Curse of Tippecanoe

For one hundred and twenty years, an eerie pattern haunted the American presidency: every president elected in a year ending in zero died in office. Seven consecutive presidents fell to this “curse,” from William Henry Harrison in 1841 to John F. Kennedy in 1963. The pattern was attributed to a curse placed by Tecumseh’s brother following the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. For over a century, this twenty-year death cycle held without exception, creating one of American history’s most unsettling numerical coincidences—or, some believed, proof of supernatural forces at work in the nation’s highest office.

The Origins

The supposed curse traces to the Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811, when William Henry Harrison, then governor of the Indiana Territory, led American forces against a confederation of Native American tribes assembled by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa, known as the Prophet. Harrison’s forces won the battle, destroying the Native American headquarters at Prophetstown. According to legend, Tenskwatawa placed a curse on Harrison: that he would die in office, and that every subsequent “Great Chief” elected in a twenty-year cycle would share his fate. Whether such a curse was actually pronounced has never been verified, but the pattern it allegedly predicted proved remarkably accurate.

William Henry Harrison (1840)

Harrison himself became the curse’s first victim. Running on the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,” Harrison won the 1840 presidential election. Just thirty-one days into his term—the shortest presidency in American history—Harrison died of pneumonia, allegedly contracted during his lengthy inauguration speech delivered without a coat in cold, wet weather. The man who had won the Battle of Tippecanoe had fulfilled the first part of the alleged prophecy. The curse, if it existed, had claimed its first president.

Abraham Lincoln (1860)

Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 and led the nation through its greatest crisis, the Civil War. He won reelection in 1864 and guided the Union to victory. But on April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth’s bullet at Ford’s Theatre made Lincoln the second president elected in a zero-ending year to die in office. Lincoln’s assassination shocked the nation and established that the curse, if such it was, could claim presidents through violence as well as illness.

James Garfield (1880)

James Garfield won the 1880 election and served only four months before Charles Guiteau shot him at a Washington train station on July 2, 1881. Garfield lingered for over two months before dying on September 19, 1881, likely from infections caused by doctors probing his wound with unsterilized instruments. The third president elected in a zero year had died in office, the second by assassination. The pattern was becoming difficult to dismiss as coincidence.

William McKinley (1900)

William McKinley won his second term in 1900 after leading America to victory in the Spanish-American War. On September 6, 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley died eight days later from gangrene. Four presidents elected in zero years, four dead in office, three by assassination. The curse of Tippecanoe had now spanned sixty years and claimed lives through multiple causes.

Warren Harding (1920)

Warren Harding was elected in 1920 promising a “return to normalcy” after World War I. His administration became mired in scandal, including the Teapot Dome affair. On August 2, 1923, Harding died suddenly in San Francisco during a western tour, officially of a heart attack, though the refusal of his wife to permit an autopsy fueled conspiracy theories. Whether victim of natural causes, foul play, or supernatural curse, Harding became the fifth president to fulfill the pattern.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940)

Franklin Roosevelt, already the only president to win a third term (in 1940), was elected to a fourth term in 1944. His health, never publicly acknowledged as failing, deteriorated through the closing months of World War II. On April 12, 1945, Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage at Warm Springs, Georgia, just weeks before Germany’s surrender. The curse had claimed a president who had already defied precedent by seeking multiple terms; his death in his fourth term counted toward the pattern through his 1940 election.

John F. Kennedy (1960)

John F. Kennedy’s election in 1960 brought awareness of the Tippecanoe curse to a new generation. Some observers noted the pattern and wondered if Kennedy would break it or become another victim. On November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald’s bullets in Dallas answered the question. Kennedy became the seventh president elected in a zero year to die in office, the fourth by assassination. The curse had now spanned 123 years without a single exception.

Ronald Reagan (1980)

When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, the Tippecanoe curse received unprecedented public attention. Reagan himself was aware of the pattern. On March 30, 1981, John Hinckley Jr. shot Reagan outside a Washington hotel. A bullet lodged an inch from Reagan’s heart. Against statistical probability, Reagan survived—the first president elected in a zero year to escape the pattern. Whether modern medicine broke the curse, whether Reagan possessed some special protection, or whether the curse had simply run its course after seven victims remains a matter of interpretation.

George W. Bush (2000)

The 2000 election tested whether Reagan’s survival had truly ended the curse or merely delayed it. George W. Bush served two full terms despite at least one assassination attempt—a grenade thrown during a 2005 speech in Georgia failed to detonate. Bush left office in 2009 alive and well. Two consecutive presidents elected in zero years had now survived. The curse, if it ever existed, appeared to be over.

Analyzing the Pattern

Skeptics point out that the curse requires cherry-picking which facts to count. Presidents elected in non-zero years also died in office. Zachary Taylor (1848) and Warren Harding’s case could be attributed to natural causes common to the era. The assassination attempts on Reagan and Bush show that zero-year presidents continue to face threats; survival has more to do with improved security and medicine than broken curses. The pattern may be nothing more than a remarkable coincidence exaggerated by our tendency to find meaning in random events.

The Curse’s Power

Yet for over a century, the curse held with perfect consistency. Seven consecutive presidents, not a single exception, across 120 years. The probability of such a pattern occurring by chance, while not calculable with precision, seems remarkably low. Whether Tenskwatawa ever pronounced a curse, whether supernatural forces can affect political outcomes, whether the pattern was anything more than coincidence—these questions cannot be definitively answered. The curse exists in the space between statistical improbability and supernatural belief.

Significance

The Curse of Tippecanoe represents one of American history’s most striking numerical patterns, holding without exception through seven presidents and 120 years before finally breaking with Ronald Reagan. Whether supernatural curse, extraordinary coincidence, or some combination of factors, the pattern’s consistency demands attention.

Legacy

For seven generations of Americans, every president elected in a zero year died in office. The pattern seemed ironclad, inevitable, a death sentence written into the calendar. Then Reagan survived, and Bush after him, and the curse that had killed seven presidents claimed no more. Today the Curse of Tippecanoe is remembered as a historical curiosity, a pattern that held just long enough to seem supernatural before breaking. But for those 120 years when no president elected in a zero year survived his term, the curse was not merely legend—it was fact.

Sources

• Wikipedia search: “Curse of Tippecanoe”