11 Days Historically Unluckier Than Friday the 13th

April 14

1865: Abraham Lincoln is fatally shot while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.
1912: The RMS Titanic hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic ocean.
1935: Texas and Oklahoma are hit by one of the worst massive sandstorms of all time, creating the area known as the “Dust Bowl.” Many people die, and countless others are forced to relocate.
1944: The first group of Jewish citizens transported from Athens, Greece arrives at Auschwitz.
1944: The massive freighter SS Fort Stikine explodes while docked in Bombay, India, killing hundreds of people.
1972: Twenty-four bombs go off across Northern Ireland, the work of the Provisional Irish Republican Army.
1986: A massive hailstorm hits Gopalganj, Bangladesh. Ninety-two people are killed; this storm also holds the record for the largest hailstone ever recorded: a chunk of ice weighing 2.2 pounds.
1999: The National Atlantic Treaty Organization, or NATO, accidentally bombs a convoy of civilian vehicles after mistaking them for Serbian military vehicles, killing 73 Albanian refugees.
2013: Eleven people die and 50 others are injured in a hotel fire in Xiangyang, China.

Here’s the story behind why the number 13 scares people.

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