The origin of the superstitions relating to Friday the 13th go back to King Phillip IV of France, who on this day in 1307 had his agents round up and arrest all of the Knights Templar, a rich order founded around 1118 to protect Christian pilgrims during the second crusade The Templars were tortured until they admitted to heresy and witchcraft, then burned at the stake.
Another Friday, 13 October was in 1933. It was at 11am that the first traffic lights in Sydney went into operation at 11am at the intersection of Market and Kent St.
Elsewhere in the world, in AD 54 the Roman emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, aka Claudius, died after having been poisoned - allegedly by his own wife, Agrippina, who had convinced him a few years earlier to lift the status of her birthplace to that of a proper Roman city - Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensum (Colony of Claudius at the Altar of Agrippina), nowadays known as the city of Cologne...
In Washington, D.C. the cornerstone to the Executive Mansion was laid (1792). Since 1818 this building has been referred to as the White House. London Greenwich was established as universal time meridian of longitude (1884). Ankara replaced Istanbul as capital of Turkey (1923)
Today's birthday boys and girls include Yves Montand (Monsummano Terme/Italy, 1921), Margaret Hilda Thatcher (Grantham/UK, 1925) and Paul Frederic Simon (Newark, NJ, 1941).
Finally, in Chile 2010 this day was marked with utter joy when 33 trapped miners were rescued after 10 weeks underground.
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