216: What’s in a Number? Thirteen in American History

BackStory

History, Education

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 6 July 2018

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The 13th of any month is more likely to occur on a Friday than any other day of the week and it's happened as many as three times in a single calendar year. So, why is it considered bad luck? In this episode, Joanne, Nathan and Brian explore stories of superstition and the surprising roles the number 13 has played across American history.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Major funding for backstory is provided by an anonymous donor, the National
0:04.6	Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Virginia, the Joseph and Robert
0:08.7	Cornell Memorial Foundation, and the Arthur Vining Davis foundations.
0:15.9	From Virginia Humanities, this is backstory.
0:24.5	Welcome to backstory, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines.
0:29.2	I'm Joanne Freeman. I'm Brian Ballow. And I'm Nathan Connolly. Each week,
0:34.0	Joanne, Brian, our colleague Ed Ayers and I, all historians, take a topic from
0:38.6	the news and try to see how we got here. Well guys, I hope you're hungry because
0:43.2	we're gonna start today's show with dinner. And this is no ordinary meal because
0:48.2	we're in New York City and it's 1881.
0:54.2	We have fancy or derves. We have fine wines. And the main course, the P.S. de
1:03.2	Resistance, is a rich lobster salad. And get this. It's molded into the shape of a coffin.
1:12.0	And they're exactly 13 crawfish around each coffin lobster salad.
1:16.7	Sounds like a dinner to die for.
1:18.6	Okay.
1:22.4	Carajime is a writer for Atlas Obscura. She says the 13 crawfish on each plate had special
1:29.2	significance. A significant as the 13 men who tucked into their coffin lobster salad and
1:34.6	crawfish that night. And then there are 13 candles and there's a big banner and in red letters
1:40.1	it reads, no smore to Tury Te Salute Thomas, which is Latin for it. We who are about to
1:45.6	die salute you. This was the first ever meeting of the 13 club.
1:56.1	That sounds all spacious. The 13 club, what the heck is that?
2:00.5	Well, it was a social club devoted to mocking superstitions. And not surprisingly,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BackStory, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BackStory and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.