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In the period known as the "Old Kingdom" in Ancient Egypt, from 2600-2100 BC, all professions were open to men and women, including the clergy, business, and medicine. In fact, records show that there were more than 100 prominent female physicians in Ancient Egypt, with Peseshet as their director. She was known as "lady overseer of the female physicians" - although it is not established that Lady Peseshet was a doctor herself and even if she was she was not the first known female physician. That title goes to someone who practiced medicine almost 100 years earlier: the world's first known female doctor was Merit-Ptah (2700 BC).

1. Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number 13.

2. Many cities don't have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. This city tempted fate.

3. If you have 13 letters in your name, you're said to have the devil's luck. Like, this guy (Charles Manson).

4. Many airports skip the 13th gate.

5. Airplanes have no 13th aisle.

6. Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.

7. More than 80% of high rises lack a 13th floor.

8. On streets in Florence, Italy, the house between number 12 and 14 is addressed as 12 and a half.

9. Traditionally in hangings, there are 13 knots in the noose and 13 steps leading up to the moment of death.

10. French President Nicolas Sarkozy may know that in France, socialites called quatorziens (fourteeners) make themselves available as 14th guests to keep a dinner party from an unlucky fate.

11. Many say the No. 13 pointed to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.

12. Tarot Card number 13 is the Death Card, depicting the Grim Reaper.

13. Some say that the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi (circa 1780 B.C.E.) is to blame for the No. 13 woes since the 13th law is omitted.

1. Sandals originated in warm climates where the soles of the feet needed protection but the top of the foot needed to be cool.

2. 4,000 years ago the first shoes were made of a single piece of rawhide that enveloped the foot for both warmth and protection.

3. In Europe pointed toes on shoes were fashionable from the eleventh to the fifteenth centuries.

4. In the Middle East heels were added to shoes to lift the foot from the burning sand.

5. In Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries heels on shoes were always colored red.

6. Shoes all over the world were identical until the nineteenth century, when left- and right-footed shoes were first made in Philadelphia.

7. In Europe it wasn't until the eighteenth century that women's shoes were different from men's.

8. Six-inch-high heels were worn by the upper classes in seventeenth-century Europe. Two servants, one on either side, were needed to hold up the person wearing the high heels.

9. Sneakers were first made in America in 1916. They were originally called keds.

10. Boots were first worn in cold, mountainous regions and hot, sandy deserts where horse-riding communities lived. Heels on boots kept feet secure in the stirrups.

11. The first lady's boot was designed for Queen Victoria in 1840.