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MrPerfect
05-13-2010, 12:25 AM
The Curse of Tecumseh

Before his death, American legend says that Indian Chief Tecumseh issued a curse upon the American Presidency - that every twenty years a President would die in office.

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Where did the Tecumseh Curse originate? Historians are in general agreement about at least one thing: It probably didn't come from Tecumseh himself. The first known popular reference to the "curse" is from a 1931 Ripley's Believe it or Not book. Not exactly the mouth of Tecumseh.

As the story goes, however, Chief Tecumseh was sufficiently angered by the way his people were being treated in the Indiana territory while it was governed by future President William Henry Harrison. When Tecumseh threatened to hasten an Indian uprising to try to prevent the Americans from taking any more lands, Harrison fought back.

The resulting battle - the Battle of Tippacanoe - found Harrison successful, and Tecumseh even more upset. If there is any truth to the story, it would be somewhere around this time that the following curse was issued: Every American President to be elected on a year divisible by twenty (no, these were probably not his exact words) will die in office.

In other words, Tecumseh cursed the President-to-be who would be elected in 1840, 1860, 1880, 1900, etc... How he knew that his enemy, William Henry Harrison (who is often credited with personally killing Tecumseh in the Battle at Thames a year later during the War of 1812), would be the first to fall from his curse remains a mystery (though one must assume that a person with the ability to issue such a curse in the first place should have no problem seeing into the future).
The First Victim - 1840

Sure enough, come 1840 (those who credit Tecumseh with this curse apparently have no qualms in skipping over the 1820 election, which resulted in a near-unanimous victory by James Monroe, who very much did not die in office), William Henry Harrison was elected to the highest office in the land, and promptly died of pneumonia 31 days later.

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The curse had begun.
Abraham Lincoln - 1860

America's 16th President, and one of the great heroes of American history, President Lincoln surely knew nothing of the Tecumseh curse upon being elected President in 1860 as the nation stood on the brink of Civil War. If he had, though, he surely would have thought that the curse skipped over him as he successfully survived his first term, having been elected once again in 1864.

Unfortunately, the curse does not state that the death has to ocurr within the first term. Lincoln, as is well known, tragically fell victim to an assassine's bullet soon into his second term.
James Garfield - 1880

One of the lesser known Presidents in history, Garfield's half-year in office ranks second to Harrison's on the list of "shortest Presidential terms." The Tecumseh effect acted quickly in this case, as Garfield was shot while standing at a Railroad station in Washington by a political enemy (though many today place more of the blame for the President's death on his inept doctors than on the assassine's bullet itself).
William McKinley - 1900

A victory in the election of 1900 marked the beginning of William McKinley's second term in office, having kept safe throughout the length of his first term. Unfortunately, with this election, McKinley fell prey to Tecumseh's curse when in September of 1901 he was shot twice by an anarchist in Buffalo, New York. He died after eight painful days.
Warren G. Harding - 1920

Though he has been since viewed as one of the the least successful Presidents in the history of the United States, Warren G. Harding still held some popularity when he suffered a heart attack in San Fransisco while on a train trip to the western U.S. in August of 1923, leaving the office (and his many scandals) to his soft-spoken running mate, Calvin Coolidge.
Franklin D. Roosevelt - 1940

The 1940 election was actually the third for F.D.R - the first time an American President had had the audacity to break the "2 term" tradition begun by the graceful stepping-down of George Washington in 1797. It would not be his last, either. With World War II still raging, a less-than-healthy Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented fourth term in 1944, but would not last long.

Tecumseh's curse befell F.D.R. in the form of a cerebral hemmorrhage while vacationing in Georgia on April 12, 1945, leaving the Presidency - and the war - to Harry S Trumen.
John F. Kennedy - 1960

The day of the Kennedy assassination was one of the most fateful in America's past fifty years. The world was stunned to hear the news of Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963 while riding in his motorcade through Dallas, Texas - the youngest man to ever be elected to the office, and the youngest to die.

As a result of Tecumseh, the Presidency was passed on once more, this time to Lyndon B. Johnson.
President Reagan - 1980?

By this point, more and more people had begun to catch on to the "curse" befalling every applicable President of the past 140 years. Seven Presidents had fallen since the defeat of Tecumseh, and surely there were many who questioned whether or not Ronald Reagan would survive his time in office - especially with his advanced age (the oldest President since, ironically, William Henry Harrison.

Sure enough, Reagan survived eight years in the white house (despite a particularly close call thanks to a bullet fired by John Hinckly, Jr.).

LeatherHead
05-13-2010, 12:38 AM
True story... Reagan broke the curse. Too bad Obama couldn't take it up again.

theBIGness
06-16-2010, 01:43 PM
hopefully america figures out by now that the president is a puppet on a string

Juced_porkchop
06-16-2010, 02:46 PM
hopefully america figures out by now that the president is a puppet on a string

A fuking MEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

irish2003
06-16-2010, 06:23 PM
True story... Reagan broke the curse. Too bad Obama couldn't take it up again.

that would be great