14 positive things that happened on Friday the 13th
June 13 is a Friday.
Traditionally, Friday the 13th is considered a "cursed" date, but it doesn't have to be.
President Johnson signed an executive order preventing gender discrimination on October 13, 1967.
Friday the 13th has a long history of freaking people out.
When this day rolls around, people buy and travel less. In fact, the global economy is estimated to lose as much as $900 million every time a Friday lands on the 13th.
However, the Dutch Center for Insurance Statistics reported in 2008 that Friday the 13th is actually statistically safer than other Fridays — there are fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft on these days.
If that doesn't convince you, keep scrolling to learn about some positive events that took place on a Friday the 13th.
President Lyndon B. Johnson signed an executive order preventing gender discrimination in the government.
While Title VII officially prevented discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, and sex for private employers, it wasn't until Executive Order 11375 that discrimination based on gender was illegal for the federal government and federal contractors.
President Johnson signed the order, which was officially titled Amending Executive Order No. 11246, Relating to Equal Employment Opportunity, on October 13, 1967.
Malta became a republic.
The tiny Mediterranean country of Malta first became independent of the British in 1964, but officially became a republic on December 13, 1974.
Even though it's small, Malta is an underrated place to visit.
Evelyn "Pinky" Kilgare-Brier became the first certified female pilot instructor.
According to the National Museum of the US Air Force, Kilgare-Brier became the first woman to receive an airplane instructor's license on October 13, 1939.
She was an important figure for women in aviation. She also flew non-combat missions during World War II, and after the war she owned and operated her own private airport, according to her obituary in the Los Angeles Times.
The Olympics officially returned to their home country.
The 2004 Summer Olympics were held in Athens, Greece, the country where they started, both in ancient and modern times. The opening ceremony took place on August 13.
It was the largest Olympic Games at the time, with 201 countries participating. Michael Phelps also won his first Olympic medal and broke his first record in Athens.
The queens of the '90s, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, were born.
The Olsen twins were born on June 13, 1986.
They famously got their start on "Full House" and went on to create an empire: books, videos, perfume, clothing lines, and much more.
"Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" premiered on Friday, October 13, 2023.
Taylor Swift was born on December 13, 1989 — her birthday landed on Friday the 13th last year — and she has repeatedly said that 13 is her favorite number. She even used to perform with "13" drawn on her hand.
As part of her 13 agenda, her blockbuster concert film "Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour" premiered in theaters on Friday, October 13, 2023. It went on to become the highest-grossing concert film of all time after grossing $261 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo.
The first scientifically recognized dinosaur eggs were discovered.
Roy Chapman Andrews discovered the first dinosaur eggs at a dig in Mongolia on July 13, 1923, according to the American Museum of Natural History.
Scientifically, this was huge for the field of paleontology, confirming that dinosaurs laid eggs. The museum was so impressed that Andrews went on to become its director from 1935 to 1942.
The famous Hollywood sign was dedicated.
The Hollywood sign is an iconic piece of California culture. But when it was officially dedicated on July 13, 1923, it wasn't even supposed to last for more than two years.
Originally, the sign was installed to promote a new subdivision in the Hollywood Hills.
"Super Mario Bros." was released.
"Super Mario Bros.," one of the most iconic video games in history, was released on September 13, 1985, exclusively in Japan, per The Verge.
Since then, Mario has been in approximately 170 games, including wildly successful spin-offs like "Mario Kart," "Mario Party," and "Paper Mario."
A "significant amount" of water was found on the Moon.
A lunar space station has long been the subject of science fiction novels, but on November 13, 2009, that dream took one step closer to reality when NASA announced they found water on the Moon.
How much is a "significant amount"? According to NASA's Anthony Colaprete, around a dozen 2-gallon bucketfuls.
Black Sabbath released their debut album and invented heavy metal.
The 69th best debut album of all time, at least according to Rolling Stone, Black Sabbath's self-titled album was released on February 13, 1970.
The album is widely regarded as having created the genre of heavy metal, with instant classics like "NIB." and "The Wizard."
Actor Steve Buscemi was born.
Steve Buscemi was born on December 13, 1957 — yes, he shares a birthday with Taylor Swift. Buscemi might be famous as an actor, but he also has a lesser-known second career: a New York City firefighter.
Buscemi became an NYC firefighter at age 18. He eventually left the service to pursue acting, but in the aftermath of 9/11, Buscemi helped with rescue efforts and worked 12-hour shifts sifting through the rubble.
"Friday the 13th Part III" was released.
Of the iconic "Friday the 13th" movie saga, "Part III" was the first to actually open on Friday the 13th (August 13, 1982), the first to experiment with 3D, and the first appearance of Jason's mask.
Even though the movie was critically panned, the movie made over $36 million against a $2.3 million budget, according to Box Office Mojo.
Friday the 13th is always the last day before the weekend.
If all else fails to convince you that Friday the 13th isn't a cursed date, just remember this: It's the last day of the workweek. Fridays are the best!
Read the original article on Business Insider
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
Sold-out musical about Luigi Mangione adds new S.F. date
San Francisco's sold-out musical about Luigi Mangione has extended its run due to popular demand. ' Luigi: The Musical,' inspired by the social media frenzy surrounding the 27-year-old suspect in the murder case of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, has added a July 13 performance at the Independent. The music venue on Divisadaro Street has a capacity of 500, roughly five times that of the Taylor Street Theater, where the show premieres Friday, June 13. All five of the production's originally announced June performances at the Taylor Street Theater, the former Exit on Taylor in the Tenderloin, sold out more than a month ago. 'Luigi: The Musical' was developed by Nova Bradford, Arielle Johnson, André Margatini and Caleb Zeringue, and is staged in the style of the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical 'Chicago.' The satirical show is set at Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center and features Mangione alongside a fictional group of prison mates including Sean 'Diddy' Combs, whose sex trafficking and racketeering trial began last month, and fallen FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. 'Luigi the character, as we've written him, is dead serious about his thoughts and goals,' Johnson previously told the Chronicle. 'There's something campy about the whole 'good guy with a gun' premise.' As Johnson and his colleagues prepared for the stage production's June 13 premiere, the real Mangione pleaded not guilty to four federal charges against him for the murder of Thompson in December. He is next set to appear in court June 26. During the appearance, a trial date may be set. Mangione spent his 27th birthday last month at the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he has been held without bail since Dec. 19. To mark the occasion, he sent a list of 27 things he's grateful for to various people who have been writing him letters while he has been locked up. The list has since gone viral on social media and features entries such as 'memes' and 'Latinas for Mangione,' both nods to the internet discourse around his arrest. Mangione also revealed that around 30,000 people donated more than $1 million to his legal fund, and expressed gratitude for the various books and letters that he has received.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
100 years ago, the battle for television raged
Television's broadcast debut in 1936 unfolded like a plot made for the medium itself—complete with bitter competition, intrigue, celebration, and devastating setbacks. The story reached its climax when a fire at London's Crystal Palace destroyed parts of television inventor John Logie Baird's research laboratory on November 30, 1936. The timing could not have been worse. Baird was locked in a high-stakes showdown with his deep-pocketed rival, Electric and Musical Industries (EMI), who had partnered with wireless pioneer Guglielmo Marconi and the American radio giant RCA-Victor. Long before that fateful November day, the television landscape was crowded with inventors competing for the title to the as-yet unproven but promising medium. Despite his eventual defeat, Baird deserves credit for achieving the first wireless transmission of a moving image, as Popular Science writer Newton Burke reported in June 1925. The discrepancy between Baird's early success and later failure came down to a classic confrontation between old and new tech: Where Baird succeeded with mechanical television systems, he struggled to master the new and more efficient electronic technology. Despite its mechanical design, Baird's primitive television system was revolutionary for its time. Though it consisted of unwieldy components too impractical for commercial success, Burke noted that it successfully 'transmitted the motions of a human face, winking and smiling, from one room of a laboratory to another, without the aid of photography or wires.' The transmitted image was so crude that Baird's photographic evidence resembled the white hockey mask favored by serial killer Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13th films. Yet Burke recognized its significance, writing, 'The fact remains that the outline of the face is plain, so are the shadows of the eye sockets and the shape of the open mouth.' Baird's achievement, while novel, built upon decades of previous work. His system incorporated ideas from Maurice LeBlanc, an engineer from France who published the first principles of television transmission systems in 1880's 'Etude sur la transmission électrique des impressions lumineuses,' or 'Study on the electrical transmission of light impressions.' LeBlanc's design was part of a six-volume engineering compilation devoted to the advent of electric lights, La Lumière Electrique, as reported by Popular Science in June 1882. Baird also drew from the work of German inventor Paul Nipkow, who had developed an 'electric telescope'—a pair of spinning discs capable of scanning still images and transmitting them through electric wires, which he patented in 1885. Meanwhile, Charles Jenkins, a Washington, D.C.-based contemporary, achieved the first synchronized video and audio transmission on June 13th, 1925, though his system only handled still pictures rather than motion. Understanding Baird's mechanical system helps explain both its breakthrough nature and ultimate limitations. His apparatus used a rapidly revolving disk equipped with lenses that focused light from the subject onto a selenium cell. This cell converted the light impulses into electrical signals suitable for radio transmission—crucial because radio waves were the only practical distribution medium available at the time. A synchronized receiving disk with a ground-glass screen then reconstructed the image. As Burke explained, 'The images received on his ground-glass screen are described as being made up of exceedingly fine lines of varying darkness.' However, the width of these lines and their flicker rate were constrained by the physical limitations of the mechanical apparatus—problems that would require electronic solutions to overcome. While Baird perfected his mechanical approach, gradually improving display resolution from 30 to 240 lines by 1936—today's displays are measured in pixels, 8K being the latest generation—other inventors pursued electronic television systems using cathode rays to scan and project images. This technological shift created one of the most bitter patent battles in broadcasting history. Philo Farnsworth, a farm boy from Utah, and Vladimir Zworykin, a Russian émigré who fled during the Russian Revolution, each claimed first rights. While Farnsworth was officially awarded the first electronic television system patent in 1930, Zworykin had filed the first U.S. patent in 1923. Their rivalry sparked a long and rancorous legal showdown between Farnsworth and RCA, who had hired Zworykin to build America's first broadcast television system, the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), which debuted at the 1939 New York World's Fair. In the years before NBC's American debut, the center of television development was London, where the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) sought to upgrade beyond Baird's crude broadcasts that had been running for nearly a decade. Recognizing an opportunity to accelerate progress, the BBC commissioned a head-to-head competition in 1936 between rival systems. Baird's team collaborated with Farnsworth to create a hybrid mechanical-electronic system, while EMI partnered with Marconi for transmission technology and RCA to leverage Zworykin's electronic innovations. (By then the patent dispute had been settled, with RCA paying royalties to Farnsworth.) Both teams would broadcast identical programming from London's Alexandra Palace, allowing direct comparison of their capabilities. Even before the Crystal Palace fire, Baird faced an uphill battle. His system couldn't match EMI's superior 405-line resolution or transmission range. The devastating fire that destroyed his laboratory equipment proved to be the final setback. Shortly afterward, Baird abandoned his television work altogether. John Logie Baird, the first person to wirelessly broadcast moving pictures, died in 1946 without any financial stake in what would become one of the 20th century's most profitable industries. His mechanical breakthrough had paved the way for the electronic systems that would dominate broadcasting, but the rapid pace of technological change left him behind.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
THE DISH: Wool Growers makes LA Times list of best restaurants in state
Bakersfield is back in the spotlight this week thanks to Wool Growers Restaurant. The longtime Basque eatery was named to the Los Angeles Times' 101 Best California Restaurants list. Restaurant critic Bill Addison doesn't mince words in reducing Bakersfield down culinarily to its rich Basque history. He writes that he passes through the area at least once a year, hitting up a couple of Basque spots to debate which sets the bar since the original Noriega Hotel, a James Beard Award-winning restaurant, closed in 2020. Addison gives the edge to the East 19th Street restaurant that has been in operation since 1954. He notes the fried chicken is a little juicier and more roundly garlicky, that meat tumbles off the bone in the hearty oxtail stew and the vinegar of the sliced pickled tongue "twangs like Parker Posey's North Carolina accent in 'The White Lotus.'" Salt is needed on the fries to make them great by his standards. (The hot salsa served with the opening courses also works well with the potatoes with fewer health concerns for diners, in my opinion.) Atmosphere and staff also earn his praise:" ... The beige floral wallpaper and the plastic table coverings over white tablecloths woozily blur the time-space continuum. I don't know quite where or when I am, but the friendly, fast-moving staff always seems glad I'm here." The critic also briefly acknowledges Pyrenees Cafe and The Sinking Ship for providing "outlandish, pirate-themed bliss." Two other Central Valley restaurants made the list: the new American-style spot Saizon in Fresno and Mi Ranchito Cafe in Stockton. Visit for the complete list. Additions for Father's Day Special offers and menus continue to be announced right up until the holiday. Here are a few that didn't make the list shared earlier this week. At C Fresh (920 California Ave., Suite A): Dads can enjoy $2 beers along with a seafood boil or other entree at the central Bakersfield spot. Bangkok Street Food (6300 White Lane,Suite F): Diners will receive a free tiramisu cake with a dine-in purchase of $35 or more on Sunday. BJ's Restaurant & Brewhouse (10750 Stockdale Highway): All dads get a free limited-edition pint glass. Rewards members will receive a 20% VIP card when dining at the restaurant on Sunday. The card is good for a discount on food, merchandise and nonalcoholic beverages once per day from June 17 to July 7. Del Taco (multiple locations): Take advantage of a buy one, get one free deal on epic burritos now through Sunday via the Del Yeah! Rewards app. Those who buy $40 worth of e-gift cards will receive a free regular size meal (choice of combos 1 to 14) and those who purchase $100 worth will receive three free regular-size meals. Free meal offer redeemable through July 31. Eureka! (10520 Stockdale Highway): Treat Dad to an Russell's Reserve Old Fashioned, made with the Kentucky bourbon, for $10. Guests can also enjoy a Father's Day prix fixe menu ($40) that includes a choice of appetizer (Caesar salad, nachos, fried pickles or Dorito-crusted shishito peppers), entree (choice of chilaquiles, breakfast sandwich or French toast until 3 p.m. or Eureka! American cheeseburger, spicy fried chicken sandwich or steak salad all day) and dessert (chocolate cake or carrot cake). California Pizza Kitchen (10150 Stockdale Highway): Purchase a $50 gift card and receive a $10 bonus card valid from July 1 to 29. El Patron Bar and Grill (4803 Panama Lane): All shrimp dishes will be $20.99 and the restaurant will also have drink specials all day. Headquarters Bar and Eatery (3015 Calloway Drive): This spot will have a $20.99 dinner with a 10-ounce rib-eye, cheese enchiladas, eggs and country potatoes with the option of a discounted beer or michelada. Huevo House (3939 Ming Ave.): Dads can enjoy a rib-eye plate ($20.99), served with two eggs, potatoes and two cheese enchiladas, as well as a $3 beer or $6 micheladas on Sunday. Legends (7900 Downing Ave.): Enjoy a rib-eye and grilled shrimp plate ($36.99) with choice of red wine mushroom sauce or peppercorn sauce , served with mashed potatoes and grilled squash. Call 661-218-9789 for reservations.
