money.

A flight through the Andes ended in disaster and death.

Uruguayan Flight 571 was headed toward Chile when it crash-landed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. In the following days, the survivors were reduced to hiding in the fuselage of the plane and eating the deceased passengers.

The rescue efforts were called off only 10 days after the crash, so it was shocking when two men appeared 72 days later and alerted the authorities that there were 16 other survivors trapped in the mountains.

On that same day, another flight crashed in Russia.

At the time, the tragedy of Aeroflot 217 was the worst plane crash in Russian history. All 174 people on board the flight (including the 10 crew members) died when the plane crashed while trying to land due to bad weather.

It’s never been confirmed what the cause of the crash was — some speculate it was a lightning strike. The plane ended up just 3 miles away from the runway.

The Ku Klux Klan’s first Grand Wizard was born.

Nathan Bedford Forrest was born on July 13, 1821. Forrest first rose to fame as a Confederate general and was in charge of the infamous Fort Pillow Massacre, where he and his men reportedly killed over 200 unarmed Union soldiers who had surrendered (many of whom were Black).

Forrest is widely believed to have served as the KKK’s first Grand Wizard, though he would later decree that the organization should be demolished, PBS reported.

Computers fell victim to the “Friday the 13th Virus.”

On January 13, 1989, a computer virus swept through the UK. The Los Angeles Times reported hundreds of computers were affected by the virus, which deleted personal files specifically on the unlucky date.

The virus also slowed computers down, but fortunately didn’t cross the Atlantic Ocean.

The Bhola cyclone ravaged Bangladesh.

The storm officially ended on November 13, 1970, but its effects are still being felt today.

The Bhola cyclone is still the deadliest storm in the Bay of Bengal — the death toll is estimated to be from 150,000 to 550,000, NBC News reported. One district in Bangladesh lost over 45% of its population.

In addition to being deadly and extremely costly, the cyclone is credited with jump-starting a civil war. At the time of the storm, the area was called East Pakistan. The Pakistani mismanagement of the relief efforts was considered to be a huge event in the fight for Bangladeshi independence.

Swedish flight DC-3 vanished and was never heard from again.

A Swedish flight disappeared while flying over the Baltic Sea on June 13, 1952. And for 40 years, the Swedish government stuck by the story that the plane was merely performing training exercises.

However, National Geographic wrote that in the ’90s, it was leaked that the crewmembers were actually spying on the Soviet Union for NATO, even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Cold War.

Russia responded with its own confession: A Russian pilot told a Swedish diplomat he had shot the plane down.

The city of Buffalo, New York, was hit with a freak blizzard.

It’s been called the “October Surprise.” From October 12 to October 13, 2006, western New York was hit with two feet of snow. Over 300,000 people were left without power, thousands of trees were damaged, and the governor of New York declared a state of emergency for the Buffalo region.

The Black Friday bushfires consumed Victoria, Australia.

The fires in Victoria from 1939 to 1940 were the culmination of a long, dry summer. But on January 13, 1939, the Black Friday bushfires consumed the area: 71 people died directly from the fire, another 438 from the resulting heatwave, and 575,000 hectares of land were burned to a crisp.

The ash that resulted from the two days of flames was intense. There were reports of it reaching as far as New Zealand.

In September 2024, Boeing employees went on strike for the first time since 2008.

The 2024 Boeing machinists strike began on Friday, September 13, 2024, and lasted until November 4.

For almost two months, Boeing strikers were without salary or benefits, while the company lost an estimated $50 million a day in lost labor.

At one point, tensions were so high between the union and management that the US Labor secretary herself, Julie Su, flew out to Seattle to mediate.

The strike ended when union members voted to accept a new contract from Boeing that included pay increases.

Daredevil Sam Patch plunged to his death in the Genesee River in 1829.

Sam Patch was America’s first professional daredevil, according to Atlas Obscura. Throughout his life, he jumped from many great heights, including Niagara Falls twice.

So, when he decided to jump from the High Falls into the Genesee River in Rochester, New York, no one thought to be concerned, but it quickly became apparent that something was wrong.

While some speculated that he was drunk, it’s never been known for sure what exactly happened to Patch when he jumped into the river. But on November 13, Patch jumped, and his body was found four months later.

In 2029, an asteroid could come extremely close to Earth.

According to NASA, an asteroid, 99942 Apophis., is expected to come within 20,000 miles of the Earth on April 13, 2029. This might not seem like a big deal, but it’s actually extremely close in relation to space.

Although it’s not expected to hit our planet, the closeness of the asteroid could cause damage on its surface — the gravity of Earth might cause avalanches on Apophis. And while NASA says it is expected to pass Earth “safely,” it still calls it a “potentially hazardous asteroid.”

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