Is it true that US presidents die due to the curse of an Indian chief?

There is a widespread belief in the USA: one of the Indian leaders cursed all American presidents who are elected in a year divisible by 20. We checked how this prediction is fulfilled.

There are a lot of policy-related overlaps across countries. For example, according to a half-joking, but no less paradoxical pattern in Russia since 1825 alternate "hairy" and "bald" rulers. Americans saw much darker coincidences in their political history. One of them: most presidents elected in a year divisible by 20 don't survive before the end of his term. After the 2020 election, which was won by 77-year-old Joe Biden, the story of the curse has regained its popularity. increased.

While the Napoleonic Wars were in full swing in Europe, on the other side of the ocean, an alliance of Indian tribes resisted the expansion of the newly emerged United States. One of the leaders of the indigenous population was a chief named Tecumseh. After the death of his father and brother in battles with the colonialists, he headed fight with the Americans. In 1813 Tecumseh died on the territory of modern Canada at the Battle of the Thames, which led to the collapse of the Indian Union.

There are different versions of when and who exactly placed the curse on future American leaders. The most popular of them reads: In 1811, Indiana Governor William Harrison was simultaneously negotiating with Tecumseh and his half-brother Tenskwatawa and preparing an attack. This less-than-honest tactic allowed the Americans to win the Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811. Tenskwatawa, who was a popular religious leader among the Indians, allegedly imposed a curse for betrayal. Another version attributes “authorship” of the curse to Tecumseh himself.

The curse allegedly began to work three decades later. In 1840, Harrison, who defeated the Indians by deception, became the ninth president of the United States, and a month later died from pneumonia. Coincidentally, a similar fate awaited many of the leaders for whom the majority of Americans voted in a year divisible by 20. Abraham Lincoln won the 1860 election. shot in 1865. Elected 1880 James Garfield died a year after he suffered a gunshot wound in an attack. Similar fate I was waiting William McKinley, who received the most votes in 1900. 1920 election winner Warren Harding passed away from a heart attack in 1923. Winner of the 1940 presidential campaign, Franklin Roosevelt died in 1945 after a cerebral hemorrhage, and John Kennedy shot in 1963, three years after his election.

Some believe that this is where the curse ended, but subsequent presidents elected in the “round” years did not have it any easier. Ronald Reagan (1980) survived assassination attempt in 1981, and a grenade thrown at George W. Bush (2000) during his 2005 speech in Tbilisi, didn't explode. There have been no reported incidents involving 2020 election winner Joe Biden that could be linked to the curse. However, in fact, not only Reagan and Bush Jr., who survived the end of their presidency, break the curse: for example, Lincoln died during his second term, and Roosevelt, who won his third election in 1940, died after being elected to his fourth term.

At the moment, historians are not aware of any written evidence or the memories of contemporaries that any of the leaders of the Indian Union cursed Harrison and all the presidents elected every 20 years after him. First death of American leaders tied up with the curse of Tecumseh or Tenskwatawa in the periodical Believe It or Not! 1931. The pattern noticed by its authors quickly became popular: it was mentioned before the elections 1940, and journalists also wrote about it Ed Koterba And Lloyd Shearer in the run-up to the polls in 1960 and 1980 respectively.

Legend

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-curse-of-tecumseh/
2. https://skepticalinquirer.org/2019/11/the-presidential-course-and-the-election-of-2020/
3. Robert S. Pohl Urban Legends & Historic Lore of Washington D.C.
4. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-dying-tecumseh-97830806/