Q 01/05

The fear of Friday the 13th has a specific name. Which of these is it?

A) Paraskevidekatriaphobia

B) Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia

C) Arachibutyrophobia

D) Nomophobia

Answer · why

A) Paraskevidekatriaphobia

It is also called friggatriskaidekaphobia, after Frigg, the Norse goddess Friday is named for; fear of the number 13 alone is triskaidekaphobia.

Q 02/05

One origin story for Friday the 13th superstition is King Philip IV of France's mass arrest of which order in October 1307?

A) The Order of Santiago

B) The Knights Hospitaller

C) The Teutonic Knights

D) The Knights Templar

Answer · why

D) The Knights Templar

King Philip IV, in debt to the Knights Templar, had Jacques de Molay and scores of them seized at dawn on Friday 13 October 1307; de Molay was burned ...

Q 03/05

Which pope formally dissolved the order arrested in 1307, at the Council of Vienne in 1312?

A) Clement V

B) Boniface VIII

C) John XXII

D) Benedict XI

Answer · why

A) Clement V

Clement V suppressed the Templars with the bull Vox in excelso at the Council of Vienne in 1312; most Templar assets passed to the Knights Hospitaller...

Q 04/05

Christian superstition holds that which disciple was the 13th to sit down at the Last Supper?

A) Peter

B) Judas

C) Thomas

D) Matthew

Answer · why

B) Judas

Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, is cast as the 13th to sit, though the Bible actually says nothing about the seating order.

Q 05/05

An early English reference to Friday the 13th appears in an 1869 biography of which composer, who died that day in 1868?

A) Hector Berlioz

B) Franz Schubert

C) Vincenzo Bellini

D) Gioachino Rossini

Answer · why

D) Gioachino Rossini

Gioachino Rossini died on Friday 13 November 1868; Henry Sutherland Edwards's 1869 biography recorded that he regarded both Fridays and the number 13 ...