Curse of Tippecanoe

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The term Curse of Tippecanoe (also known as Tecumseh's curse, the presidential curse, zero-year curse, or the twenty-year curse) is sometimes used to describe the pattern where from 1840 to 1960 each American President who had won election in a year ending in zero (such as 1880 or 1900) died in office. It was "broken" by Ronald Reagan, who yet was badly wounded in a March 1981 shooting.

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[edit] The curse

The curse, first widely noted in a Ripley's Believe It or Not book published in 1931 [1], began with the death of William Henry Harrison, who died in 1841 after having been elected in 1840. Every 20 years thereafter for the next 120 years the winner of the United States presidential election ultimately died while serving in office, from William Henry Harrison, (elected 1840, died 1841) to John F. Kennedy (elected 1960, died 1963).

[edit] Origins

The name "Curse of Tippecanoe" derives from the 1811 battle. As governor of the Indiana Territory, William Harrison bribed Native Americans to cede their lands to the U.S. government and handed out whiskey that caused alcoholism to run rampant among Indians. [2] These hostile acts angered the Shawnee chief Tecumseh ("Panther in the sky") and brought government soldiers and Native Americans to the brink of war. As a result, Tecumseh and his brother organized a defensive group of Indian tribes designed to resist white westward expansion. In 1811, Harrison successfully attacked Tecumseh’s village in which Harrison defeated the Shawnee leaders Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, known as the Prophet along the Tippecanoe River earning Harrison fame and the nickname "Old Tippecanoe." [2] Harrison strengthened his reputation even more by defeating the British at the Battle of the Thames during the War of 1812.[2] Supposedly, the Prophet set a curse against Harrison and future White House occupants.[3]

[edit] Media survey

After the observation by Ripley, talk of the curse resurfaced as the next cursed election year approached. A similar oddities cartoon feature, Strange As it Seems by John Hix, appeared prior to Election Day 1940, with "CURSE OVER THE WHITE HOUSE!"[4] A list, running from "1840 - Harrison" to "1920 - Harding" was followed by the ominous "1940 - ??????" and the note that "In the last 100 years, Every U.S. President Elected at 20-Year Intervals Has Died In Office!" Ed Koterba, author of a syndicated column called "Assignment Washington", referred to the subject again in 1960.[5]

As 1980 approached, the curse was sufficiently well-known, and Americans wondered whether the winner of that election would follow the pattern (or whether a madman with a sense of destiny might seek to hasten the winner's death). The Library of Congress conducted a study in the summer of 1980 about the origin of the tale, and concluded that "although the story has been well-known for years, there are no documented sources and no published mentions of it".[citation needed] Running for re-election in 1980, President Jimmy Carter was asked about the curse at a campaign stop in Dayton on October 2 of that year. Taking questions from the crowd, Carter replied, "I'm not afraid. If I knew it was going to happen, I would go ahead and be President and do the best I could, for the last day I could." [6]

[edit] Exception

The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 was not followed by his death in office. Reagan survived his eight years in two terms, despite being seriously wounded in an assassination attempt within months of his inauguration. Days after Reagan survived the shooting, Columnist Jack Anderson wrote "Reagan and the Eerie Zero Factor" and noted that the 40th President had either disproved the superstition, or had nine lives[7]; like the presidents who had died in office, Reagan was succeeded in office by his vice president George H. W. Bush, the first incumbent vice president in 152 years to assume the presidency other than upon the death or resignation of the president. Reagan's would-be assassin, John Hinckley, Jr., was found by a jury to be insane, but there was no evidence that he was motivated by a belief in curses. Moreover, every president since Richard Nixon has faced at least one assassination attempt, including George W. Bush.

Additionally, the 12th President, Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848, died of acute gastroenteritis just 16 months into his term which technically nullified the alleged curse.

[edit] Presidents in the line of the alleged curse

Elected President Term of death Cause of death Date of death
1840 William Henry Harrison First Pneumonia 1841-04-04
1860 Abraham Lincoln Second Assassinated 1865-04-15
1880 James A. Garfield First Assassinated 1881-09-19
1900 William McKinley Second Assassinated 1901-09-14
1920 Warren G. Harding First Uncertain: Heart attack, stroke, or possibly poison 1923-08-02
1940 Franklin D. Roosevelt Fourth Cerebral hemorrhage 1945-04-12
1960 John F. Kennedy First Assassinated 1963-11-22
1980 Ronald Reagan n/a Attempted assassination - injured but not killed 2004-06-05
(Did not die in office)
2000 George W. Bush n/a Attempted assassination - not injured[8] Still living

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ripley's Believe it or Not, 2nd Series (Simon & Schuster, 1931); an updated reference is on page 140 of the Pocket Books paperback edition of 1948
  2. ^ a b c The New Big Book Of U.S. Presidents By Todd Davis , Marc Frey
  3. ^ Randi Henderson and Tom Nugent, "The Zero Curse: More than just a coincidence?" (Reprinted from the Baltimore Sun), November 2, 1980, in Syracuse Herald-American, p C-3
  4. ^ \Oakland Tribune, November 5, 1940, p12
  5. ^ "Pennsylvania Avenue Ponderings", Hammond Times, February 25, 1960, p18
  6. ^ Henderson and Nugent
  7. ^ The Sunday Intelligencer (Doylestown, PA), April 5, 1981, p 8
  8. ^ CNN.com - Bush grenade attacker gets life - Jan 11, 2006

[edit] External links