Life is full of strange coincidences and odd things that make you think twice.
History can be a fascinating topic, not just because it offers so much variety but also because some of the things that have occurred can be directly linked. Whether people just dismiss strange similarities as being just a coincidence or something more is entirely up to the reader!
One long list of similarities that have always fascinated me was the so called 'Curse of Tecumseh." Anyone familiar with this will have weighed up what the chances are of it being an actual curse or just a tall tale passed down over many years. The problem with writing it off as a tall tale ignores that history backs it up with dates - lots of them!
Chief Tecumseh (1768 - 1813) was a Native American leader of the Shawnee tribe and also of the tribal confederacy that opposed the United States during the war of 1812.
A Wikipaedia reference states "In September 1809, William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory negotiated the Treaty of Fort Wayne in which a delegation of Indians ceded 3 million acres (12,000 km²) of Native American lands to the United States. The negotiations had not been authorised by the United States President, and Chief Tecumseh gained prominence through his opposition to the treaty.
In August of 1810 Tecumseh led four hundred armed warriors to Harrison's home and argued against the treaty. Harrison refused to be forced into changing the treaty and after Tecumseh starting urging his warriors to kill him he drew his sword and the town garrison moved in to protect him."
On 7 November 1811 Governor Harrison and around 1000 men fought a battle on a hill outside Prophetstown, Indiana against Tecumseh's brother Tenskwatawa and the tribal confederacy. Harrison and his men succeeded in fighting off Tenskwatawa and his men and then proceeded to burn the town. This was the battle of Tippecanoe which resulted in Tenskwatawa losing both prestige and the confidence of Tecumseh. This was supposedly the "straw that broke the camel's back" and caused Tecumseh to put a curse on Harrison and future US presidents. This has been interpreted as affecting every future president of the United States (starting with Harrison) who will die in office within each twenty-five year period.
Chief Tecumseh sided with the British against the United States during the War of 1812. He was killed in Canada on 5 October 1813 fighting with his tribes of the confederacy against the United States.
The curse started in 1841 when after one month in office as the president of the United States William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia.
In 1850 Zachary Taylor died in office from suspected gastroenteritis.
In 1865 Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
In 1881 James Garfield was assassinated.
In 1901 William McKinley was assassinated.
In 1923 Warren Harding died in office of a stroke of apoplexy.
In 1945 Franklin Delano Roosevelt died in office (at the beginning of his fourth term) from a massive stroke.
In 1963 John F Kennedy was assassinated.
And...in 1981 Ronald Reagan was almost assassinated. There is a rumour that Reagan's wife Nancy was aware of the curse and found a way to stop it. I guess if you look at the previous list of presidents who died in the relevant time frame one could be forgiven for taking it seriously!
No presidents have died in office since JFK.
To push the subject out further, let us look at presidents BEFORE Harrison.
George Washington - president 1789 until 1797. Died 1799.
John Adams - president 1797 until 1801. Died 1826.
Thomas Jefferson - president 1801 until 1809. Died 1826.
James Madison - president 1809 until 1817. Died 1836.
James Monroe - president 1817 until 1825. Died 1831.
John Quincy Adams - president 1825 until 1829. Died 1848.
Andrew Jackson - president 1829 until 1837. Died 1845.
Martin Van Buren - president 1837 until 1841. Died 1862.
Sometimes fact IS stranger than fiction!
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tecumseh
http://www.whitehouse.gov/about/presidents