ObservanceFriday, November 13, 2026
Friday the 13th
- Date
- Recurs
- The date changes each year. This page always shows the next one.
- Category
- Celebration
Friday the 13th is the date most Americans know to be unlucky, and nearly everything commonly said about where it came from is wrong. It is not medieval, it has no demonstrable link to the Knights Templar, and Library of Congress folklorists trace the belief no further back than 1830s France. Every year holds at least one and never more than three; 2026 has three.
History
The two halves of the superstition are old. The combination is not.
Friday has been treated as inauspicious across much of Christian Europe, which the Library of Congress links to the tradition that Jesus was crucified on a Friday and to the fasting that followed — a day fit for endings, when fishermen stayed ashore and no one began a journey. Friday is not unlucky in Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, or in most countries where the majority religion is not Christian. Thirteen carries separate baggage, most durably the belief that of thirteen people dining together one will die, which attached itself to the Last Supper; in the tarot, Death has borne the number 13 since at least 1565.
When the two were welded together is a narrower question, and the answer is recent. Library of Congress folklorist Stephen Winick's archival survey finds the earliest clear references in French works of 1834 — an article in the Revue de Paris by the Marquis de Salvo ("It is always Fridays and the number 13 that bring bad luck") and a play, Les Finesses des Gribouilles. By mid-century the belief could carry a plot: Octave Gastineau's 1870s play Lelia turns on a countess who will not dance on a Friday the 13th. Its English translations of 1878 and 1879 moved the setting to London and inserted "how unlucky" after the date, evidently doubting American audiences would catch it. In 1886 the Chicago Daily Tribune printed the superstition as a "French Joke." Only in the late 1880s and 1890s does it appear routinely in American papers, and then mostly as a joke about baseball games and marriage licenses.
An earlier post on the same Library of Congress blog found no American newspaper reference before 1900, and a folklorist quoted alongside Winick dates the belief to England, no record before 1913. Winick's is the account with the documents.
Timeline
- 1565 — The tarot's Death card is numbered 13 by this date, when Francesco Piscina's Discorso cites its number.
- 1834 — The earliest clear references to an unlucky Friday the 13th, both French: the Marquis de Salvo in the Revue de Paris, and the play Les Finesses des Gribouilles.
- 1882 — The Thirteen Club of Manhattan holds its first dinner, thirteen to a table, on Friday, January 13.
- 1886 — The Chicago Daily Tribune of May 28 runs the belief as a "French Joke."
- 1907 — Thomas W. Lawson's novel Friday, the Thirteenth records the belief among Wall Street traders rather than inventing it.
- 1993 — The BMJ publishes "Is Friday the 13th bad for your health?", a small single-region study.
How to observe
Do what the Thirteen Club did. In 1882 a group of New Yorkers sat down thirteen to a table on Friday, January 13, expressly to break the taboo, and kept meeting; the Library of Congress holds the address printed for its thirteenth.
Read the belief as Americans received it. Search Chronicling America, the Library of Congress's digitized newspaper archive, for "Friday the 13th" against your own town in the 1890s. What comes back is largely ridicule — the real American history here, a belief mostly held about other people.
Check which day your own calendar fears. Spain and Greece worry about Tuesday the 13th; Italy about Friday the 17th, because XVII rearranges into VIXI, "I have lived"; Japan about the number 4, which sounds like the word for death.
Frequently asked questions
Did the Knights Templar arrests of Friday, October 13, 1307 start this?
No. That date is right, but nobody appears to have connected it to the superstition until the twentieth century, and the link was popularized by Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Without medieval evidence, the Library of Congress treats it as a modern guess.
Did a 1907 novel invent the superstition?
No, though that is often claimed. In Thomas W. Lawson's Friday, the Thirteenth the characters already call the date "the Wall Street hoodoo-day" and treat the belief as a tradition, and the plot turns on traders exploiting a fear their colleagues hold. Lawson, himself a stock manipulator, was describing the floor he worked on.
Was Loki the thirteenth guest at a dinner of the Norse gods?
There was no dinner party. Neither the Poetic nor the Prose Edda, the primary sources for Baldr's death, describes a banquet or says how many gods were present. National Geographic paraphrased the story in 2011 from an interview with Donald Dossey.
Is Friday the 13th actually more dangerous?
The best-known research is a 1993 BMJ paper covering one English health region. It found fewer vehicles on part of the M25 on Friday the 13th than on Friday the 6th, more admissions from transport accidents (65 against 45), and put the added risk at "as much as 52%." Small numbers from one place, and the closing advice — "Staying at home is recommended" — indicates the spirit of it.
How often does Friday the 13th happen?
At least once and at most three times a year, with no exceptions from 1900 to 2300. 2026 has three: February 13, March 13, and November 13. 2027 has one, August 13.
When is Friday the 13th?
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | November 13 | Friday |
| 2027 | August 13 | Friday |
| 2028 | October 13 | Friday |
| 2029 | April 13 | Friday |
| 2029 | July 13 | Friday |
Sources
- Library of Congress, Folklife Today, On the Possible Origins of Friday the Thirteenth: Metafolklore, Fear, and Fun (Stephen Winick, December 12, 2024) — https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2024/12/on-the-possible-origins-of-friday-the-thirteenth-metafolklore-fear-and-fun/ → Friday's unluckiness traced to the crucifixion tradition and fasting, and its absence from non-Christian-majority countries; the thirteen-at-table belief and the Last Supper; the tarot Death card numbered 13 by 1565 per Francesco Piscina's Discorso; the 1834 Revue de Paris and Les Finesses des Gribouilles references and the de Salvo quotation; the 1870s Lelia example; the 1878 and 1879 English translations and the added "how unlucky"; the Chicago Daily Tribune "French Joke" of May 28, 1886; the late-1880s and 1890s American newspaper examples including the baseball and marriage-license jokes; the Knights Templar claim and its lack of pre-twentieth-century evidence; The Da Vinci Code's role; the rebuttal that Lawson's 1907 novel invented the belief, with the "Wall Street hoodoo-day" quotation and Lawson's own career as a stock manipulator; the Loki dinner-party story's absence from both Eddas and its 2011 National Geographic paraphrase from Donald Dossey; the Thirteen Club of New York's first meeting on Friday, January 13, 1882; and the disagreement with Moira Marsh's England-and-1913 dating.
- Library of Congress, Folklife Today, Who's Afraid of Friday the Thirteenth? (Stephanie Hall, January 12, 2017) — https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2017/01/whos-afraid-of-friday-the-thirteenth/ → Friday as a day fit for endings, fishermen staying ashore, and journeys not begun; the Thirteen Club of Manhattan's first dinner for thirteen on Friday, January 13, 1882, and the Library's copy of the address from its thirteenth regular meeting; Tuesday the 13th in Spanish-speaking countries and Greece; Friday the 17th in Italy and the XVII-to-VIXI rearrangement; the number 4 in Japan; and this post's own finding of no American newspaper reference before 1900, which the 2024 post supersedes.
- T. J. Scanlon, R. N. Luben, F. L. Scanlon and N. Singleton, Is Friday the 13th bad for your health?, BMJ 1993;307(6919):1584-1586, doi 10.1136/bmj.307.6919.1584 — https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1697765/ → the South West Thames retrospective design; fewer vehicles on the southern M25 on Friday the 13th than Friday the 6th; transport-accident admissions 65 against 45 (p < 0.05); the "as much as 52%" and "Staying at home is recommended" conclusions.
- Library of Congress, Chronicling America — https://www.loc.gov/collections/chronicling-america/ → the digitized newspaper archive named in How to observe.
Claims deliberately omitted for want of an acceptable source: the frequently quoted figure for money lost to Friday-the-13th absenteeism, and any count of people who hold the belief. The frequency arithmetic (at least one and at most three per calendar year, and the three 2026 dates) was computed directly from the Gregorian calendar for every year from 1900 to 2300 rather than taken from a source.
Rejected as sources: nationaltoday, nationaldaycalendar, checkiday, timeanddate, and content-farm or AI-generated listicles — the Knights Templar and Loki stories above are exactly what circulates there.
Add to your calendarA calendar file for Apple Calendar, Google Calendar or Outlook. This date moves, so the file carries the next 15 dates. You can also subscribe to this observance or to the whole calendar.
← See everything November 13 celebrates