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TheCurse of Tippecanoe (also known asTecumseh's Curse, the20-year Curse[1] or theZero Curse[2]) is anurban legend[3] about the deaths in office ofpresidents of the United States who were elected in years divisible by 20. According to the legend,Tenskwatawa, leader of Native American tribes defeated in 1811 at theBattle of Tippecanoe by a military expedition led byWilliam Henry Harrison, had cursed the "Great White Fathers".
Since 1840, eightpresidents have died in office. Seven of them were elected in years divisible by 20: William Henry Harrison (1840),Abraham Lincoln (1860),James A. Garfield (1880),William McKinley (1900),Warren G. Harding (1920),Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940)[a], andJohn F. Kennedy (1960). Three former presidents elected in applicable years did not die in office:Ronald Reagan in 1980,[b]George W. Bush in 2000, andJoe Biden in 2020.
William Henry Harrison was elected president in 1840 and died in 1841, just a month after being sworn in. InTecumseh's War,Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his younger brother Tenskwatawa organized aconfederation of Indian tribes to resist the westward expansion of the United States. In the 1811Battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison defeated Tenskwatawa and his troops, acting as the governor of theIndiana Territory. Harrison thus earned the moniker "Old Tippecanoe".
In 1931 and 1948, the trivia book seriesRipley's Believe It or Not! noted the pattern and termed it the "Curse of Tippecanoe".[4]Strange as It Seems byJohn Hix ran a cartoon prior to theelection of 1940 titled "Curse over the White House!" and claimed that "In the last 100 years, Every U.S. President Elected at 20-Year Intervals Has Died In Office!"[5] In February 1960, journalistEd Koterba noted that "The next President of the United States will face an eerie curse that for more than a century has hung over every chief executive elected in a year ending with zero."[6] Both of their hints at the elected president's death came true, with Franklin D. Roosevelt's death in 1945 and John F. Kennedy'sassassination in 1963.
The first written account to refer to the source of the curse was an article byLloyd Shearer in 1980 inParade magazine.[3] It is claimed[by whom?] that when Tecumseh was killed in a later battle, Tenskwatawa set a curse against Harrison.[2]
Running for re-election in 1980, PresidentJimmy Carter was asked about the curse at a campaign stop inDayton, Ohio, on October 2 of that year while taking questions from the crowd. A high school student asked Carter if he was concerned about "predictions that every 20 years or election years ending in zero, the President dies in office." Carter replied, "I've seen those predictions. [...] I'm not afraid. If I knew it was going to happen, I would go ahead and be President and do the best I could till the last day I could."[7] He failed to win a second term but later became the oldest former president at 100 years old,dying at that age on December 29, 2024.
Since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, no president has died in office. Ronald Reagan wasshot and wounded two months after his 1981 inauguration. Days after Reagan survived the shooting, columnistJack Anderson wrote "Reagan and the Eerie Zero Factor" inThe Daily Intelligencer and asserted that the 40th president either had disproved the superstition orhad nine lives.[8] As the oldest man to be elected president at that time, Reagan also survived surgery in 1985.First LadyNancy Reagan was reported to have hired psychics and astrologers to try to protect her husband from the effects of the curse.[9][10] Reagan left office in 1989 and ultimatelydied from natural causes in 2004. He was 93 years old and had survived his presidency by 15 years.
Elected in 2000, George W. Bush also survived two terms in office. In2005, a live grenade was thrown at him but failed to explode.[11] Bush left office in 2009 and is currently living.
Joe Biden, elected in 2020, served a single term. Biden's presidency ended without incident, casting further doubt on the validity of the supposed curse. He left office in 2025 and is currently living.
The only one of the eight presidents who died in office who was not elected in a year covered by the curse wasZachary Taylor, elected in 1848, but died in 1850, a year ending in zero.[12] Like Reagan and Bush, many presidents outside the curse have facedassassination attempts or medical problems.
| Elected | Term of election | President | Death | Term of death | Cause of death | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1840 | First |  | William Henry Harrison | April 4, 1841 | First | Pneumonia |
| 1860 | First |  | Abraham Lincoln | April 15, 1865 | Second | Assassinated |
| 1880 | First |  | James A. Garfield | September 19, 1881 | First | Assassinated |
| 1900 | Second |  | William McKinley | September 14, 1901 | Second | Assassinated |
| 1920 | First |  | Warren G. Harding | August 2, 1923 | First | Heart attack |
| 1940 | Third |  | Franklin D. Roosevelt | April 12, 1945 | Fourth | Cerebral hemorrhage |
| 1960 | First |  | John F. Kennedy | November 22, 1963 | First | Assassinated |
| 1980 | First |  | Ronald Reagan | June 5, 2004 (did not die in office) | N/a | Pneumonia, complicated byAlzheimer's disease |
| 2000 | First |  | George W. Bush | Living (did not die in office) | N/a | N/a |
| 2020 | First |  | Joe Biden | Living (did not die in office) | N/a | N/a |
Snopes rates the claim that a "death curse threatens U.S. presidents elected in years evenly divisible by twenty" a legend and undocumented folktale not supported by actual records of Tecumseh cursing the "Great White Fathers" after his defeat at Tippecanoe.[13] Multiple sources have called the failure of the curse after 1960 a disproof of a curse as an explanation for the deaths in office.[14]
According to Timothy Redmond of theSkeptical Inquirer, the supposed curse demonstrates a number of logical fallacies, includingconfusing correlation with causation,cherry picking, andmoving the goalposts. In layman's terms, out of many unlikely eerie patterns, at least one of those hypothetical patterns is likely to come true.[15]
In 2009, Steve Friess ofSlate sought to interview notable presidential historians and security experts such asMichael Beschloss,Doris Kearns Goodwin, andRichard A. Clarke on the alleged curse, but none of them returned his calls.Michael S. Sherry, an American history professor atNorthwestern University, replied, "I doubt I have anything profound to say about this particular factoid, odd though it is."[16]
