If you’re reading this blog post and you’ve been on edge today, you might be one of the many people with paraskevidekatriaphobia, or rather, an unnatural fear or phobia of Friday the 13th. Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Friday the 13th is a day that captivates many imaginations and locks into our superstitious fears, no matter who you are or where you are in the world. While its origins remain unclear, and a quick Google search will pull up millions of theories, one thing is sure: more people are superstitious towards this day than any other. It might have something to do with the unfortunate combination of the unlucky number 13 and the unlucky day of Friday (just a hunch),or the fact that we tend to pay more attention to misfortune on this day more than any other. Spilled coffee on Tuesday the 10th is just inconvenient, but spilled coffee on Friday the 13th carries the inevitable foreshadowing of doom and misfortune.
Tag Archives: holiday
Sporcle Links of the Day: Happy Holidays Edition
We know our readers love the internet just as much as we do, so we think you might want to see some of the links that we’re passing around at Sporcle HQ. Just make sure to let us know about any links we might have missed in the comments. Happy Holidays!
- Sporcle has an updated page filled with the most popular quizzes of the day. If you’re ever curious to see what your fellow Sporclers are playing, be sure to check it out. [Sporcle Popular Games]
- Google has quietly released some fun for the holidays. Just search for ‘Let It Snow’ and see what happens. [Google]
- The trailer for The Hobbit was released today, and we’re pretty excited about the whole thing. Is there a dubstep version of that Dwarven hymn yet? [The Hobbit Trailer]
- It looks like Frankincense is slowly becoming a thing of the past. We had to read this article to finally figure out exactly what it was. [USA Today]
- For your random and amazing Sporcle quiz of the day, we’ve selected the 12 Days of Christmas. Honestly, we think that’s just too many leaping lords for our taste.
Happy Labor Day Weekend!
The United States celebrates the first Monday in September as Labor Day, and we thought that while celebrating the unofficial end of summer, we could throw some trivia your way, since plenty of people don’t know how Labor Day came about.
Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894 after a particularly violent strike breaking incident related to the Pullman Strike. It started when Pullman manufacturing employees went on strike due to poor wages. Eventually, almost all members of the American Railway Union refused to work on Pullman cars and most of the American railway system was shut down. Grover Cleveland subsequently ordered in the military, and violence ensued. After the dust settled, Cleveland decided that reconciliation was his best option, and pushed hard to create a new holiday celebrating the worker.
In 2011, Labor Day is observed a little bit differently. It’s typically the last weekend of BBQ season and a signal that football season is about to begin. We know it also means that school is going to be back in session soon for most of you, and that means much more Sporcle study time. Fortunately, we have plenty of great quizzes to tide you over on this long weekend and help you fill your brain with even more facts and trivia.