February 15, 2024 • 55 mins
As curses go, Tecumseh's is, according to the legend, ridiculously specific. Every US President elected in a year divisible by twenty is doomed to meet misfortune, ruin and possibly death in office. But how did this curse acquire such purported specificity? In part two of this special two-part series, Ben, Noel and Max explore how the curse entered popular culture, as well as the examples true believers point to as evidence.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's give a shout out to our
super producer, non curse enthusiast noted for that, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Max shouts at clouds, Williams, I do yell.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
At clouds often.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, they've had got it coming.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
They know what they are, you know, especially when those
those ones that just insist upon themselves.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
You know, it's high and high end mighty. I love clouds.
I you know, it's a story for a different day.
But the science of how people began recognizing clouds is
itself a great idea for an episode. Folks, if you
have not heard part one of Tucumps's Curse, we cannot
wait for you to explore with us. Please tune in
(01:13):
and listen to that episode. It gives you all the
context you need to know before we get to the
really juicy stuff tonight. I am Ben Bullen, joined as
always with the one and only mister Noel Brown did as.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I Yes, who Rah, I finally got it, I think.
So we'll start with our boy William Henry Harrison the
max described heel of this story. As many folks might know,
he did become the president, but his time in office
was blissfully short, like really short, about a month short.
(01:53):
And while many folks believe he died because he was
a sixty eight year old man living during a time
when that in an itself could be something of a
death sentence due to a lack of modern medicine, he
also had this sort of unusual hobby of just kind
of hanging out in the rain going for night walks.
I imagine that is largely what led to his downfall,
(02:16):
in addition to perhaps this curse in question.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
There we go. Yeah, we're going to talk about the
nature of curses today because, as we said in part one,
a lot of people in the US, fellow ridiculous historians
and future ridiculous historians, have heard the phrase to Cumps's
curse aka the curse of tip a Canoe, but haven't
really heard how that became a thing and why people
(02:42):
tend to believe in it. But it is a part
of American presidential lore that is up there with the
list that you will always see of the comparisons between
JFK and Abraham Lincoln there are a lot of things
that you can stream some red string around, like events
(03:03):
that can appear to be part of a pattern, depending
upon your belief. William Henry Harrison does he believe in curses?
We don't know he is. His presidency is most famous
for the sheer abbreviation of it. He made it. He
made it a month with the top job before he died,
(03:26):
and a lot of people like you said, Noel, think
it's something you could chalk up to his age at
the time he was sixty eight, or his hobby of
exposing himself to the elements. He would wander around days
and nights, regardless of the weather. It's kind of like
an inspiration for the Post Office of being honest, exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A bit of a goth type. Fellow Martin Kelly writes
in Thought Co in his article did to comes his curse?
Kill seven US presidents? It comes to his curse, also
known as the Curse of Tipic News, stems from an
eighteen o nine dispute between future US President William Henry
Harrison and Shawnee indigenous leader to come to Some believe
the curse is the reason that Harrison and every following
(04:10):
president up to Kennedy, who was elected in a year
ending in zero died in office. Right yeah, So little
numerology playing in here.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
As well, right right, Again, the perception of a pattern
is key to this, and of course, as established earlier
in part one, the ratio of presidency survival rates is
really messed up. There's a very very small sample size,
still less than fifty people, but eight of those people
(04:40):
have died in office. We joked that that makes the
job slightly less secure than the life of a podcaster,
but only just here's the issue, right, This dispute between
Harrison and tecumsa Is is a key piece of American history,
(05:04):
and apparently, according to true believers, it's also a beef
that led to super natural consequences. So no, Max, Maybe
we start with the concept of this curse, because despite
the name, a lot of us may be surprised to
learn that this curse doesn't come from type Canoe. Instead,
(05:25):
it comes from the battle at the River Thames, not
the Thames in London, which I went to recently, and
I gotta tell you, man, that's a dirty river.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah it sure is. Call back to our old episode
on the Great Stink. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's still pretty
dirty to this day. But back in the day, boy,
that thing was that the Thames was teeming with absolute
filth and you know, sewage and the Yeah, this is
not that Thames, that Tames Thames different times. But Martin
(05:59):
Kelly once again right that during the War of eighteen twelve,
Harrison really doubled down on his anti indigenous attitudes. He
defeated the British and the tribes that had aligned with them.
As we also mentioned in the previous episode, during that
Battle of the Thames, not that Thames. This further defeat
(06:20):
and the loss of more land to the American government
is apparently what drove to Comsta his brother, the prophet
tanks Quatawa, to place a death curse on all future
US presidents that were elected in years ending in a zero.
Very interesting that they would choose to add that caveat
(06:42):
why not just all future US presidents? But perhaps that
was something in the nature of the curse itself. He
had to have some numerological elements.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
It makes the pattern work, right, that's how they have
to recognize it. And also Harrison, by the way, he
is inaugurated, it is president in eighteen forty one, but
he's elected in eighteen forty, so that's why it descends
from Harrison. And I love that you're bringing up tens
Katawa because he is one of the more fascinating characters
(07:15):
of this piece of history to me, and agreed, yeah,
and he's also like, Okay, we said, the name for
the curse is weird and doesn't really work because it's
not based on tip of canoe and it's called to
Coumsa's curse, But Takumsa isn't the one who did the curse.
(07:35):
According to the story, Tensquatawa enacted the curse, placing that
on the placing this death, this supernatural death upon every
US president, as you said, only elected in years starting
or ending in a zero. And we also have to
remember a very important part about how history is made here.
(07:58):
Everything we discussed about ten Skawata in our previous episode
shows that he couldn't really do magic. He got exposed
as a fraud with that, with that wild attack on
Harrison's camp where he promised that he would give people
(08:19):
magic powers and failed, and then he skidaddled he left town.
So we want to be aware of the context, but
we also want to realize that a lot of the
people responsible for creating the lore of Tecumsa's curse. They
were asodicizing Native Americans. They were like, oh, watch out
for all this spooky Native magic, because it can't be true.
(08:42):
The people in the most stressful job in the US
often just sometimes die. It has to be magic.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah. So yeah, let's go through some of these examples,
many of these biographies coming from the White House dot Gov.
Let's start with, of course, eighteen forty William Henry Harrison.
His bio actually picks up right after the Battle of
(09:10):
the Thames, and here's a quote from the bio on
white House dot gov. Thereafter Harrison returned to civilian life.
The Whigs, in need of a national hero, nominated him
for president in eighteen forty. He won by a majority
of less than one hundred and fifty thousand, but swept
a fun, fun political maneuverings here swept the notorious Electoral
(09:33):
College two hundred and thirty four to sixty. But before
he had been in office a single month, he caught
a cold that developed into pneumonia, and on April fourth,
eighteen forty one, he died, the first president in fact
to die in office, and with him the Whig Party,
the Whig program, the Whig ideology died as well.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, yeah, and the Wigs have been sort of struggling
for a while. This was kind of their death knell.
And some people Okay, So if we try to trace
back the causes of Harrison's death, if we put on
our old Casey pegram Casey on the case law and
order vibes, thank you back, what we see is that
(10:20):
a guy named Daniel Webster, he writes a very long
inauguration speech for Harrison, and Harrison goes and gives this
speech in its entirety on a freezing rainy day in March,
or not freezing but very cold, because it was still raining.
And a lot of people will say that because he
(10:40):
was exposed to the elements for so long, he got
pneumonia and he took ill and died as a result.
Other people say it was still the weather. But the
weather got to him not during that inauguration speech, but
during one of his long ambulations he took later that month,
and he didn't dress appropriate leave for the elements. That's
(11:02):
the more popular theory because that long walk is closer
in precedent to his actual death.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'm just gonna say it. With how this dude was
acting at sixty eight years old, it was gonna happen, right,
It just would go knocking in the rain.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
A particularly good steward of his personal health, this guy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And let's also remember that he had a very demanding
social schedule. It's all gas, no breaks. The walk theory
goes to March twenty fourth, eighteen forty one, because he
always would take a daily morning walk to the local markets.
This is also when security for the potus was way
(11:41):
lower than it is today. I mean, imagine if you
live in DC and President Joe Biden like comes into
the target, it just says, you know, I don't have
a shopping list, I'm just here for the vibes.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I walk over and heck with Biden's you know, advanced
age being you know easily what almost thirty over twenty
years this guy's senior, he's probably almost more along the
lines of like today, what would be considered an advanced
age for a president, that this would have been considered
back in those days, so extra care, one would think
(12:15):
would have been taken, and that people wouldn't have been
letting this character just wander around in the muck you know.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But this is also here's the other weird thing. If
you look at the medical treatment of Harrison after he
took ill, then you see that blood letting was still
very much considered legitimate medicine. No, so the doctors. The
doctors were bleeding him starting on Sunday in March twenty eighth,
(12:46):
and then they they eventually stopped. But blood letting for
a sick person is usually not going to help. It
may actively harm them.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Do we have any examples of any time that this
method actually functionally helped anybody throughout history?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I believe that there are, Well, it depends are we
talking about a lot of blood or are we talking
about small just.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
A practice in and of itself. I mean, it seems
like it was based on just junk science from the
start and more kind of superstitions or things that just
weren't confirmed by any actual, you know, real research or science.
I'm just wondering if there's ever an instance where some
small amount of blood letting actually helped somebody out.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, there's things not really, I mean, there are examples
of the modern day, like taking someone's blood to run
blood test that can be a life saving procedure.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Sure, that's what we're talking about here, closest thing. Yeah, now,
blood work is crucial, but that again involves getting to
the root of the problem rather than that being the
remedy in and of itself.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So here's my pitch. The curse to the curse of
typical or to Comes. His curse is real, but not
the way we understand. Harrison died because his doctor was
a vampire. Okay, fair, no on the fact check us out,
but this is kind of alistical. Episode two folks were
giving you more and more examples of people who supposedly
(14:19):
fell to to Coms his curse, and surprise, surprise, one
of the most famous guys who fell to to Comes
his curse is the famous former amateur wrestler Abraham Lincoln.
Fun fact, was also president for a minute.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
The reach on that guy, Ben is, I know we've
already kind of touched on this a little bit, but
do you have any theories or Max as well, on
why this curse got lumped in with Tacumsa rather than
the more spiritual leader of that kind of movement.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, it's because Tecumsa was the more important political figure
and so the one that would be more readily identifiable
to the American public.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So really it's just kind of a buzz thing like
almost branding that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Right, And it was also like just in kind of
the story, it's William Henry Harrison, it's to Come, So
they are the opposites and the prophet's kinds of a
secondary character.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
There actually becomes a point where the profit actively disobeys
to Comes to military strategy, where he essentially they part
ways because he's no longer of use to to Comes
because he's basically cracked the bed to such a degree
that he has become politically a liability for it to
COMSA at this point, right, Yeah, nobody trusts him anymore,
(15:35):
and it comes to his whole strategy relies on good
diplomacy and good relationships.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, even people who had the prevailing racism at the
time would have said to their peers, to Comesa is
a competent tactician. We can work with him. You can
work with him. It's almost like he's a human being.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Almost quite but Lincoln, right, the idea that Lincoln, who
was of course elected president of November sixth, eighteen sixty,
a year ending in zero, that his downfall, his demise
specifically was tied to this curse is something that you know,
(16:17):
kind of holds in this this whole lore that we're
talking about here. On Good Friday, April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five,
Abraham Lincoln is assassinated, the victim of an assassin's bullet
at Ford's Theater in Washington, d C. The assassin in question,
of course, John Wilkes Booth, who famously jumped out of
(16:38):
his box seat and fell to the stage and I
believe broke his leg, isn't that right?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Six simpered tarannus thus to all tybrants.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's right. Yeah, so real splashy showing there from from
John Wilkes Booth, who was an actor. So I'm sorry
it wasn't he jumped from from some height, right, because yeah,
balcony after the falconon, that's but Lincoln himself was also
in a balcony seat. He was in a box seat,
so I'm assuming that the balcony in question from Wilkes
(17:09):
Booth was adjacent in some way. And then he tried
to make his daring escape but kind of botched the landing.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I mean, I believe there was a lot of showmanship too,
like there wasn't any trying of like Wilkes, Booth was
not trying to sneak away.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, he exclaimed that quote that you just said, like,
you know, very actively and loudly in actory fashion.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, which shows you again the hazards of hiring hiring
actors to do a hitman's job.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, that's why leam Neeson would actually not be not
be good and have taken situation probably. Also, of course,
the death of Lincoln does not have the effect that
Booth wanted. It removes the possibility of a more compassionate
(18:06):
piece between the North and the South. Now, absolutely wood.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Feud, very polarizing. Yeah, it has the exact opposite effect.
Moving on to eighteen eighty with James Garfield. Yeah, and
obviously very easy to make the connection of being associated
with a certain lasagna eating cat who does not care
(18:30):
for Mondays. I'm not sure if Jim Davis named Garfield
after the President unclear. I don't know if you know
anything about this, Max, but not not something that I've
seen any writing about.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I haven't either, But I'll say this right now, James
Garfield is actually kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I actually like him.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Zacherfield, which really sucks that he's on this list though.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's weird though, because we're also looking at him in
comparison to his peers and other presidents of the day.
So the bar to be cool is been.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
What are you saying Gilded Age presidents weren't good? You know,
who are we to judge?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I'm not out here trying to get cursed.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Hey, I'll say's rid Rutherford B. Hayes really liked animals? Yeah, sure,
which makes them probably number two of the guilded Age,
which is pretty bad if they Rutherford be Hayes your
number two president just because he likes animals.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. But I'm just saying,
like quite the painter. But yeah, no, no he was.
It wasn't good enough to make it. He didn't have
a career and already ahead of him. But they ought
to really refer to this as the bishitted age.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I love also that the English language has more than
twenty more than twenty three words to describe something having
shit on it or something having thrown on it.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I mean, you know, of course, we've got certain
incorrect pieces of lore around certain indigenous cultures having lots
of words for snow or things that they are surrounded by.
So despite that being often much over reported, it does
make sense that America, somewhat mired in crap throughout our
(20:09):
troubled history, would have so many words for that scenario.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I just I'm so happy you guys use the word shitted.
It's one of my favorites, the fun one twenty sethn words.
But also we should mention, by the way, that in
the deaths of Harrison, in the death of Lincoln, and
in the upcoming death of Garfield spoiler.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Alert, Actually it's kind of what the episode's about.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
No one at this point is claiming there's a curse.
By the way, this is a very key piece of
the story.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
We're going to get to that when it really becomes
a news item, right then they go, oh, what about
that thing? That'd be fun to write about. So Garfield
is elected to the United States presidency in eighteen eighty.
He serves nine terms up to that point in the
US House of Representatives, and before being the president, he
(21:00):
was already a pretty accomplished academic. He was a college
professor and also served as the president of the Ohio
State Senate. He was on the right side of the
Civil War and eventually did become a major general as well.
So very storied and diverse career in public life, this guy.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, exactly. He was a career bureaucratic, career legislature. This
is the kind of one of.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
The good ones, though it would seem, especially given the time.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
This is a guy you would want to be president
because of his experience. And at this point, by the way,
the US public was not as dead set against college
professors being president as they are now.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Interesting. Yeah, yeah, there is some division around that, the
idea of like academics being too soft or something. Right.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, And this is also, by the way, one thing
that's very impressive about Garfield is that he is not
what we would call a NEPO baby today, right. He
is not born into some bizarre dynasty like the Clintons
or the Bushes or the Kennedys. He comes from a
(22:15):
family that you would call like working class, working class
to middle class. His dad dies when he's only two,
and Garfield had to put himself through school. One of
the tales of Garfield lore is that he was able
to pay for his education by learning how to drive
canal boat teams, which is and Max you noted this too.
(22:39):
It's essentially helping ship stuff on rivers. So these are
still during the days of the Great Mississippi river boat trade.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Very mar Twaina is yeah. And there are.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Statements that speak to his character. He does seem to
be a guy who was really thinking through not what
is good for me, but what is good for this
American experiment. People were trying to make him president. They
were pushing them, and they were like, Jimmy G, Jimmy G,
you got to be president. And he would for a while.
(23:15):
The candidate doth protest too much because he said, no,
there's another guy. His name's John Sherman. He is way
more qualified. He will be a better president for the
United States. That's from Jeff Jacobee over at the Boston Globe.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well you love to see that, don't you. Someone. I'm
always a little suspicious, I think, as we all are,
of people who seek that level of, you know, public
office and they're like working towards it, because it often
seems to be a little bit self serving when you
have someone that's like saying no, no, no, no, this
other guy's got this better qualified, this isn't for me.
(23:50):
You do tend to and they're pushed into it because
of others seeing in them, perhaps things they don't see
in themselves. That always impresses me, you know, and then
strikes me as a better qualification than someone who spent
their entire life working towards, you know, holding this kind
of office.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
I think it's indicative of character. Yeah, and do we
know if this was false modesty or was it a
genuine case of moral values? Unclear at this point, but
let's err on the side of optimism. And I love
the way you put this here. Backs. Unfortunately for Garfield,
(24:28):
despite his protest, he was nominated. He was elected. He
was also elected in a year that ended with zero no. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah. July second, eighteen eighty one, at a Washington railroad station,
an attorney who had sought a consular post shot President Garfield.
He was mortally wounded once again, even a flesh wound
at this time, you know, could eventually he leads to
(25:01):
sepsis and and death. He is mortally wounded. He lay
in the White House for several weeks before passing away
it succumbing to his to his wounds.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, exactly, and his death.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
They couldn't find the bullet right like, they find that his.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Death is fascinating because it factors in another luminary of
the day, Alexander Graham Bell has invented an induction balance
electrical device. He's like the Tony Stark of this era totally.
And so he tries to find the bullet in Garfield
(25:41):
and he fails. Garfield has taken to the New Jersey
shore on September sixth, and there is.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
A very different just this it was. It was and
it was more idyllic.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
And they were thinking, said Garfields, that lifting up his
shirt off his abs.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, he's probably lifted up someone's lifted up his shirt.
They're like, where the fuck is this poking for the bullet?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, but this was still the time when people thought
changing your weather or changing the weather you encounter could
have curative effects, so like.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Climates exactly, some shits and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, taking in the air, this doesn't work. It looks
like maybe he's recuperating. But that was just wishful thinking
on the part of medical professionals and political supporters. What
was happening is it was still slowly dying. On September nineteenth,
eighteen eighty one. He dies from an internal hemorrhage.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
That's right, he does succumb to that gunshot. So it's
a slow and taking cline now exactly, I would imagine
quite painful. Moving on nineteen hundred, we've got William McKinley.
McKinley not so much of a hero of our story
(27:01):
insomuch as Garfield was. At least he's considered by many
to be one of the last of this era we've
been describing, the bashetted Age or Gilded Age, which isn't
considered to be a particularly stellar era for American history
and politics.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh, I do have to say, though, you're absolutly righting
the setup. I do have to say for Garfield, I'm
pretty sure that doctors killed him because they kept digging
into his guts to try to find the bullet. That's
exactly right. They like they were digging holes in the guy.
But with McKinley something very different. He is a child
(27:40):
of corruption, is a he benefits greatly from the corrupt
election of eighteen ninety six, and a lot of people
I see your note here, Max. A lot of people
will tell you to this day that the actual election
if it had not been rigged, would have gone to
William Jennings Bryan and be absolutely clear. I one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Agree with that, and we're gonna have that part too eventually.
Right of all the presidents, we ran a bunch of
all the dudes who ran a present a bunch of times.
So we just will ending on the William Jennings briding part.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it. Uh,
I haven't gotten I haven't done that one yet, Max,
because there weren't any good mistranslations, but we will, we will.
We will have some you could call a mistranslation of justice. No,
but yeah, we have a We have Jennings coming on
the way and it's going to be a banger. Also, Uh,
(28:35):
McKinley isn't super photo Jenny McKinley looks like a meme
of an evil guy.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Uh, his fingers steepled, mister burns.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the like, just so you know, has drawing comparisons
to the penguin. If you pull up one of the
most popular pictures of McKinley, like the stuff you see
on his on his Wikipedia page or on his White
House dot gov entry, then he looks exactly like Colin
Farrell in The Batman playing the penguin.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Oh yeah, which is some pretty impressive. It was practical
effects in terms of that when he was when I
saw the original Batman movie, I had no idea that
was Colin Farrell, uh for quite a while until I
saw the credits, and they've got him appearing in a
series coming up where he is that character, So kudos.
It's called acting, and also with the aid of some
(29:30):
really good makeup effects.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Oh you know. I was also tremendously impressed with not
Robert de Niro, Robert Downey junior in Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's what I've heard. I haven't been yet, that.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Guy from in the beginning. It was. It was fascinating,
so well done.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Rob.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
It's tough to make a living as an actor, and
I wish you continued further success.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
A big fan of practical effects versus like the CGI types.
Even you know, I'm sorry not to get off track,
but in The Maestro, a lot of a lot has
been made of Bradley Cooper's nose. This is a fund
as prosthetic knows. But when you really go back and
look at footage of Leonard Bernstein, that feature really does
sell the role. It really does. They did quite a
(30:11):
good job of it, and I can understand why they
decided to go that route.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And so this idea of this tendency to always look
kind of villainous in photographs, it's what our pal Max
calls James C. Calhoun's syndrome. We're an audio podcasts. We
also want this journey to be your own. So take
a look at James Calhoun and let us know if
you agree.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, James C. Calhoun, the dude so messed up that
Andrew Jackson looked at him and said, like, dude, you're
fucked up man, right, Like you know you're bad. If
Andrew Jackson is uncomfortable with the things you're.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Doing, Andrew Jackson calls you problematic, you might it might
be time for some self inventory. So McKinley is openly
a pro business president when he's first elected in eighteen
ninety six in that corrupt election, because the corporate power
that be want a guy who will accede to their rule. Right,
(31:04):
that's what corporate powers historically want. They want all the
advantages of a democracy or of a stable government, and
they want all the disadvantages or obligations of that government
to fall on the people rather than the companies. That's
not a hot take, and it's not I mean, I
(31:25):
wouldn't even ascribe morals to it. It's just what those
organizations are built to do. The biggest event of McKinley's
presidency is the Spanish American War, and like to Cumsa's curse,
the name is confusing. The Spanish American War did not
take place in Spain. It was not fought in the
United States. It was in Cuba, in the Philippines, in
(31:49):
Puerto Rico. It was a one hundred day war across
these areas, and it greatly expanded the overseas holdings of
the US. That's right.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And McKinley would then go on to run against once
again William Jennings Bryan and win reelection in nineteen hundred
ding ding Ding, ending with zero. So here is where
the curse comes into the discussion. And here's a quote
from the White House gov Bio. His second term came
(32:22):
to a tragic end in September nineteen oh one. He
was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan
American Exposition when a deranged anarchist wow shot him okay,
fair enough shot him twice. He died. He succomb to
his wounds eight days later, again presumably a painful demise.
(32:46):
His death led to Theodore Roosevelt then becoming the youngest
president in American history. Yeah, yeah, there's no trivia before you.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Everyone was six since JFK. JFK is the youngest elected president, right.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
And Theodore is the youngest to actually assume the presidency.
So then we have it all right, and still at
this time, by the way, spoiler, folks, nobody's talking about
to comes his curse. It comes his old beans. No
one cares about this dude, right now. Fast forward nineteen
twenty one of the also rands of the American presidency,
(33:24):
Warren G. Harding. He has a quote from his own perspective,
his own retrospect, where it gives us a sense of
how sort of BEAYIESI and blase his presidency was. Here
goes America's president. Need is not heroics but healing, not
(33:44):
nostrums but normalcy, not revolution but restoration, not agitation but adjustment,
not surgery but serenity. Not the dramatic but the dispassionate experiment,
but equipoise, submergence, in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Okay, okay, wow, that's the real snoozer. Unlike his predecessor, however, McKinley,
Harding was pretty clearly very pro commerce, very pro business,
and he had a much more presidential vibe. Let's just say.
An Ohio admirer Harry Doherty started to promote Harding for
(34:32):
the nineteen twenty Republican nomination because he felt as though
he looked like a president really great, you know, bona
fides for doing the job not right. And one time
he told his then Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, if
(34:52):
you knew of a great scandal in our administration, would you,
for the good of the country and the party expose
it publicly?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Would you bury it? And Hoover's like, do the right thing, dude,
go public and then Harding's like, I don't want.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
To though, No, no, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Oh and he dies in August of nineteen twenty three
in San Francisco heart attack. No one says there's a curse.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
But Calvin Coolish becomes president, which is Calvin Coolidge episode.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, we did, we did, Calvin Coolidge.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It's kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
We did a hoover damn episode two. I mean, we're
running through the hits here.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
We're building over twenties presidents. We've talked about all of them.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
They don't really do anything fair. Well, we're out of
the twenties now and into the forties, the Roaring forties now.
I think it's the roarings over by this point. Franklin
Delano roosevelts, this one's a little bit longer. So we're
going to do our best to kind of be as
pithy about it as we can. We have mentioned before
(35:51):
that this president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was president so many
times that it were it caused the laws on how
many times one can hold this office to actually be changed.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah. Look, often in these divided political times, people hate
to uh to point out or to be reminded that
the New Deal absolutely saved the United States. They hate question, Yeah,
they hate to get jobs.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
It helped improve infrastructure, so many positive things resulted from that.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
They hate to be reminded that the US came very
close to insolvency in this regard, and Della knows saved it. However,
another thing people don't like to admit, even especially Onike
the left aisle of political discourse. Here, Franklin D. Roosevelt
(36:46):
came very very close to becoming a dictator, and so
the law had to be changed.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
What I didn't realize until honestly a couple of years
gone up, and you have been studying presidential history for
most of my life, is I was thinking young. He
still was when he passed away. He was in the sixties.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, very young for president. He could have.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Gone like twenty more years at that job, which he
probably would have.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
He would have, yeah, and he would have become a
similar to like a strong man dictator, would have been
very dangerous for the country, to be.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Honest, I see what you're saying there, Ben, and I
totally understand the need to change the lodges for president.
Was there anything particularly dictator ish about his behavior? He
is regarded as positive? Okay, there was.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
He tried to was it, try to expand the Supreme
Court from nine to twenty three? Yes, he didn't like
the Supreme Court and stuff. He did some.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Stuff, So a mixed bag, a complex individual. Obviously accomplished
some very very positive important things, but then got it
maybe a little too big for his breaches.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
There's a lot of like, you know, preaches Andrew Jackson's
obviously a horrible human being, but he was Andrew Jackson.
People always want to come out say he's a terrible president.
There's lots of people is terrible. But he's a very
impactful president, very impactful present.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, yeah, I'd agree with that. We also know he
was following the footsteps of his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt,
most famous for inspiring the stuff Teddy Bear, and he
rose through the Senate. He was definitely a silverspoon boy
by the way he rose through the Senate. In nineteen ten,
he becomes Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He gets the
(38:24):
VP nomination in nineteen twenty. In nineteen twenty eight, he
is the governor of New York. He is elected amid
the absolute terrible pandemonium of the Great Depression in nineteen
thirty two, which.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Is also how we know dictators often come to power,
you know when countries there are under states of duress
and they are seen as the only person that can
carry the country through.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Right, absolutely, I mean this is in these times of instability.
The public, if they're well, matter what kind of government
they have in times of instability, the public will increasingly
question the status quo. Right Like the French were starving
and they said, is there a God? Is there a
(39:13):
real reason that the monarchy should be in charge? Are
they even qualified? And they decided the monarchy was not qualified.
I would say they were also correct in that estimation.
This is around the time, by the way, that a
bunch of rich corporate interests conspire to overthrow the United
(39:33):
States government and start a fascist regime. This was called
the Business Plot. Today, no one was officially convicted because
Congress was The Congress members were for the most part
puppets of big corporations, of banking interests. But shout out
to absolute peace of craps Medley Butler, who was a
(39:55):
Curmudgeont who saved the country as we know it. Check
out our our show Let's Start a Coup for more
at that. But these are very uncertain types. Okay, FDR's president.
He launches this thing called the New Deal. And to
be clear to our earlier point, the New Deal program
saved America, but they were intensely undemocratic, like the way
(40:18):
they were pushed through the public loves him though that
the haves hate him. The have nots love him. He
gets re elected three more times, nineteen thirty six, nineteen
forty ending in a zero and nineteen forty four. So
he's at the wheel of power through the Great Depression
and then through most of World War Two, and he
(40:41):
has a lot of health problems as a result. We
were talking in part one about how just four years
in that job will absolutely wreck you. Oh yeah, this
guy has been wrecked four times.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
He's been through the freakin' ringer. His health really had
begun to deteriorate in on it April twelfth, nineteen forty five,
while having a little sabbatical I guess at Warm Springs, Georgia,
he succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah, he sure did, and with him a unique part
of American history also expires. Fast forward to one of
the most famous presidents to die in office, to be assassinated,
(41:32):
John F. Kennedy. John Fitzgerald Kennedy in nineteen sixty. He's
really interesting in terms of election because he's a president
at the dawn of what we could call the entertainment age, right,
you know, this is the famous presidential debate where people
listening on the radio thought Nixon one, and people watching
television thought Kennedy one. He's kind of a celebrity, sort
(41:55):
of a proto Kardashian already when he is elected president.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of theater involves, and not
the same kind of theater that that ended up taking
Lincoln's life. This is very much a public kind of
persona era, you know, because of the nature of television broadcasts.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, and because of this dual existence as an American
celebrity and as an American statesman, he occupies very unique
place in the mythos of the US. Now, if you
look at just the boxes you want to tick for president,
he's he's got everything right. He's he's a Massachusetts boy.
(42:39):
He graduates from Harvard, He's in the Navy, he sees
combat in World War Two. He comes up working as
a Democratic Boston area congressman. He moves up to the Senate.
He's a blue blood, so he knows the people in power.
He's intimately related with their families. He becomes a vice president,
or he's nominee for the VP position in nineteen fifty six,
(43:03):
doesn't work out. Eisenhower wins reelection and then he gets
in a high profile contest against Eisenhower's VP, Richie Nixon.
Oh Richie, boy, there's the debate.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Oh, also people don't like him because he's Catholic.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Oh that's a big deal, right. Yeah. We didn't even
think about that as being an issue necessarily, but at
the time it was super divisive. He did win by
a pretty narrow margin in the popular vote and became
the first, very first, as you say, Roman Catholic president,
and his relatively short time I mean not as short
as some of the presidents on our list, but still
pretty short time in office. It was a very important
(43:43):
time in American history. We had things like the Bay
of Pigs, the beginning of the Vietnam War, the Cuban
Missile Crisis, of course, the civil rights movement, and he
was at the center of all of this. Therefore, you know,
at the center of a lot of very divisive historical
moments that kind of like stacked up upon one another.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Yeah. Yeah, And he was beefed up heavily with the
CIA due to the rampant corruption of the CIA and
their ideological myopia. You can learn more about that and
the fantastic series with our pals Rob Ryder and Solidad
O'Brien called Who Killed JFK. For my money, it's the
(44:26):
best podcast out there about those events.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Heck, one of the best just sources out there. I
mean the level of research. There's stuff in that podcast
that you really haven't seen reported or discussed in the
way that they report and discuss it just about anywhere else.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
And similar to other presidents on the comes to Curse list,
he dies early in office. It's November twenty second, nineteen
sixty three. He is struck by assassin's bullets as his
motorcade strolls through Dallas. He's the youngest man elected pres Again,
that's an important distinction. Is also, as history proves, the
(45:05):
youngest to die there are, so he's probably one of
the most famous. But there are a couple of other
things where people will tell you the curse was broken,
and one of those is Ronald Reagan. Let's flash back
to Let's flash back to the times when Ronald Reagan
(45:26):
could remember he was president.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
That's right on February sixth, nineteen eleven. He is born
to Nell and John Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. As we know,
he was kind of really more so, I would say
even than Kennedy. He was our really first kind of
celebrity president because he was, in fact, much like a
(45:48):
lot of the politicians that we're seeing in this whatever
era we're in right now, an actor, a public figure
unrelated to politics, who then was able to capitalize on
that notaray and parlay that into a victory in the
public service.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
People tell me is an absolute snack pack.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Real smoke shot.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
And what campaigns are learning at this point, or what
the king makers in the US are learning, is that
they can leverage parasocial relationships. The average American voter is
not going to know a ton about policy. They're going
to vote for someone that they see themselves in, someone
that seems familiar, someone that they think they could hang
(46:30):
out with. And so Ronald Reagan, despite not being qualified
as qualified as many other presidential candidates, he is much
more recognizable.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
It goes back to that quote, I'm now it's giving
me which president. This is associated with the idea of
he looks like a president. You know, not only am
I a president, but I also play one on TV?
You know. I mean, that's like we're starting to see
that that capital, that social capital, and that parasocial relationship
you're talking about Ben is almost more more important to
the king makers than actual political savvy and or qualifications.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
And it's interesting because it's like this popped my head
when y'all were talking about this. But it's like if
you really look at like William Henry Harrison when we
started this episode of it's like, hey, this guy might
not be a good president, but you know what he
did this popular thing which in that time was killing
Laty of America. But it's kind of like throughout this history,
it's just it might look different, but it's the same
(47:26):
thing that are getting these people elected.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah. Yeah, And so it's a good observation. Also, he
apparently breaks the curse because he is the governor of
California and he gets re elected in nineteen seventy. In
nineteen eighty, some members of our audience may recall, Ronald
Reagan becomes the president. This point we got to talk
(47:49):
a little bit about the curse because, as you may remember, folks,
Ronald Reagan almost got assassinated. John Hinckley Junior attack to
Reagan in the while leaving the Hilton Hotel in DC.
Hinkley fires a twenty two caliber revolver at the President,
(48:10):
he does hit him. Reagan is wounded indirectly. A bullet
ricochets off the limo and it hits him right under
the left, right under the left armpit. And then there
are other I think there are three other people who
are wounded during the shooting. And because of the high
energy and the chaos and all the you know, ur
(48:31):
endorphins are flowing and stuff, Reagan doesn't even notice that
he's been shot until he starts to cough up blood.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
But he recovers this assassin too. Just as a side note,
wasn't he the guy who's obsessed with the actor Jody Foster?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
I believe that's correct.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
And then I think partly he was doing this to
like impress her.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, he also I'm still in the dark about this.
I don't know how it happened. But he's no longer
in jail. Binky had the juice to get out of
jail for trying to kill the president.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
He has a YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Could good on him? He sim of his YouTube dollars.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
He's a musician. He went on tour. I think replaces
that's right, But.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Some of his dates had been canceled because it's just
being a little a little problematic, perhaps, you know, to
capitalize in the notoriety of being someone that attempted to
kill the president.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
But how did he get out? That's I feel like
that's a one way ticket up the river for the
rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
One would think he must have some friends in high places.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
According to his work at Pedia page twenty sixteen, a
feral judge rule that Hinckley could be released from psychiatric care.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Right, but he got into psychiatric care because he had
very good, expensive lawyers. I'm just saying the thing is fishy. Yeah, agreed. Yeah,
but Reagan survives.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
He does survive, He recovers fully and returns to the
White House after twelve days away. And I think that
some of this plays into some of the political fiction
of Aaron Sorkin.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, yeah, shout out West wing Uh. And with this,
the not not just the belief in t comes his curse,
but its hold over the American public is broken. George W.
Bush Uh never gets assassinated. A guy throws shoes at
him once, and that's in Middle Eastern culture. You have
(50:30):
to realize that the shoe was picked on purpose, because
it's wearing.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
A rabbit hole in that Yeah, that guy. That guy
is interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
He's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Well, it's also interesting is in that clip the way
that Bush ducks that shie.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
By the second By the second one he's actually laughing
at which is because.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
He realizes it's not a gun or a bomb. But also,
you know, George W. Bush is very interesting because he
is a blue blood from Connecticut who managed to successfully
impersonate an awe shucks Texan like with the with the
commitment of the to the bit that would make Andy
Kaufman not an.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Approval completely agree, nodding in approval over here.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Paint No, he does he his bathtub painting.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Is It is interesting too, how because of the perhaps
even more egregious behavior of subsequent presidents that his legacy
has sort of been reevaluated in a lot of ways,
Like George W. Bush is not seen as the warmongering
sociopath that he was at the time.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
You know, don't don't worry.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
There is some subtle knocks I have on him in
an upcoming brief we're talking about his painting.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
He does a lot of he does you have to
say it. He does a lot of charitable work. But
then you if you are someone who is a bit
more conspiratorial minded like me, I'm fine, I am self
aware here. Uh, you could ask how much of a
president he has actually was and combarrassed to Dick Cheney
by far the most powerful VP of American history.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Power behind the throne.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
He was very much the police Clap of presidents. And
I know Plice Clap was his brother, but still I
think police clap is so cringe and that it affects
the whole family.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
It's still very, very difficult, of course to be president,
especially in this entertainment age where the president is supposed
to be seen as a celebrity as much as a
master of state craft. And it's a very sad thing.
But I think at this point, what we're proving is
that in the case of every president who is alleged
to have died as a result of to comes his curse,
(52:39):
what we see is the idea of the curse. Is
the idea of the curse is often applied in retrospect,
and there are a couple times where it appears that
someone predicted it. I think in nineteen sixty a journalist
named Ed Cortoba or Coderba hinted about this president's dying
(53:02):
at twenty year intervals in office, and that came true
when Roosevelt died and when Kennedy was assassinated. However, given
the ratio of deaths in the presidential office, the odds
are pretty favorable. You know what I mean. This is
a game that you could gamble on and seem somewhat
(53:23):
prescient by acting.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Oh yeah, completely agree. Now, it makes a lot of
sense that this would be something that would captivate the
public imagination, and you know, in no small part because
of you know, the press and the way it was
chosen to be reported, and this.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
Idea of this idea of hexing and curses and so on,
it originates again in the exoticization of Native American communities,
and the reason they were exoticized so much is to
further rationalize the horrible way they were treated by the
American govern from it makes someone seem less human, and
(54:02):
then the things you do to them are therefore less
in humane.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
One hundred percent. And again we talked about how it
was a very proactive choice to call this to comes
this curse and not like the curse of the prophet.
And I'm sorry, I keep having a hard time. It's tenskwatawas.
Maybe he doesn't have the same ring to it. He
(54:27):
was not considered to be as important a figure as
to comes to. Therefore, revisionist history prevails.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Especially because that's not even his real name. He changed
his name as an adult.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Right right. His real name was Dave Davidson.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
The third True Facts, True Facts, also the first American meteorologist.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
No one fact checked us on any of that, by
the way, Thank you very much. Speaking of thank you,
thanks again to our super producer and research associate for
this episode, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Alex Williams, who composed this banging theme that you hear
in your very ear right now. Christopherrasciotis, Eves, Jeff Cots,
Gabe Luesier.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Yeah here in spirit, Gabe Lucier, How you doing, Gabe
Hope tuning in? Shout out to his show This day
in History Class. Big thanks to sort of the Ronald
Reagan of our podcast, Jonathan Strickland, he'll love that one.
And of course A J.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
Bahama's Jacobs and no big, big thanks to you man.
This was this was a good two partner. I really
enjoyed this couldn't agree more. Thanks to you as well, Ben.
Thanks to you out there, ridiculous historians. We'll see you
next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
(55:44):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
for tuning in. Let's give a shout out to our
super producer, non curse enthusiast noted for that, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Max shouts at clouds, Williams, I do yell.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
At clouds often.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, they've had got it coming.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
They know what they are, you know, especially when those
those ones that just insist upon themselves.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
You know, it's high and high end mighty. I love clouds.
I you know, it's a story for a different day.
But the science of how people began recognizing clouds is
itself a great idea for an episode. Folks, if you
have not heard part one of Tucumps's Curse, we cannot
wait for you to explore with us. Please tune in
(01:13):
and listen to that episode. It gives you all the
context you need to know before we get to the
really juicy stuff tonight. I am Ben Bullen, joined as
always with the one and only mister Noel Brown did as.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
I Yes, who Rah, I finally got it, I think.
So we'll start with our boy William Henry Harrison the
max described heel of this story. As many folks might know,
he did become the president, but his time in office
was blissfully short, like really short, about a month short.
(01:53):
And while many folks believe he died because he was
a sixty eight year old man living during a time
when that in an itself could be something of a
death sentence due to a lack of modern medicine, he
also had this sort of unusual hobby of just kind
of hanging out in the rain going for night walks.
I imagine that is largely what led to his downfall,
(02:16):
in addition to perhaps this curse in question.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
There we go. Yeah, we're going to talk about the
nature of curses today because, as we said in part one,
a lot of people in the US, fellow ridiculous historians
and future ridiculous historians, have heard the phrase to Cumps's
curse aka the curse of tip a Canoe, but haven't
really heard how that became a thing and why people
(02:42):
tend to believe in it. But it is a part
of American presidential lore that is up there with the
list that you will always see of the comparisons between
JFK and Abraham Lincoln there are a lot of things
that you can stream some red string around, like events
(03:03):
that can appear to be part of a pattern, depending
upon your belief. William Henry Harrison does he believe in curses?
We don't know he is. His presidency is most famous
for the sheer abbreviation of it. He made it. He
made it a month with the top job before he died,
(03:26):
and a lot of people like you said, Noel, think
it's something you could chalk up to his age at
the time he was sixty eight, or his hobby of
exposing himself to the elements. He would wander around days
and nights, regardless of the weather. It's kind of like
an inspiration for the Post Office of being honest, exactly.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
A bit of a goth type. Fellow Martin Kelly writes
in Thought Co in his article did to comes his curse?
Kill seven US presidents? It comes to his curse, also
known as the Curse of Tipic News, stems from an
eighteen o nine dispute between future US President William Henry
Harrison and Shawnee indigenous leader to come to Some believe
the curse is the reason that Harrison and every following
(04:10):
president up to Kennedy, who was elected in a year
ending in zero died in office. Right yeah, So little
numerology playing in here.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
As well, right right, Again, the perception of a pattern
is key to this, and of course, as established earlier
in part one, the ratio of presidency survival rates is
really messed up. There's a very very small sample size,
still less than fifty people, but eight of those people
(04:40):
have died in office. We joked that that makes the
job slightly less secure than the life of a podcaster,
but only just here's the issue, right, This dispute between
Harrison and tecumsa Is is a key piece of American history,
(05:04):
and apparently, according to true believers, it's also a beef
that led to super natural consequences. So no, Max, Maybe
we start with the concept of this curse, because despite
the name, a lot of us may be surprised to
learn that this curse doesn't come from type Canoe. Instead,
(05:25):
it comes from the battle at the River Thames, not
the Thames in London, which I went to recently, and
I gotta tell you, man, that's a dirty river.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah it sure is. Call back to our old episode
on the Great Stink. Yes, yeah, yeah, it's still pretty
dirty to this day. But back in the day, boy,
that thing was that the Thames was teeming with absolute
filth and you know, sewage and the Yeah, this is
not that Thames, that Tames Thames different times. But Martin
(05:59):
Kelly once again right that during the War of eighteen twelve,
Harrison really doubled down on his anti indigenous attitudes. He
defeated the British and the tribes that had aligned with them.
As we also mentioned in the previous episode, during that
Battle of the Thames, not that Thames. This further defeat
(06:20):
and the loss of more land to the American government
is apparently what drove to Comsta his brother, the prophet
tanks Quatawa, to place a death curse on all future
US presidents that were elected in years ending in a zero.
Very interesting that they would choose to add that caveat
(06:42):
why not just all future US presidents? But perhaps that
was something in the nature of the curse itself. He
had to have some numerological elements.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
It makes the pattern work, right, that's how they have
to recognize it. And also Harrison, by the way, he
is inaugurated, it is president in eighteen forty one, but
he's elected in eighteen forty, so that's why it descends
from Harrison. And I love that you're bringing up tens
Katawa because he is one of the more fascinating characters
(07:15):
of this piece of history to me, and agreed, yeah,
and he's also like, Okay, we said, the name for
the curse is weird and doesn't really work because it's
not based on tip of canoe and it's called to
Coumsa's curse, But Takumsa isn't the one who did the curse.
(07:35):
According to the story, Tensquatawa enacted the curse, placing that
on the placing this death, this supernatural death upon every
US president, as you said, only elected in years starting
or ending in a zero. And we also have to
remember a very important part about how history is made here.
(07:58):
Everything we discussed about ten Skawata in our previous episode
shows that he couldn't really do magic. He got exposed
as a fraud with that, with that wild attack on
Harrison's camp where he promised that he would give people
(08:19):
magic powers and failed, and then he skidaddled he left town.
So we want to be aware of the context, but
we also want to realize that a lot of the
people responsible for creating the lore of Tecumsa's curse. They
were asodicizing Native Americans. They were like, oh, watch out
for all this spooky Native magic, because it can't be true.
(08:42):
The people in the most stressful job in the US
often just sometimes die. It has to be magic.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Yeah. So yeah, let's go through some of these examples,
many of these biographies coming from the White House dot Gov.
Let's start with, of course, eighteen forty William Henry Harrison.
His bio actually picks up right after the Battle of
(09:10):
the Thames, and here's a quote from the bio on
white House dot gov. Thereafter Harrison returned to civilian life.
The Whigs, in need of a national hero, nominated him
for president in eighteen forty. He won by a majority
of less than one hundred and fifty thousand, but swept
a fun, fun political maneuverings here swept the notorious Electoral
(09:33):
College two hundred and thirty four to sixty. But before
he had been in office a single month, he caught
a cold that developed into pneumonia, and on April fourth,
eighteen forty one, he died, the first president in fact
to die in office, and with him the Whig Party,
the Whig program, the Whig ideology died as well.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Yeah, yeah, and the Wigs have been sort of struggling
for a while. This was kind of their death knell.
And some people Okay, So if we try to trace
back the causes of Harrison's death, if we put on
our old Casey pegram Casey on the case law and
order vibes, thank you back, what we see is that
(10:20):
a guy named Daniel Webster, he writes a very long
inauguration speech for Harrison, and Harrison goes and gives this
speech in its entirety on a freezing rainy day in March,
or not freezing but very cold, because it was still raining.
And a lot of people will say that because he
(10:40):
was exposed to the elements for so long, he got
pneumonia and he took ill and died as a result.
Other people say it was still the weather. But the
weather got to him not during that inauguration speech, but
during one of his long ambulations he took later that month,
and he didn't dress appropriate leave for the elements. That's
(11:02):
the more popular theory because that long walk is closer
in precedent to his actual death.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I'm just gonna say it. With how this dude was
acting at sixty eight years old, it was gonna happen, right,
It just would go knocking in the rain.
Speaker 2 (11:16):
A particularly good steward of his personal health, this guy.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
And let's also remember that he had a very demanding
social schedule. It's all gas, no breaks. The walk theory
goes to March twenty fourth, eighteen forty one, because he
always would take a daily morning walk to the local markets.
This is also when security for the potus was way
(11:41):
lower than it is today. I mean, imagine if you
live in DC and President Joe Biden like comes into
the target, it just says, you know, I don't have
a shopping list, I'm just here for the vibes.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
I walk over and heck with Biden's you know, advanced
age being you know easily what almost thirty over twenty
years this guy's senior, he's probably almost more along the
lines of like today, what would be considered an advanced
age for a president, that this would have been considered
back in those days, so extra care, one would think
(12:15):
would have been taken, and that people wouldn't have been
letting this character just wander around in the muck you know.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
But this is also here's the other weird thing. If
you look at the medical treatment of Harrison after he
took ill, then you see that blood letting was still
very much considered legitimate medicine. No, so the doctors. The
doctors were bleeding him starting on Sunday in March twenty eighth,
(12:46):
and then they they eventually stopped. But blood letting for
a sick person is usually not going to help. It
may actively harm them.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Do we have any examples of any time that this
method actually functionally helped anybody throughout history?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
I believe that there are, Well, it depends are we
talking about a lot of blood or are we talking
about small just.
Speaker 2 (13:15):
A practice in and of itself. I mean, it seems
like it was based on just junk science from the
start and more kind of superstitions or things that just
weren't confirmed by any actual, you know, real research or science.
I'm just wondering if there's ever an instance where some
small amount of blood letting actually helped somebody out.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, there's things not really, I mean, there are examples
of the modern day, like taking someone's blood to run
blood test that can be a life saving procedure.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Sure, that's what we're talking about here, closest thing. Yeah, now,
blood work is crucial, but that again involves getting to
the root of the problem rather than that being the
remedy in and of itself.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So here's my pitch. The curse to the curse of
typical or to Comes. His curse is real, but not
the way we understand. Harrison died because his doctor was
a vampire. Okay, fair, no on the fact check us out,
but this is kind of alistical. Episode two folks were
giving you more and more examples of people who supposedly
(14:19):
fell to to Coms his curse, and surprise, surprise, one
of the most famous guys who fell to to Comes
his curse is the famous former amateur wrestler Abraham Lincoln.
Fun fact, was also president for a minute.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
The reach on that guy, Ben is, I know we've
already kind of touched on this a little bit, but
do you have any theories or Max as well, on
why this curse got lumped in with Tacumsa rather than
the more spiritual leader of that kind of movement.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, it's because Tecumsa was the more important political figure
and so the one that would be more readily identifiable
to the American public.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
So really it's just kind of a buzz thing like
almost branding that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Right, And it was also like just in kind of
the story, it's William Henry Harrison, it's to Come, So
they are the opposites and the prophet's kinds of a
secondary character.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
There actually becomes a point where the profit actively disobeys
to Comes to military strategy, where he essentially they part
ways because he's no longer of use to to Comes
because he's basically cracked the bed to such a degree
that he has become politically a liability for it to
COMSA at this point, right, Yeah, nobody trusts him anymore,
(15:35):
and it comes to his whole strategy relies on good
diplomacy and good relationships.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Yeah, even people who had the prevailing racism at the
time would have said to their peers, to Comesa is
a competent tactician. We can work with him. You can
work with him. It's almost like he's a human being.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
Almost quite but Lincoln, right, the idea that Lincoln, who
was of course elected president of November sixth, eighteen sixty,
a year ending in zero, that his downfall, his demise
specifically was tied to this curse is something that you know,
(16:17):
kind of holds in this this whole lore that we're
talking about here. On Good Friday, April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five,
Abraham Lincoln is assassinated, the victim of an assassin's bullet
at Ford's Theater in Washington, d C. The assassin in question,
of course, John Wilkes Booth, who famously jumped out of
(16:38):
his box seat and fell to the stage and I
believe broke his leg, isn't that right?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Six simpered tarannus thus to all tybrants.
Speaker 2 (16:46):
That's right. Yeah, so real splashy showing there from from
John Wilkes Booth, who was an actor. So I'm sorry
it wasn't he jumped from from some height, right, because yeah,
balcony after the falconon, that's but Lincoln himself was also
in a balcony seat. He was in a box seat,
so I'm assuming that the balcony in question from Wilkes
(17:09):
Booth was adjacent in some way. And then he tried
to make his daring escape but kind of botched the landing.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I mean, I believe there was a lot of showmanship too,
like there wasn't any trying of like Wilkes, Booth was
not trying to sneak away.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, he exclaimed that quote that you just said, like,
you know, very actively and loudly in actory fashion.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
Yeah, which shows you again the hazards of hiring hiring
actors to do a hitman's job.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Yeah, that's why leam Neeson would actually not be not
be good and have taken situation probably. Also, of course,
the death of Lincoln does not have the effect that
Booth wanted. It removes the possibility of a more compassionate
(18:06):
piece between the North and the South. Now, absolutely wood.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Feud, very polarizing. Yeah, it has the exact opposite effect.
Moving on to eighteen eighty with James Garfield. Yeah, and
obviously very easy to make the connection of being associated
with a certain lasagna eating cat who does not care
(18:30):
for Mondays. I'm not sure if Jim Davis named Garfield
after the President unclear. I don't know if you know
anything about this, Max, but not not something that I've
seen any writing about.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
I haven't either, But I'll say this right now, James
Garfield is actually kind of cool.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I actually like him.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Zacherfield, which really sucks that he's on this list though.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
It's weird though, because we're also looking at him in
comparison to his peers and other presidents of the day.
So the bar to be cool is been.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
What are you saying Gilded Age presidents weren't good? You know,
who are we to judge?
Speaker 1 (19:05):
I'm not out here trying to get cursed.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Hey, I'll say's rid Rutherford B. Hayes really liked animals? Yeah, sure,
which makes them probably number two of the guilded Age,
which is pretty bad if they Rutherford be Hayes your
number two president just because he likes animals.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
And Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian. But I'm just saying,
like quite the painter. But yeah, no, no he was.
It wasn't good enough to make it. He didn't have
a career and already ahead of him. But they ought
to really refer to this as the bishitted age.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
There we go.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
I love also that the English language has more than
twenty more than twenty three words to describe something having
shit on it or something having thrown on it.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Yeah, I mean, you know, of course, we've got certain
incorrect pieces of lore around certain indigenous cultures having lots
of words for snow or things that they are surrounded by.
So despite that being often much over reported, it does
make sense that America, somewhat mired in crap throughout our
(20:09):
troubled history, would have so many words for that scenario.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
I just I'm so happy you guys use the word shitted.
It's one of my favorites, the fun one twenty sethn words.
But also we should mention, by the way, that in
the deaths of Harrison, in the death of Lincoln, and
in the upcoming death of Garfield spoiler.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
Alert, Actually it's kind of what the episode's about.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
No one at this point is claiming there's a curse.
By the way, this is a very key piece of
the story.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
We're going to get to that when it really becomes
a news item, right then they go, oh, what about
that thing? That'd be fun to write about. So Garfield
is elected to the United States presidency in eighteen eighty.
He serves nine terms up to that point in the
US House of Representatives, and before being the president, he
(21:00):
was already a pretty accomplished academic. He was a college
professor and also served as the president of the Ohio
State Senate. He was on the right side of the
Civil War and eventually did become a major general as well.
So very storied and diverse career in public life, this guy.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah, exactly. He was a career bureaucratic, career legislature. This
is the kind of one of.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
The good ones, though it would seem, especially given the time.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
This is a guy you would want to be president
because of his experience. And at this point, by the way,
the US public was not as dead set against college
professors being president as they are now.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Interesting. Yeah, yeah, there is some division around that, the
idea of like academics being too soft or something. Right.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yeah, And this is also, by the way, one thing
that's very impressive about Garfield is that he is not
what we would call a NEPO baby today, right. He
is not born into some bizarre dynasty like the Clintons
or the Bushes or the Kennedys. He comes from a
(22:15):
family that you would call like working class, working class
to middle class. His dad dies when he's only two,
and Garfield had to put himself through school. One of
the tales of Garfield lore is that he was able
to pay for his education by learning how to drive
canal boat teams, which is and Max you noted this too.
(22:39):
It's essentially helping ship stuff on rivers. So these are
still during the days of the Great Mississippi river boat trade.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Very mar Twaina is yeah. And there are.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
Statements that speak to his character. He does seem to
be a guy who was really thinking through not what
is good for me, but what is good for this
American experiment. People were trying to make him president. They
were pushing them, and they were like, Jimmy G, Jimmy G,
you got to be president. And he would for a while.
(23:15):
The candidate doth protest too much because he said, no,
there's another guy. His name's John Sherman. He is way
more qualified. He will be a better president for the
United States. That's from Jeff Jacobee over at the Boston Globe.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well you love to see that, don't you. Someone. I'm
always a little suspicious, I think, as we all are,
of people who seek that level of, you know, public
office and they're like working towards it, because it often
seems to be a little bit self serving when you
have someone that's like saying no, no, no, no, this
other guy's got this better qualified, this isn't for me.
(23:50):
You do tend to and they're pushed into it because
of others seeing in them, perhaps things they don't see
in themselves. That always impresses me, you know, and then
strikes me as a better qualification than someone who spent
their entire life working towards, you know, holding this kind
of office.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
I think it's indicative of character. Yeah, and do we
know if this was false modesty or was it a
genuine case of moral values? Unclear at this point, but
let's err on the side of optimism. And I love
the way you put this here. Backs. Unfortunately for Garfield,
(24:28):
despite his protest, he was nominated. He was elected. He
was also elected in a year that ended with zero no. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
Yeah. July second, eighteen eighty one, at a Washington railroad station,
an attorney who had sought a consular post shot President Garfield.
He was mortally wounded once again, even a flesh wound
at this time, you know, could eventually he leads to
(25:01):
sepsis and and death. He is mortally wounded. He lay
in the White House for several weeks before passing away
it succumbing to his to his wounds.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah, exactly, and his death.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
They couldn't find the bullet right like, they find that his.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Death is fascinating because it factors in another luminary of
the day, Alexander Graham Bell has invented an induction balance
electrical device. He's like the Tony Stark of this era totally.
And so he tries to find the bullet in Garfield
(25:41):
and he fails. Garfield has taken to the New Jersey
shore on September sixth, and there is.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
A very different just this it was. It was and
it was more idyllic.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
And they were thinking, said Garfields, that lifting up his
shirt off his abs.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Well, he's probably lifted up someone's lifted up his shirt.
They're like, where the fuck is this poking for the bullet?
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Yeah, but this was still the time when people thought
changing your weather or changing the weather you encounter could
have curative effects, so like.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Climates exactly, some shits and stuff like that.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, taking in the air, this doesn't work. It looks
like maybe he's recuperating. But that was just wishful thinking
on the part of medical professionals and political supporters. What
was happening is it was still slowly dying. On September nineteenth,
eighteen eighty one. He dies from an internal hemorrhage.
Speaker 2 (26:38):
That's right, he does succumb to that gunshot. So it's
a slow and taking cline now exactly, I would imagine
quite painful. Moving on nineteen hundred, we've got William McKinley.
McKinley not so much of a hero of our story
(27:01):
insomuch as Garfield was. At least he's considered by many
to be one of the last of this era we've
been describing, the bashetted Age or Gilded Age, which isn't
considered to be a particularly stellar era for American history
and politics.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Oh, I do have to say, though, you're absolutly righting
the setup. I do have to say for Garfield, I'm
pretty sure that doctors killed him because they kept digging
into his guts to try to find the bullet. That's
exactly right. They like they were digging holes in the guy.
But with McKinley something very different. He is a child
(27:40):
of corruption, is a he benefits greatly from the corrupt
election of eighteen ninety six, and a lot of people
I see your note here, Max. A lot of people
will tell you to this day that the actual election
if it had not been rigged, would have gone to
William Jennings Bryan and be absolutely clear. I one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Agree with that, and we're gonna have that part too eventually.
Right of all the presidents, we ran a bunch of
all the dudes who ran a present a bunch of times.
So we just will ending on the William Jennings briding part.
Speaker 1 (28:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. I got it. Uh,
I haven't gotten I haven't done that one yet, Max,
because there weren't any good mistranslations, but we will, we will.
We will have some you could call a mistranslation of justice. No,
but yeah, we have a We have Jennings coming on
the way and it's going to be a banger. Also, Uh,
(28:35):
McKinley isn't super photo Jenny McKinley looks like a meme
of an evil guy.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
Uh, his fingers steepled, mister burns.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
And the like, just so you know, has drawing comparisons
to the penguin. If you pull up one of the
most popular pictures of McKinley, like the stuff you see
on his on his Wikipedia page or on his White
House dot gov entry, then he looks exactly like Colin
Farrell in The Batman playing the penguin.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Oh yeah, which is some pretty impressive. It was practical
effects in terms of that when he was when I
saw the original Batman movie, I had no idea that
was Colin Farrell, uh for quite a while until I
saw the credits, and they've got him appearing in a
series coming up where he is that character, So kudos.
It's called acting, and also with the aid of some
(29:30):
really good makeup effects.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Oh you know. I was also tremendously impressed with not
Robert de Niro, Robert Downey junior in Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's what I've heard. I haven't been yet, that.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Guy from in the beginning. It was. It was fascinating,
so well done.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Rob.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
It's tough to make a living as an actor, and
I wish you continued further success.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
A big fan of practical effects versus like the CGI types.
Even you know, I'm sorry not to get off track,
but in The Maestro, a lot of a lot has
been made of Bradley Cooper's nose. This is a fund
as prosthetic knows. But when you really go back and
look at footage of Leonard Bernstein, that feature really does
sell the role. It really does. They did quite a
(30:11):
good job of it, and I can understand why they
decided to go that route.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
And so this idea of this tendency to always look
kind of villainous in photographs, it's what our pal Max
calls James C. Calhoun's syndrome. We're an audio podcasts. We
also want this journey to be your own. So take
a look at James Calhoun and let us know if
you agree.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
Yeah, James C. Calhoun, the dude so messed up that
Andrew Jackson looked at him and said, like, dude, you're
fucked up man, right, Like you know you're bad. If
Andrew Jackson is uncomfortable with the things you're.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Doing, Andrew Jackson calls you problematic, you might it might
be time for some self inventory. So McKinley is openly
a pro business president when he's first elected in eighteen
ninety six in that corrupt election, because the corporate power
that be want a guy who will accede to their rule. Right,
(31:04):
that's what corporate powers historically want. They want all the
advantages of a democracy or of a stable government, and
they want all the disadvantages or obligations of that government
to fall on the people rather than the companies. That's
not a hot take, and it's not I mean, I
(31:25):
wouldn't even ascribe morals to it. It's just what those
organizations are built to do. The biggest event of McKinley's
presidency is the Spanish American War, and like to Cumsa's curse,
the name is confusing. The Spanish American War did not
take place in Spain. It was not fought in the
United States. It was in Cuba, in the Philippines, in
(31:49):
Puerto Rico. It was a one hundred day war across
these areas, and it greatly expanded the overseas holdings of
the US. That's right.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
And McKinley would then go on to run against once
again William Jennings Bryan and win reelection in nineteen hundred
ding ding Ding, ending with zero. So here is where
the curse comes into the discussion. And here's a quote
from the White House gov Bio. His second term came
(32:22):
to a tragic end in September nineteen oh one. He
was standing in a receiving line at the Buffalo Pan
American Exposition when a deranged anarchist wow shot him okay,
fair enough shot him twice. He died. He succomb to
his wounds eight days later, again presumably a painful demise.
(32:46):
His death led to Theodore Roosevelt then becoming the youngest
president in American history. Yeah, yeah, there's no trivia before you.
Speaker 3 (32:58):
Everyone was six since JFK. JFK is the youngest elected president, right.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
And Theodore is the youngest to actually assume the presidency.
So then we have it all right, and still at
this time, by the way, spoiler, folks, nobody's talking about
to comes his curse. It comes his old beans. No
one cares about this dude, right now. Fast forward nineteen
twenty one of the also rands of the American presidency,
(33:24):
Warren G. Harding. He has a quote from his own perspective,
his own retrospect, where it gives us a sense of
how sort of BEAYIESI and blase his presidency was. Here
goes America's president. Need is not heroics but healing, not
(33:44):
nostrums but normalcy, not revolution but restoration, not agitation but adjustment,
not surgery but serenity. Not the dramatic but the dispassionate experiment,
but equipoise, submergence, in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Okay, okay, wow, that's the real snoozer. Unlike his predecessor, however, McKinley,
Harding was pretty clearly very pro commerce, very pro business,
and he had a much more presidential vibe. Let's just say.
An Ohio admirer Harry Doherty started to promote Harding for
(34:32):
the nineteen twenty Republican nomination because he felt as though
he looked like a president really great, you know, bona
fides for doing the job not right. And one time
he told his then Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, if
(34:52):
you knew of a great scandal in our administration, would you,
for the good of the country and the party expose
it publicly?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
Would you bury it? And Hoover's like, do the right thing, dude,
go public and then Harding's like, I don't want.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
To though, No, no, I'm good.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Oh and he dies in August of nineteen twenty three
in San Francisco heart attack. No one says there's a curse.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
But Calvin Coolish becomes president, which is Calvin Coolidge episode.
Speaker 1 (35:20):
Yeah, we did, we did, Calvin Coolidge.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It's kind of cool.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
We did a hoover damn episode two. I mean, we're
running through the hits here.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
We're building over twenties presidents. We've talked about all of them.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
They don't really do anything fair. Well, we're out of
the twenties now and into the forties, the Roaring forties now.
I think it's the roarings over by this point. Franklin
Delano roosevelts, this one's a little bit longer. So we're
going to do our best to kind of be as
pithy about it as we can. We have mentioned before
(35:51):
that this president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, was president so many
times that it were it caused the laws on how
many times one can hold this office to actually be changed.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yeah. Look, often in these divided political times, people hate
to uh to point out or to be reminded that
the New Deal absolutely saved the United States. They hate question, Yeah,
they hate to get jobs.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
It helped improve infrastructure, so many positive things resulted from that.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
They hate to be reminded that the US came very
close to insolvency in this regard, and Della knows saved it. However,
another thing people don't like to admit, even especially Onike
the left aisle of political discourse. Here, Franklin D. Roosevelt
(36:46):
came very very close to becoming a dictator, and so
the law had to be changed.
Speaker 3 (36:52):
What I didn't realize until honestly a couple of years
gone up, and you have been studying presidential history for
most of my life, is I was thinking young. He
still was when he passed away. He was in the sixties.
Speaker 1 (37:03):
Yeah, very young for president. He could have.
Speaker 3 (37:04):
Gone like twenty more years at that job, which he
probably would have.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
He would have, yeah, and he would have become a
similar to like a strong man dictator, would have been
very dangerous for the country, to be.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
Honest, I see what you're saying there, Ben, and I
totally understand the need to change the lodges for president.
Was there anything particularly dictator ish about his behavior? He
is regarded as positive? Okay, there was.
Speaker 1 (37:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
He tried to was it, try to expand the Supreme
Court from nine to twenty three? Yes, he didn't like
the Supreme Court and stuff. He did some.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
Stuff, So a mixed bag, a complex individual. Obviously accomplished
some very very positive important things, but then got it
maybe a little too big for his breaches.
Speaker 3 (37:48):
There's a lot of like, you know, preaches Andrew Jackson's
obviously a horrible human being, but he was Andrew Jackson.
People always want to come out say he's a terrible president.
There's lots of people is terrible. But he's a very
impactful president, very impactful present.
Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, yeah, I'd agree with that. We also know he
was following the footsteps of his fifth cousin, Theodore Roosevelt,
most famous for inspiring the stuff Teddy Bear, and he
rose through the Senate. He was definitely a silverspoon boy
by the way he rose through the Senate. In nineteen ten,
he becomes Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He gets the
(38:24):
VP nomination in nineteen twenty. In nineteen twenty eight, he
is the governor of New York. He is elected amid
the absolute terrible pandemonium of the Great Depression in nineteen
thirty two, which.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Is also how we know dictators often come to power,
you know when countries there are under states of duress
and they are seen as the only person that can
carry the country through.
Speaker 1 (38:51):
Right, absolutely, I mean this is in these times of instability.
The public, if they're well, matter what kind of government
they have in times of instability, the public will increasingly
question the status quo. Right Like the French were starving
and they said, is there a God? Is there a
(39:13):
real reason that the monarchy should be in charge? Are
they even qualified? And they decided the monarchy was not qualified.
I would say they were also correct in that estimation.
This is around the time, by the way, that a
bunch of rich corporate interests conspire to overthrow the United
(39:33):
States government and start a fascist regime. This was called
the Business Plot. Today, no one was officially convicted because
Congress was The Congress members were for the most part
puppets of big corporations, of banking interests. But shout out
to absolute peace of craps Medley Butler, who was a
(39:55):
Curmudgeont who saved the country as we know it. Check
out our our show Let's Start a Coup for more
at that. But these are very uncertain types. Okay, FDR's president.
He launches this thing called the New Deal. And to
be clear to our earlier point, the New Deal program
saved America, but they were intensely undemocratic, like the way
(40:18):
they were pushed through the public loves him though that
the haves hate him. The have nots love him. He
gets re elected three more times, nineteen thirty six, nineteen
forty ending in a zero and nineteen forty four. So
he's at the wheel of power through the Great Depression
and then through most of World War Two, and he
(40:41):
has a lot of health problems as a result. We
were talking in part one about how just four years
in that job will absolutely wreck you. Oh yeah, this
guy has been wrecked four times.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
He's been through the freakin' ringer. His health really had
begun to deteriorate in on it April twelfth, nineteen forty five,
while having a little sabbatical I guess at Warm Springs, Georgia,
he succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah, he sure did, and with him a unique part
of American history also expires. Fast forward to one of
the most famous presidents to die in office, to be assassinated,
(41:32):
John F. Kennedy. John Fitzgerald Kennedy in nineteen sixty. He's
really interesting in terms of election because he's a president
at the dawn of what we could call the entertainment age, right,
you know, this is the famous presidential debate where people
listening on the radio thought Nixon one, and people watching
television thought Kennedy one. He's kind of a celebrity, sort
(41:55):
of a proto Kardashian already when he is elected president.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Yeah, there's definitely a lot of theater involves, and not
the same kind of theater that that ended up taking
Lincoln's life. This is very much a public kind of
persona era, you know, because of the nature of television broadcasts.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, and because of this dual existence as an American
celebrity and as an American statesman, he occupies very unique
place in the mythos of the US. Now, if you
look at just the boxes you want to tick for president,
he's he's got everything right. He's he's a Massachusetts boy.
(42:39):
He graduates from Harvard, He's in the Navy, he sees
combat in World War Two. He comes up working as
a Democratic Boston area congressman. He moves up to the Senate.
He's a blue blood, so he knows the people in power.
He's intimately related with their families. He becomes a vice president,
or he's nominee for the VP position in nineteen fifty six,
(43:03):
doesn't work out. Eisenhower wins reelection and then he gets
in a high profile contest against Eisenhower's VP, Richie Nixon.
Oh Richie, boy, there's the debate.
Speaker 2 (43:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
Oh, also people don't like him because he's Catholic.
Speaker 2 (43:20):
Oh that's a big deal, right. Yeah. We didn't even
think about that as being an issue necessarily, but at
the time it was super divisive. He did win by
a pretty narrow margin in the popular vote and became
the first, very first, as you say, Roman Catholic president,
and his relatively short time I mean not as short
as some of the presidents on our list, but still
pretty short time in office. It was a very important
(43:43):
time in American history. We had things like the Bay
of Pigs, the beginning of the Vietnam War, the Cuban
Missile Crisis, of course, the civil rights movement, and he
was at the center of all of this. Therefore, you know,
at the center of a lot of very divisive historical
moments that kind of like stacked up upon one another.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Yeah. Yeah, And he was beefed up heavily with the
CIA due to the rampant corruption of the CIA and
their ideological myopia. You can learn more about that and
the fantastic series with our pals Rob Ryder and Solidad
O'Brien called Who Killed JFK. For my money, it's the
(44:26):
best podcast out there about those events.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Heck, one of the best just sources out there. I
mean the level of research. There's stuff in that podcast
that you really haven't seen reported or discussed in the
way that they report and discuss it just about anywhere else.
Speaker 1 (44:41):
And similar to other presidents on the comes to Curse list,
he dies early in office. It's November twenty second, nineteen
sixty three. He is struck by assassin's bullets as his
motorcade strolls through Dallas. He's the youngest man elected pres Again,
that's an important distinction. Is also, as history proves, the
(45:05):
youngest to die there are, so he's probably one of
the most famous. But there are a couple of other
things where people will tell you the curse was broken,
and one of those is Ronald Reagan. Let's flash back
to Let's flash back to the times when Ronald Reagan
(45:26):
could remember he was president.
Speaker 2 (45:28):
That's right on February sixth, nineteen eleven. He is born
to Nell and John Reagan in Tampico, Illinois. As we know,
he was kind of really more so, I would say
even than Kennedy. He was our really first kind of
celebrity president because he was, in fact, much like a
(45:48):
lot of the politicians that we're seeing in this whatever
era we're in right now, an actor, a public figure
unrelated to politics, who then was able to capitalize on
that notaray and parlay that into a victory in the
public service.
Speaker 1 (46:06):
People tell me is an absolute snack pack.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Real smoke shot.
Speaker 1 (46:09):
And what campaigns are learning at this point, or what
the king makers in the US are learning, is that
they can leverage parasocial relationships. The average American voter is
not going to know a ton about policy. They're going
to vote for someone that they see themselves in, someone
that seems familiar, someone that they think they could hang
(46:30):
out with. And so Ronald Reagan, despite not being qualified
as qualified as many other presidential candidates, he is much
more recognizable.
Speaker 2 (46:42):
It goes back to that quote, I'm now it's giving
me which president. This is associated with the idea of
he looks like a president. You know, not only am
I a president, but I also play one on TV?
You know. I mean, that's like we're starting to see
that that capital, that social capital, and that parasocial relationship
you're talking about Ben is almost more more important to
the king makers than actual political savvy and or qualifications.
Speaker 3 (47:05):
And it's interesting because it's like this popped my head
when y'all were talking about this. But it's like if
you really look at like William Henry Harrison when we
started this episode of it's like, hey, this guy might
not be a good president, but you know what he
did this popular thing which in that time was killing
Laty of America. But it's kind of like throughout this history,
it's just it might look different, but it's the same
(47:26):
thing that are getting these people elected.
Speaker 1 (47:27):
Yeah. Yeah, And so it's a good observation. Also, he
apparently breaks the curse because he is the governor of
California and he gets re elected in nineteen seventy. In
nineteen eighty, some members of our audience may recall, Ronald
Reagan becomes the president. This point we got to talk
(47:49):
a little bit about the curse because, as you may remember, folks,
Ronald Reagan almost got assassinated. John Hinckley Junior attack to
Reagan in the while leaving the Hilton Hotel in DC.
Hinkley fires a twenty two caliber revolver at the President,
(48:10):
he does hit him. Reagan is wounded indirectly. A bullet
ricochets off the limo and it hits him right under
the left, right under the left armpit. And then there
are other I think there are three other people who
are wounded during the shooting. And because of the high
energy and the chaos and all the you know, ur
(48:31):
endorphins are flowing and stuff, Reagan doesn't even notice that
he's been shot until he starts to cough up blood.
Speaker 2 (48:39):
But he recovers this assassin too. Just as a side note,
wasn't he the guy who's obsessed with the actor Jody Foster?
Speaker 1 (48:47):
I believe that's correct.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
And then I think partly he was doing this to
like impress her.
Speaker 1 (48:52):
Yeah, he also I'm still in the dark about this.
I don't know how it happened. But he's no longer
in jail. Binky had the juice to get out of
jail for trying to kill the president.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (49:05):
He has a YouTube channel.
Speaker 2 (49:08):
Could good on him? He sim of his YouTube dollars.
Speaker 1 (49:11):
He's a musician. He went on tour. I think replaces
that's right, But.
Speaker 2 (49:16):
Some of his dates had been canceled because it's just
being a little a little problematic, perhaps, you know, to
capitalize in the notoriety of being someone that attempted to
kill the president.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
But how did he get out? That's I feel like
that's a one way ticket up the river for the
rest of your life.
Speaker 2 (49:33):
One would think he must have some friends in high places.
Speaker 3 (49:35):
According to his work at Pedia page twenty sixteen, a
feral judge rule that Hinckley could be released from psychiatric care.
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Right, but he got into psychiatric care because he had
very good, expensive lawyers. I'm just saying the thing is fishy. Yeah, agreed. Yeah,
but Reagan survives.
Speaker 2 (49:53):
He does survive, He recovers fully and returns to the
White House after twelve days away. And I think that
some of this plays into some of the political fiction
of Aaron Sorkin.
Speaker 1 (50:09):
Yeah, yeah, shout out West wing Uh. And with this,
the not not just the belief in t comes his curse,
but its hold over the American public is broken. George W.
Bush Uh never gets assassinated. A guy throws shoes at
him once, and that's in Middle Eastern culture. You have
(50:30):
to realize that the shoe was picked on purpose, because
it's wearing.
Speaker 3 (50:34):
A rabbit hole in that Yeah, that guy. That guy
is interesting.
Speaker 1 (50:37):
He's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
Well, it's also interesting is in that clip the way
that Bush ducks that shie.
Speaker 3 (50:45):
By the second By the second one he's actually laughing
at which is because.
Speaker 1 (50:48):
He realizes it's not a gun or a bomb. But also,
you know, George W. Bush is very interesting because he
is a blue blood from Connecticut who managed to successfully
impersonate an awe shucks Texan like with the with the
commitment of the to the bit that would make Andy
Kaufman not an.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Approval completely agree, nodding in approval over here.
Speaker 1 (51:13):
Paint No, he does he his bathtub painting.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
Is It is interesting too, how because of the perhaps
even more egregious behavior of subsequent presidents that his legacy
has sort of been reevaluated in a lot of ways,
Like George W. Bush is not seen as the warmongering
sociopath that he was at the time.
Speaker 1 (51:35):
You know, don't don't worry.
Speaker 3 (51:37):
There is some subtle knocks I have on him in
an upcoming brief we're talking about his painting.
Speaker 1 (51:42):
He does a lot of he does you have to
say it. He does a lot of charitable work. But
then you if you are someone who is a bit
more conspiratorial minded like me, I'm fine, I am self
aware here. Uh, you could ask how much of a
president he has actually was and combarrassed to Dick Cheney
by far the most powerful VP of American history.
Speaker 2 (52:05):
Power behind the throne.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
He was very much the police Clap of presidents. And
I know Plice Clap was his brother, but still I
think police clap is so cringe and that it affects
the whole family.
Speaker 1 (52:16):
It's still very, very difficult, of course to be president,
especially in this entertainment age where the president is supposed
to be seen as a celebrity as much as a
master of state craft. And it's a very sad thing.
But I think at this point, what we're proving is
that in the case of every president who is alleged
to have died as a result of to comes his curse,
(52:39):
what we see is the idea of the curse. Is
the idea of the curse is often applied in retrospect,
and there are a couple times where it appears that
someone predicted it. I think in nineteen sixty a journalist
named Ed Cortoba or Coderba hinted about this president's dying
(53:02):
at twenty year intervals in office, and that came true
when Roosevelt died and when Kennedy was assassinated. However, given
the ratio of deaths in the presidential office, the odds
are pretty favorable. You know what I mean. This is
a game that you could gamble on and seem somewhat
(53:23):
prescient by acting.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
Oh yeah, completely agree. Now, it makes a lot of
sense that this would be something that would captivate the
public imagination, and you know, in no small part because
of you know, the press and the way it was
chosen to be reported, and this.
Speaker 1 (53:40):
Idea of this idea of hexing and curses and so on,
it originates again in the exoticization of Native American communities,
and the reason they were exoticized so much is to
further rationalize the horrible way they were treated by the
American govern from it makes someone seem less human, and
(54:02):
then the things you do to them are therefore less
in humane.
Speaker 2 (54:06):
One hundred percent. And again we talked about how it
was a very proactive choice to call this to comes
this curse and not like the curse of the prophet.
And I'm sorry, I keep having a hard time. It's tenskwatawas.
Maybe he doesn't have the same ring to it. He
(54:27):
was not considered to be as important a figure as
to comes to. Therefore, revisionist history prevails.
Speaker 3 (54:33):
Especially because that's not even his real name. He changed
his name as an adult.
Speaker 1 (54:36):
Right right. His real name was Dave Davidson.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
The third True Facts, True Facts, also the first American meteorologist.
Speaker 1 (54:44):
No one fact checked us on any of that, by
the way, Thank you very much. Speaking of thank you,
thanks again to our super producer and research associate for
this episode, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Alex Williams, who composed this banging theme that you hear
in your very ear right now. Christopherrasciotis, Eves, Jeff Cots,
Gabe Luesier.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
Yeah here in spirit, Gabe Lucier, How you doing, Gabe
Hope tuning in? Shout out to his show This day
in History Class. Big thanks to sort of the Ronald
Reagan of our podcast, Jonathan Strickland, he'll love that one.
And of course A J.
Speaker 2 (55:21):
Bahama's Jacobs and no big, big thanks to you man.
This was this was a good two partner. I really
enjoyed this couldn't agree more. Thanks to you as well, Ben.
Thanks to you out there, ridiculous historians. We'll see you
next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
(55:44):
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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