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The Doomsday Issue of

The Worthington ALC

Insider

Volume 3, Issue 13 Friday January 13, 2006

Do you suffer from

Paraskevidekatriaphobia?

Do you or anyone you know suffer from Paraskevidekatriaphobia? Do you even know what Paraskevidekatriaphobia is? Then this article is for you.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia is a mental disorder characterized by a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the Thirteenth. Those who suffer from this disorder are acutely superstitious people who often lock themselves in their homes whenever the thirteenth day of the month falls on a Friday.

Most of us laugh at those who would carry a fear to such extremes. Yet there may actually be something to this idea of Paraskevidekatriaphobia. According to a 1993 article in the British Medical Journal entitled “Is Friday the Thirteenth Bad for your Health”, driving on Friday the Thirteenth might not be a good idea.

Incredibly, the authors of the article found that while fewer people actually drive on Friday the Thirteenth, the rate of hospital admissions rates due to accidents are significantly higher than on “normal” Fridays. So maybe Friday the Thirteenths really are unlucky.

Then again, it’s possible that the Paraskevidekatriaphobics who stay home on Friday the Thirteenths are actually the careful, safe drivers, while those who don’t believe in the superstition and drive anyway are the careless drivers.

One thing we do know: If you suffer from Paraskevidekatriaphobia, then you’re sitting at home on this Friday the Thirteenth and not present in school to read this article. Unless you’re home reading it on the internet. If that’s the case, your computer probably just got infected with a terrible virus and will explode any minute. Happy Friday the Thirteenth!

The ALC Insider January 13, 2006 page 2

Are you prepared??? Have you prepared yourself for the dreaded Friday the Thirteenth! If not, then you clearly are not superstitious. Neither do you suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia, or the fear of Friday the Thirteenth. Believe it or not, psychologists have found that many people are especially likely to have accidents or fall ill on Friday the Thirteenth. Why? They say this is due to anxiety suffered by many paraskevidekatriaphobics on that day. According to the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, $800 to $900 million is lost in business each Friday the Thirteenth in the U.S. alone because people refuse to travel or go to work! Okay, okay… So you’re not one of those anxiety-prone people. What can you do on Friday the Thirteenth? Enjoy yourself! Look on the bright side – all those annoying people who bug you at school or on the job have probably stayed home today. And guess what? They’ll be staying home on the thirteenth of October this year, too. Why? Because it also falls on a Friday.

Poor, unlucky girl… Desiree Briski was born on the Thirteenth of May. Last year, Dez’s birthday fell on Friday the Thirteenth. In the year 1994, Dez’s birthday also fell on Friday the Thirteenth. In the year 2011, Dez’s birthday will fall on Friday the Thirteenth. Okay, okay… Dez will have many birthdays that will fall on Friday the Thirteenth, We did the math and this is how it works out: Dez will have birthdays on Friday the Thirteenth in the years 2016, 2022, 2033 and 2039. The year after that, Dez will turn 50 and like most women, she will stop having birthdays… Who is this unlucky former ALC student? Click here to find out….

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What do The Da Vinci Code and Friday the 13th have in common? One of the most popular books of the last few years is Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. This book, like everything associated with this issue of The Insider, has something to do with our theme of Friday the Thirteenth. Brown’s book begins with the murder of a museum curator. The readers soon learn that the murder victim was a member of an organization known as the Priory of Sion. So what the heck is that? The Priory of Sion, according to the book, is a secret organization that emerged after the mass arrest and murder of a medieval group known as the Knights Templar. This much is fact: During the times of the Crusades, an army of Christian Knights from Europe descended on the Holy Land and conquered the city of Jerusalem, taking it away from Muslim warriors who had controlled it for hundreds of years. The best-of-the-best of these Christian Knights were known as the Knights Templar. They took their name from the fact that they were headquartered at the Temple Mount, the most holy of holy sites in Jerusalem. The Knights Templar were sort of like the Navy Seals of their day. Their job was to protect all manner of Christian pilgrims who visited Jerusalem. (Continued à)

When Muslim warrior Saladin reconquered Jerusalem and drove all Christian Knights from the holy city, the Knights Templar returned to Europe with a huge treasure they acquired while living in Jerusalem. One of the pieces of this treasure was said to be the Holy Grail, or the cup used by Jesus during the Last Supper. Upon their return to Europe, the Templars used their wealth to found a banking empire. They loaned money to anyone and everyone willing to pay the “rate” (or interest) charged by the Templars. One of those indebted to the Templars was King Phillip of France. Pope Clement also owed them money On Friday, October 13, 1307 – the original Friday the Thirteenth – King Phillip conspired with Pope Clement and had Knights Templar leader Jacques DeMolay, along with all other Templars arrested. They were tortured and eventually executed. Or were they? According to author Dan Brown of The Da Vini Code, some Templars escaped and founded a secret organization called the Priory of Sion that exists right up to the present. Many people dispute Dan Brown’s theory. But what is not disputed is that DeMolay and many Templars were arrested and tortured on Friday, October 13, 1307. Since that time, Friday the Thirteenth has been considered a day when bad things happen to good people, so beware…

The ALC Insider January 13, 2006 page 4

Why the heck to we
have so darn many Friday the Thirteenths?

This is the second Friday the Thirteenth issue of The ALC Insider in less than a year (the other issue was May 13, 2005). So what gives with all these Friday the Thirteenths?

The calendar in worldwide use is based on a cycle of 400 years totaling 146,097 days. This means the average length of a year is 365.2425 days. Our presently used calendar is called the Gregorian calendar (named after Pope Gregory XIII) and is a modification of the Julian calendar (named after Julius Caesar).

In the old Julian calendar, leap years occurred in all years divisible by 4. Julius Caesar assumed years were precisely 365.25 days long, but he was off by 0.0075 of a day, or 10 minutes 48 seconds. By 1582, this small difference made the calendar slow by a full ten days.

Pope Gregory XIII fixed the problem. People went to sleep on October 4, 1582, and awoke on October 15. And in that year, the Gregorian calendar went into effect.

In the Gregorian calendar, leap years are omitted in years divisible by 100 but not divisible by 400. By this rule, the year 1900 was not a leap year (1900 is divisible by 100 and not divisible by 400), but the year 2000 was a leap year (2000 is divisible by 100 and 400).

(Continued à)

The formula for the total number of days in 400 years is listed below:

100 (3 x 365 + 366) – 3 = 146,097

There are 4,800 months in 400 years, so the 13th of the month occurs 4,800 times in this interval. The number of times the 13th occurs on each weekday is given in the table below. As you can see, the thirteenth of the month is slightly more likely to be on a Friday than on any other day.

Day	# of 13s	Percent
Sunday	687	14.31%
Monday	685	14.27%
Tuesday	685	14.27%
Wednesday	687	14.31%
Thursday	684	14.25%
Friday	688	14.33%
Saturday	684	14.25%

If you are a math junkie and want to know why the numbers work out this way, click here.

The ALC Insider January 13, 2006 page 5

What’s wrong with the number 13? 1) Judas Iscariot was the "thirteenth" apostle. 2) The ill-fated Apollo 13 space mission was launched at 1313 hours (central time) and had to be aborted on April 13, 1970. 3) Practitioners of witchcraft will point out that the number thirteen equals the number of days in the year divided by twenty-eight, the number of days in the cycle of the moon. What’s wrong with Fridays? 1) According to Biblical lore, Eve gave the apple to Adam on Friday. 2) The great flood began on a Friday. 3) The Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday 4) Execution day was Friday in the Roman Empire (Christ was crucified on Friday).

This Day in History January 13^th 1842: A British army doctor reached the British military post at Jalalabad, Afghanistan, the lone survivor of a 16,000-strong British expeditionary force massacred by Afghan warriors. 1864: Stephen Foster, America's first professional songwriter, died at the age of 37 in the charity ward of a New York hospital. Foster, the writer of such songs as “Oh Susanna” and “Way down upon the Swanee River”, never earned much from his songs. He died a penniless alcoholic. 1910: Lee De Forest transmitted a live performance of Enrico Caruso from the Metropolitan Opera. This first radio broadcast could be heard only by a small number of electronics hobbyists who had radio receivers. 1929: Nearly 50 years after the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp died quietly in Los Angeles at the age of 80. Ironically, Earp gained fame only after his death when journalist Stuart Lake wrote a biography of the gunman. 1958: Peter Manuel was arrested in Glasgow, Scotland, after a series of grisly murders over two years that left nine dead. The serial killer went to the gallows on July 11, 1958. 1972: President Nixon announced that 70,000 U.S. troops would leave South Vietnam over the next three months. This reduced U.S. troop strength there to 69,000 troops.

The ALC Insider January 13, 2006 page 6

Friday the 13^th

Fun Facts

• More than 80 percent of high-rise buildings lack a thirteenth floor.

• Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.

• Many cities have no Thirteenth Street or a Thirteenth Avenue

• Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.

• Airplanes have no thirteenth aisle.

• Many airports do not have a thirteenth gate.

• In France, socialites known as the quatorziens (fourteeners) once made themselves available as the 14th guests to keep a dinner party from having 13 members.

• Crewmembers of the Apollo 13 mission nearly died in their attempt to fly to the moon.

• Having 13 letters in your name is unlucky. Just look at Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy, and Raymond W. Lowry. They all have 13 letters in their names.

This Week’s Separated-at-Birth

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Ron Hyvari -- Teacher Editor Ray Lowry -- Teacher Publisher