Unlucky? He Was Born on Friday the 13th, So He Ran the Numbers

Shane Hewitt and The Nightshift · Sep 12, 2026 · 10m

Jeffrey Rosenthal has a personal stake in this question. He was born on a Friday the 13th, and every time someone calls the date unlucky, it feels a little bit personal. So he did what a statistics professor does: he got access to a massive database of unexpected deaths from the Ontario coroner's office and checked whether the date actually holds up.

The result surprised even him in a few specific ways. Friday the 13th itself came in lower than the yearly average, but a nearby date showed a small uptick, one Jeffrey has a theory about involving timing and reporting delays. He also ran the…