Billy goats have struck mortalfear deep in the heart of an inveterate Cubs fan since 1945, after Chicago tavern owner Bill "Billy Goat" Sianis pronounced a curse on the club on October 6 of that year -- just a month after the end of World War II.
Textbooks in evolutionary psychology have proposed the hypothesis that the fear of spiders is an adaptation shaped by the mortal threat posed by their bites.