Like most people, I grew up with the Friday the 13th superstition, so it was hard to believe that something so familiar and embedded in our culture- and that seemed so ancient- did not exist until the 20th century. Previously, the most prevalent 13-based superstition had been that relating to '13 at a table'.
   Although Friday the 13th only emerged as an independent superstition in the early 20th century, Friday itself had long been considered an unlucky day. In the late- and mid-19th century, belief in unlucky Friday was almost as pervasive as belief in unlucky 13. Given their shared New Testament source, it's likely that they fuelled each other's popularity.
   Beginning in 1887, the Thirteen Club- which had already targeted the 13-at-a-table superstition- trained it's sights on another superstition: unlucky Friday. The club was convinced that the tradition of holding executions on Friday was the cause of the Friday superstition, with Friday being known as "hangman's day".
   The Thirteen Club assulted unlucky Friday by supporting the Half Holiday movement, a national campaign to make Saturday a half-holiday rather than a working day. When a limited half-holiday was announced, The Thirteen Club continued to campaign for a more cohesive law. This was part of te plan to make Saturday a full holiday, hence making Friday the last working day of the week and the feeling of bad luck lifted. The phrase "Thank God It's Friday" clearly proves te club's instincts were correct.
   In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the 13th of every month was deemed unlucky. Friday the 13th was seen as being unluckier than any other 13th due to the combination of Friday and the 13th, known as "Friday, the 13th". The comma denotes that it was seen as two seperate phenomena.
   The comma vanished between 1906 and 1908, becoming the more-known "Friday te 13th". This can be traced to a novel by Thomas W Lawson (with thanks to a sarcastic note from The Thirteen Club) called "Friday, the Thirteenth". This novel launched te idea of Friday the 13th being a single phenomena.
   By the 1930s, Friday the 13th was the most popular superstition in the USA. By this time the media focused more and more on the unlucky date, and the old "13-to-a-table" myth slowly faded away. Thanks to The Thirteen Club, Friday was no longer seen unlucky either. Therefore, Friday the 13th appeared thanks to a novel all about "stock-gambling" and a club that wanted to destroy the superstitions that haunted mankind.