It’s 2007. Consider yourself lucky.

12/29/2006

It is 2007. Consider yourself lucky.
Dating back to earliest antiquity, the number 7 has been considered lucky.
In modern times, triple 7s is a winning line on slot machines, and 7 is the winning roll of the dice in the game of craps. It is the sum of any two opposite sides on a six-sided die, yet there is much more to the luck of 7 than its place in games of chance.
There were, for instance, 7 ancient planets, which gave rise to our 7 days of the week, which are named after the 7 major Roman gods.
The number 7 runs rampant through just about every religion as well. The Arabians had 7 holy temples, and Islam has 7 heavens. In Judaism, God rested on and sanctified the 7th day. Christianity counts the 7 deadly sins of lust, gluttony, avarice, envy, wrath, sloth and pride. The Bible says 7 is the perfect number, there are 7 sacraments in the Roman Catholic faith, and Buddhists claim that Buddha walked 7 steps at his birth.
When asked to choose a number between 1 and 10, the most commonly chosen number is 7.
Counting the nostrils, eyes, ears and mouth, there are 7 openings to nearly every human head.
There are 7 liberal arts and sciences, 7 wonders of the ancient world, 7 notes in a musical scale, 7 colours in a rainbow, boats sail the 7 seas around 7 continents, and Snow White had her 7 dwarfs.
The 7th son of a 7th son is supposed to be born gifted. Apparently, singer Donny Osmond is such a son, although no one is really certain of his “gifts”.
On TV’s “Seinfeld”, George Costanza desires to name his first-born 7. Star Trek poured curvy actress Geri Ryan into a skinsuit and called her 7, and James Bond's secret agent number is 007.
It is the retired jersey number of baseball’s Mickey Mantle, hockey’s Ted Lindsay, football’s John Elway, and the highest paid athlete in the world, Tiger Woods, swings a 7 iron rather well.
It is also the number of spots on a ladybug.
The smallest number requiring more than one syllable in English is 7, and it is the largest number of cylindrical objects that can be tied into a bundle and the shape of the bundle remains fixed.
The natives of Montana have 7 seasons: chinook season, muddy spring, green summer, gold summer, Indian summer, late fall and cold winter.
Rugby 7s is a game of rugby that contains only 7 players per side instead of the standard 15, and a hefty number of Stanley Cups have been filled with champagne after game 7 of the NHL finals.
Number 7 is a popular cigarette brand, 7up is a popular soft drink, and you buy them at 7-Eleven.
The number 7 appears 42 times in this column, which is equal to 7 multiplied by itself, subtract 7.
So, it all works out in the end—or was it luck?