Before 6-7, There Were These Number Crazes

How widespread are superstitions around the “unlucky” number 13? More than 80 percent of high-rise buildings in the United States don’t have a 13th floor, and nearly all hotels, hospitals and airports avoid using the “cursed” number for rooms or boarding gates. Most airlines skip row 13 on planes, too.  

That’s because an estimated 10 percent of the U.S. population and 14 percent of people in Britain have a legitimate fear of the number 13. (In Asia, 4 is considered the unluckiest number.) 

Many people believe 13 has always been an unlucky number. There are multiple theories about its ancient origins: Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus in the Bible, was the 13th person to sit at the Last Supper; in Tarot, the “Death” card is number 13; and the Knights Templar were defeated on a Friday the 13th in 1307.

But references to 13 as an unlucky number and Friday the 13th as a particularly unlucky day didn’t emerge in literature and newspapers until the mid-19th century. Even then, fear of the number 13 was mocked by plays and cartoons as a “superstition.” Somehow, after entering the zeitgeist, “unlucky 13” morphed from a joke into a true phobia.

No piece of pop culture has done more to spread triskaidekaphobia than the Friday the 13th horror film franchise. The original slasher flick debuted in 1980, though the murderous Jason Voorhees didn’t don his infamous hockey mask until the fourth movie. There have been 12 movies in total—nine in the Friday the 13th series and three spin-offs.

Every heavy metal fan knows that the number 666 is the “mark of the beast,” thanks to the classic Iron Maiden song by the same name. In this case, the Bible is absolutely to blame for starting the rumor that 666 is a “satanic” number.  

In Chapter 13 of the Book of Revelation—a symbol-ridden prophecy of the end times—the “Antichrist” is described as a monstrous beast who will be falsely worshipped for working miracles. Those who follow him will receive a “mark” or “number” on their right hands or foreheads.  

“Here is wisdom,” reads verse 18, “Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.” 

Even though the Bible identified 666 as the mark of the beast almost 2,000 years ago, the number didn’t gain traction in religious circles until the 19th century. That’s when an apocalyptic Christian movement called premillennial dispensationalism began actively looking for signs of Jesus’ Second Coming as prophesied in books like Revelation.  

But it took a Hollywood movie from the 1970s to really launch the number 666 into popular culture. The Omen, released in 1976, is a horror film about a young boy named Damien who turns out to be the Antichrist.  

As screenwriter David Seltzer recounts, he was asked to write something similar to The Exorcist, which was a massive hit in 1973. So Seltzer turned to the Bible for inspiration.  

“The Book of Revelation blew my mind,” Seltzer writes, “the mythology, the characters, the scope and, importantly, the stories, which were ridiculous flights of fancy but told with such conviction that they seemed credible.” 

The clincher was Revelation 13:18 about the “number of the beast.” Seltzer immediately pictured the birthmark hidden under Damien’s hair reading “666.” The Omen was released on June 6, 1976 (6/6/76) and cemented the number 666 as synonymous with “evil.” 

Author Ian Fleming introduced the world to James Bond in his best-selling 1953 novel Casino Royale. Fleming worked for British naval intelligence during World War II and described his suave creation as a “highly romanticized version of the true spy.”  

But where did Bond’s codename 007 come from?  

In the fictional Bond universe, “00” status means that a British intelligence agent has a “license to kill.” Strangely, it must be earned by killing someone. As Bond explains in Casino Royale: “For those two jobs I was awarded a Double O number in the Service... A double O number in our Service means you’ve had to kill a chap in cold blood in the course of some job.” 

There are all sorts of theories about where Fleming came up with the number 007 for Bond’s codename. It’s the international dialing code for Russia. It’s part of a ZIP code in Washington, D.C., that’s home to a lot of spies. And Fleming stayed in room number 1007 when he wrote the first Bond novels.  

Fleming himself told Playboy magazine that he stole the number from real British intelligence operations during the war.  

“I pinched the idea from the fact that, in the Admiralty, at the beginning of the war, all top-secret signals had the double-o prefix,” said Fleming. “This was changed subsequently for the usual security reasons, but it stuck in my mind, and I borrowed it for Bond and he got stuck with it.”   

Fleming wrote 12 Bond novels and two collections of short stories. And starting with Dr. No in 1963, there have been 25 Bond movies. Whatever its origins, there’s a strong argument that 007 is the most famous number in pop culture history.  

Few people recognize the band name Tommy Tutone, but everyone knows their 1982 hit “867-5309/Jenny.” The catchy chorus is nothing but a seven-digit phone number on repeat: 867-5309.  

Was there a real Jenny, and was that her actual phone number? Each member of Tommy Tutone has their own story, but according to Snopes.com, both the name and number were invented by a musician named Alex Call in 1981. Call’s friend Jim Keller from Tommy Tutone helped flesh out the lyrics, and the rest is history.  

“867-5309/Jenny” hit number one on Billboard’s rock charts in 1982 and immediately became a nightmare for anyone unlucky enough to have the famous number. A Chicago woman sold her number to radio station WLS, and it received 22,000 calls in four days. A junior high school in North Carolina got 200 calls a day.  

As late as 2004, a radio DJ in New Jersey requested the phone number 867-5309 as a joke and received at least 30 calls a day from bored pranksters asking for Jenny.  

To avoid terrorizing their customers, most U.S. and Canadian phone companies don’t assign 867-5309 as a number anymore. But according to a scan of all area codes from 2025, there are still a few businesses and individuals who like the attention. Some even play the song.  

Here’s a simple experiment: Type this question into any search engine: “What’s the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe and everything?” The response, of course, is 42. But why?  

The famous number sprang from the mind of writer Douglas Adams in 1978 when he wrote the original radio play “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy,” which later became his best-selling comic novel. The number, like the rest of Douglas’ absurdist sci-fi storyline, was meant to be a joke.  

In the radio play, TV series and books, a supercomputer named Deep Thought takes 7.5 million years to come up with the answer to “life, the universe and everything.” Before revealing the ultimate answer, Deep Thought warns, “I don’t think you’re going to like it.” The computer was right. When told that the ultimate answer is 42, people are not happy at all. 

But is there some secret, deep meaning behind the number 42? Many theories have been floated: the Gutenberg Bible had exactly 42 lines of text per column; the ancient marathon distance was 42.195 kilometers; in Egyptian mythology, 42 judges determine if the dead had committed any of 42 sins; and many more.  

According to Adams, it wasn’t that deep. “It was a joke,” he told an online discussion group. “It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ‘42 will do.’ I typed it out. End of story.” 

For a random joke, 42 has remarkable sticking power. It’s still the best answer that Google can come up with for the meaning of everything.

Back in the 1970s, a group of California teenagers unwittingly created a secret codeword for marijuana that took over the world.  

It was 1971, and five high-school friends from San Rafael were on a mission. Somewhere in nearby Point Reyes Forest was an abandoned crop of cannabis—allegedly. Every day, the friends would meet at 4:20 p.m. (after sports practice) by a campus statue of Louis Pasteur. Then they’d pile into a car, get high and search for the legendary crop.  

The friends called themselves the Waldos, and when they’d see each other in the hallway, they’d say with a wink, “4:20 Louis,” which eventually was shortened to “4:20.” But how did an inside joke between a bunch of teenagers become an international phenomenon?  

The short answer is the Grateful Dead. A couple members of the Waldos had connections to the band, and they’d hang out backstage at the Winterland Theater in San Francisco. When a joint was passed around, the Waldos would say “420,” and soon, it spread among the Grateful Dead community. A High Times article in 1990 catapulted 420 into the world.  

Today, April 20 (4/20) is an unofficial stoner holiday to celebrate and promote cannabis legalization.   

No zip code in the U.S. is more iconic than 90210, thanks to a soapy teen TV drama that ran for 10 seasons in the 1990s. “Beverly Hills 90210” played up the conspicuous wealth of this tony Los Angeles neighborhood and made 90210 shorthand for the kind of status and style that only (lots of) money can buy.  

The real 90210 ZIP code encompasses much more than world-famous shopping districts like Rodeo Drive. The boundaries of 90210 extend from Wilshire Blvd. north all the way to Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. The zip code not only contains Beverly Hills, but other super-posh neighborhoods like Benedict Canyon and Beverly Crest.  

Even though 90210 is still the most famous luxury address in America, it’s not the most expensive. In 2025, 90210 ranked 13th, with a median sale price of $4.35 million. There were nine other California zip codes ahead of Beverly Hills, including Atherton, California, with a median home sale price of $8.33 million.  

The infamous 404 “not found” error page is the internet’s version of a dead end. There are plenty of legitimate reasons for a 404 error message—usually a broken link or a page simply doesn’t exist anymore—but the number has become synonymous with disappointment both online and IRL.  

Why is it called a 404 error? Back in 1990, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee was working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) when he came up with the idea for the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee developed every part of the early web from scratch, including Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). He also came up with the status codes and error codes to identify issues within the new system. 

There are 63 codes in all, and the 400s are reserved for “client error.” 400 is “bad request,” 408 is “request timeout” and 404 is the classic “not found.”  

A rumor once claimed that Room 404 at CERN was where the first servers lived—and that it was also Berners-Lee’s office, where he was frequently “not found.” However, Robert Cailliau, who collaborated with Berners-Lee on the World Wide Web, called the room number story “a complete myth.”

According to the infamous “5-second rule”—also known as the “3-second rule”—food is safe to eat if it’s picked up within five seconds of hitting the floor. No one knows where this hygienically dubious claim came from, but it’s taken as fact in at least the U.S., Australia and Germany, where it’s called the Dreisekundenregel (“3-second rule”).

Genghis Khan might have played a role. The Mongol emperor allegedly instated the “Khan rule” at his feasts. Any food that fell on the floor could stay there “as long as Khan allowed,” according to a book called Did You Just Eat That?

There’s also a famous clip from Julia Child’s cooking show in 1963 where she accidentally flips a potato pancake out of the pan and says, “[Y]ou can always pick it up if you’re alone in the kitchen. Who is going to see?” 

Several scientific experiments have put the five-second rule to the test, with mixed results. In one study from Clemson University, dangerous bacteria like Salmonella transferred from the floor to food in less than five seconds. Other studies found that the type of food and surface material also made a big difference. Wet food on stainless steel picked up a lot more bacteria a lot faster than dry food on a carpet.