My high school economics teacher wanted us to believe that Reagan actually did die after being shot by John Hinckley, and for the rest of his presidency he was replaced by… an actor.
Okay, maybe he didn’t die on the table but he was closer to death that we were led to believe at the time.
The eeriest thing is that when John Wilkes Booth, Charles J. Guiteau, Leon Czolgosz and Lee Harvey Oswald were captured, every one of them had in their possession a copy of Catcher in the Rye. There was also a copy found by the bedside of Florence Harding, who was believed by many to have been the murderer of her husband. All this is particularly astounding since Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Harding died between 1865 and 1923, and the book was not even released until 1945, which was…the year F.D.R. died! Then there’s Hinkley.
Somewhere out there even as we speak is a boy on a bus with a copy of that book and a one-way ticket to D.C., convinced that he IS the rightful president. When will it’s path of terror stop?
Cite?
The ER surgeon who was on duty that night.
Hinkley used a .22 hollow point, designed to “explode” in a body. He actually missed the president intially but the bullet ricocheted of the limo, striking Reagan an inch below the heart. He lost about five pints of blood in the hour between the shooting and him being wheeled into the OR.
Taylor doesn’t count because he wasn’t elected in a year ending in zero. He was elected in 1848.
It’s been stated many places (and was a plot point in the controversial The Reagans movie). Nancy herself:
There is no evidence of that curse. In fact , in general, most of such curses are entirely made up after the fact. And, although someone might indeed worry himself into an early grave IF he knew about the curse, and IF he beleived in the curse, curses can not shoot you. So, the whole curse thing is bullshit.
I notice that you say this from the relative safety of the SDMB, or just within the Teeming Millions. I trust you would have enough discretion to watch your mouth when you comment in public. Even so, if you said that to me in public I would walk away without a word, disgusted at your choice of words and obvious contempt for your listeners. 
Here’s what Cecil sez “The “curse” was popularly attributed to the Indian chief Tecumseh, whose forces were defeated in 1811 at the battle of Tippecanoe by troops led by William Henry Harrison, the first of the seven presidents to die. Harrison also led soldiers against Tecumseh at another battle in 1813 during which the Indian leader was killed. An 1836 play had Tecumseh cursing the white man as he lay dying on the battlefield,* but there is no evidence that he actually did so.”*
There is no contemporary evidence of either curse, and since it is attributed to two widely different Indian *chiefs *(when you’d expect the Shaman to do the cursing, if anyone did), it gets more & more unlikley. I call bullshit.
Were there any?
Zachary Taylor was elected in 1848 but died in 1850. Depending on how the woo-woos want to read that “0” that death year either means something or it doesn’t.
I missed that earlier. Thanks.
Let me put it this way: The English teacher at Lawndale High who read that theme–who is still living, for all I know–must have been impressed by that theme, enough to retrieve it after the news of the assassination ht. Ditto for the student who wrote the theme in 1962; and I suppose all of us kids to whom the teacher read the theme remember it.
In any case, I read the commentary at www.snopes.com about the alleged curse. Among other things, Snopes noted that Ripley had listed Harrison, 1840; Lincoln, 1860; Garfield, 1880; Mc Kinley, 1900; and Harding, 1920. The book was published 14 years before FDR died, and Ripley himself died 14 years before the events in Dallas.
From Snopes "Stirring words indeed, but there’s no reason to suppose they were actually uttered. No record of either Tecumseh or Tenskwatawa laying a whammy on American presidents has yet surfaced — it’s all undocumented folktale at this point and is as likely just someone’s imaginative backstory to the inexplicable as it is anything else. "
In other words, there is no reason at all to beleive that the “Indian Curse” wasn’t entirely made up until AFTER Harrison, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Harding. In fact, the first mention of it in print is 1934. So- those don’t count. Most dudes could have guessed that FDR was going to die in office, that was almost a no-brainer, but even so, FDR did not die during his “year ending in zero” term (neither did Lincoln). Since the “curse” has been publicized, there have been three presidents “under” the “curse”- Kennedy, Reagan & Bush. Of those three, only Kennedy died in office during his “year ending in zero” term.
Including subsequent terms where the President died even though he did not die in term where elected in a “tear ending in zero” is bunk- as many Presidents *terms included * a “year ending in zero” yet survived- Taylor, Fillmore, Grant, Hayes, Ben. Harrison, McKinley, Taft, Wilson, Hoover and so forth.
In other words- the curse is complete and utter bullshit. Some writer in 1934 noticed an interesting coincidence, and it went on from there. Since then, the “curse” has only batted .333. Since WH Harrison, there has been 35 Presidents (including WHH), and 8 have died in office, so the chance of dying in office is around 23%, so guessing that 3 Presidents are going to die and getting one out of three right is almost exactly in line with the expected results. Getting all 3 would have been very odd, I agree.
In other words- there never was a curse, there is no evidence at all of a curse actually being uttered, there was just an interesting coincidence spotted after the fact, which has failed to keep up with the prediction. Now, if Reagan and Bush had died during their “year ending in 0” term, it’s be VERY spooky.
Now, if someone came up with a period mention of the curse *before * W.H Harrison died, that’d be very interesting. But there ain’t no such cite.
I’m very impressed with John Wilkes Booth, Charles Guiteau, and Leon Czolgosz, seeing as Catcher in the Rye was published in 1945.
Somehow when skimming this thread I missed that Sampiro wasn’t being serious. I need some sleep. Or just a brain.
Huh? I can’t see anything objectionable in DrDeth’s post, and certainly nothing he should be afraid of uttering in public.
Taylor and McKinley would have been happy with that news.