Bad luck for some on Friday the 13th

May 13, 1938: This Friday the 13th, accompanied by a total lunar eclipse, was a rough day for some Los Angeles residents, The Times reported in a front-page story. “Nursing broken bones, burns, wrenched tendons, bruises and empty pocketbooks, scores of Angelenos painfully bore witness ... that Friday the Thirteenth hoodoo is no myth.”

Some scoffed at the superstition, the newspaper said. Thirteen couples went to get marriage licenses that day, and when “the Mystic Thirteen, an organization of Southland magicians, held its annual frolic at the Los Angeles Swimming Stadium, one of the first stunts on the program was the smashing of 13 mirrors with as many hammer blows.” But the mishaps were numerous too, The Times said. One man grabbed a bunch of neckties off his dresser and leaped out a second-floor window after his East Adams Street apartment caught fire. “He was picked up with a broken right leg -- and 13 neckties still in his clenched fist.”