Curse of Tippecanoe

According to the legend, Tenskwatawa, leader of Native American tribes defeated in 1811 at the Battle of Tippecanoe by a military expedition led by William Henry Harrison, had cursed the "Great White Fathers".

Three former presidents elected in applicable years did not die in office: Ronald Reagan in 1980, George W. Bush in 2000, and Joe Biden in 2020.

[4] Strange as It Seems by John Hix ran a cartoon prior to the election of 1940 titled "Curse over the White House!"

"[5] In February 1960, journalist Ed Koterba noted that "The next President of the United States will face an eerie curse that for more than a century has hung over every chief executive elected in a year ending with zero.

[2] Running for re-election in 1980, President Jimmy Carter was asked about the curse at a campaign stop in Dayton, Ohio, on October 2 of that year while taking questions from the crowd.

First Lady Nancy Reagan was reported to have hired psychics and astrologers to try to protect her husband from the effects of the curse.

Snopes rates the claim that a "death curse threatens U.S. presidents elected in years evenly divisible by twenty" a legend and undocumented folktale not supported by actual records of Tecumseh cursing the "Great White Fathers" after his defeat at Tippecanoe.

[citation needed] According to Timothy Redmond of the Skeptical Inquirer, the supposed curse demonstrates a number of logical fallacies, including confusing correlation with causation, cherry picking, and moving the goalposts.

In 2009, Steve Friess of Slate sought to interview notable presidential historians and security experts such as Michael Beschloss, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Richard A. Clarke on the alleged curse, but none of them returned his calls.

Michael S. Sherry, an American history professor at Northwestern University, replied, "I doubt I have anything profound to say about this particular factoid, odd though it is.