Opening an Umbrella Indoors Is Bad Luck
"The superstition that opening an umbrella inside a building will bring misfortune."
Two very different explanations compete for this one. The older points to ancient Egypt, around 1200 BC, where early umbrellas made from feathers and papyrus were used by priests and royalty specifically to block the sun, meaning opening one indoors, away from the sun, could be seen as an insult to the sun god Ra, or to the sky goddess Nut, whose protective shade the umbrella was meant to represent. The more practical theory points to the Victorian era, when Samuel Fox's steel-ribbed umbrella design became popular. A rigid, spring-loaded umbrella suddenly opening in a cramped room was a genuine way to injure someone or break something, which may have hardened an older superstition into a very sensible household rule.