9 Terrible Things That Happened On Friday The 13th

1.

German forces during WWII bombed Buckingham Palace on Friday, September 13, 1940. The bombs hit both the palace and its chapel. Even scarier, the King and Queen were both at the residence at the time of the attack.

2.

British 13-year-old was struck by lightning on Friday the 13th, at 13:13. He survived and was left with severe burns on his upper body.

3.

The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground off the coast of Italy. The Costa Concordia sank into the ocean on Friday, January 13, 2012. According to Vanity Fair, it became the largest passenger ship ever wrecked, with almost double the amount of people on board than on the Titanic. 32 people died and the captain was convicted of manslaughter in 2015.

4.

The stock market experienced a "mini-crash" after the buyout of United Airlines fell through on Friday, October 13, 1989. The ripples were felt throughout the stock market, specifically the junk bond market, a lot of people lost a lot of money.

5.

A flight through the Andes ended in disaster and death. Uruguayan Flight 571 was headed towards Chile when it crash-landed in the Andes on Friday, October 13, 1972. In the following days after the crash, the survivors were reduced to hiding in the fuselage of the plane and eating deceased passengers. The rescue efforts were called off only 10 days after the crash, so it was shocking when two men appeared 72 days later, and alerted the authorities that there were 16 other survivors trapped in the mountains.

6.

Computers fell victim to the "Friday the 13th Virus." On January 13, 1989, a computer virus swept through the UK. According to the LA Times, hundreds of computers were affected by the virus, which deleted personal files specifically on the unlucky date. And there was no cloud back up back then.

7.

The Bhola cyclone hit Bangladesh. The storm officially ended on November 13, 1970 but the effects are still being felt to this day. The Bhola cyclone is still the deadliest storm in the Bay of Bengal — the death toll is estimated to be from 150,000 to 550,000, according to NBC News. A specific district in Bangladesh lost over 45% of its population, Hurricane Science reports. In addition to being deadly and extremely costly, the cyclone is credited with jump starting a civil war. At the time of the storm, the area was called East Pakistan. The Pakistani mismanagement of the relief efforts are considered to be a huge event in the fight for Bangladeshi independence.

8.

Swedish flight DC-3 vanished and was never heard from again. Swedish flight disappeared while flying over the Baltic Sea on Friday, June 13, 1952. For 40 years, the Swedish government stuck by the story that the plane was merely performing training exercises. However, National Geographic reported that in the '90s it was leaked that the crewmembers were actually spying on the Soviet Union for NATO — even though Sweden was officially neutral during the Cold War. And Russia responded with its own confession. A Russian pilot told a Swedish diplomat that he had shot the plane down.

9.

The city of Buffalo was hit with a freak blizzard on Friday, October 13, 2006. Western New York was hit with two feet of snow. Over 300,000 people were left without power, thousands of trees were damaged, and the Governor of New York declared a State of Emergency for the Buffalo region.

10.

The fires in Victoria from 1939 to 1940 were the culmination of a long, dry summer. On Friday, January 13, 1939 the Black Friday bushfires consumed an area resulting in 71 deaths and 575,000 hectares of land that were burned to a crisp. The ash that resulted from the two days of flames was intense. There were reports of it reaching as far as New Zealand.