Triskaidekaphobia Part Deux Trivia Quiz

Answer: April 1

Sizdah Be-dar occurs on the thirteenth day of Farvardin (the first month on the Iranian calendar) and corresponds to April Fool's Day in the West. The tradition traces back to the time of the legendary king Jamshid and to Zoroastrianism. The tradition involves leaving the house on the thirteenth and spending time outdoors in the mountains, parks, and woods of the countryside having fun and enjoying life.

It has been postulated that this was to ward off the bad luck associated with the number 13 but there is no hard and fast proof of this. Today it is seen as an embrace and celebration of the natural world and of all nature offers.

Answer: Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock got his first shot at directing with Gainsborough Pictures but the budget fell apart after just a few scenes were shot and the movie was cancelled. The footage that he did shoot has since been lost and is highly sought after. The script was also lost.

Interestingly, Clare Greet, who was to be the star of the film, had provided some financing from her own money before the rest fell through. Hitchcock never forgot her generosity and she appeared in six of his films: "The Ring" (1927), "The Manxman" (1929), "Murder!" (1930), "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1934), "Sabotage" (1936), and "Jamaica Inn" (1939). This tied her with Leo G. Carroll for the most appearances in Hitchcock films.

Answer: Coagulation

It plays a crucial role in coagulation. Factor XIII is also called fibrin stabilizing factor or the Laki-Lorand factor and is a transglutaminase that circulates in the plasma as a heterotetramer. Factor XIII has a long half-life of five to nine days and is found in plasma, platelets, and monocytes.

It is also present in macrophages and bone marrow precursors of these three types of cells.

Answer: The Doors

Jim Morrison of the Doors was known as The Lizard King because of his interest in Native American shamanism. It was his spirit guide. The Doors album "13" was the first compilation album for the band, containing of course thirteen songs, and the only one released before Morrison's death. It was released in November of 1970. The album has been certified Platinum in both the US and Canada.

"13", the thirteenth solo album for Brian Setzer, was released in 2006. It had its greatest success in Japan. "13" was the second studio album for the band Solace who chose the number for the bad luck the band had in making it. "TH1RT3EN" was the thirteenth studio album for Megadeth. It was released in November of 2011.

Answer: Holly Hunter

Holly Hunter was nominated for playing the role of Melanie, the divorced mother of two children who is a recovering alcoholic and high school drop out. She works as a hairdresser to support herself and the kids. Evan Rachel Wood played her 13 year old daughter Tracy. The film was controversial upon its release because Tracy and her friends had to contend with the issues of drug and alcohol abuse, underage sexual behavior and self-mutilation.

Hunter won her the Oscar for Best Actress for playing Ada McGrath in the 1993 movie "The Piano".

Answer: Emirp

Emirp is prime spelled backwards and is the term for a prime number that is a different prime number when its digits are reversed. Emirps do not however include palindromic primes, like 131 for example, because palindromic primes are not different primes but the same prime. All non-palindromic permutable primes are emirps but not all emirps are permutable primes.

13 is also a Fibonacci number, a happy number, and a Wilson prime but none of these answers fit the definition. Fibonacci numbers are a series of numbers that are arrived at by combining the value of the previous two numbers in the sequence. For example: 1,1,2,3,5,8,13...

A happy number in the context of 13 is arrived at this way. First square 1 and then square 3. Add the two squares together (1+9=10). Then square the 1 from 10 and square the 0 from 10. Add these squares together (1+0=1). Any number when you do this process that ends with the sum of 1 is a happy number and any number that does not end in 1 is a sad number.

Wilson primes are a somewhat complicated mathematical computation and only three are known to exist. These are 5, 13, and 563.

Answer: Knights Templar

King Philip IV went after the Knights Templar starting on this date in what most historians agree was a purely ruthless attempt to free himself from his indebtedness to the order. The Knights Templar had been in existence for about 200 years prior to this event and had accumulated great wealth during the Crusades. Philip was deeply in debt to the order because of his war with the English and saw charges that had been raised against the order as his way to get out from under the debt. It is of interest to note that after he had the last two leaders of the Knights burned at the stake, Philip died in a hunting accident. Many attribute this to Grand Master De Molay's plea during his death at the stake to see Philip stand with him before God so that God could judge between them.

In more recent history the idea of Friday the 13th bringing bad luck is traced back to this event, most notably by Dan Brown in "The Da Vinci Code", but most historians believe this to be a stretch.

Answer: Archimedean solid

The Archimedean solids are named after him because he was the first mathematician to discuss them in a now-lost work. His work was completed during the Renaissance by Johannes Kepler in 1620. The thirteen known Archimedean solids are:
1) the truncated tetrahedron
2) the cuboctahedron
3) the truncated cube or truncated hexahedron
4) the truncated octahedron
5) the rhombicuboctahedron or small rhombicuboctahedron
6) the truncated cuboctahedron or great rhombicuboctahedron
7) the snub cube or snub hexahedron or snub cuboctahedron
8) the icosidodecahedron,
9) the truncated dodecahedron
10)the truncated icosahedron
11)the rhombicosidodecahedron or small rhombicosidodecahedron
12)the truncated icosidodecahedron or great rhombicosidodecahedron
13)the snub dodecahedron or snub icosidodecahedron

Answer: Our Lady of Fátima

These events took place in Fátima, Portugal. The three children were Lúcia dos Santos and her cousins Jacinta and Francisco Marto. The Catholic Church has declared that the events are worthy of belief. During these visits the virgin Mary revealed the Three Secrets of Fátima to the children. The first was a vision of hell. The second was a prophecy about how WWI would end and how WWII would come about. The third secret was at first not revealed by the children as Mary had commanded them not to reveal it. In 1944, after Jacinta and Francisco had died, Lucia was ordered by Bishop Silva to write down the secret so that it would not be lost if she died. She finally relented and wrote the secret down. It was then sent sealed to Bishop Silva who kept it sealed until he transferred it to Rome in 1957. There it remained until the text was finally revealed in 2000. There is much controversy over why it was not revealed in 1960 as Lucia had wanted and whether or not it is the full text.

Currently, there is a shrine at Cova da Iria where the original visions took place. It is an important place of pilgrimage for Catholic believers.

Answer: True

This is true. It was considered more humane to have the criminal's neck broken and to die quickly than to strangle to death. In lynchings, especially in the American Old West, it was more of a slip knot that was used which meant the person would die of strangulation. If done correctly, the force of the person being dropped from the gallows and rigid nature of a hangman's knot should break the neck. Whether the number 13 was selected for the number of coils because of its association with bad luck or the fact that it had 13 coils led to the number 13 being associated with bad luck is unclear. Either way the two became permanently linked.