After John F. Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, I remember reading about the zero curse. Going back to 1840, every President elected in a year ending in zero died in office.
This is how we ended up with three Presidents during both 1841 and 1881.
1840: President is Martin Van Buren. William Henry Harrison, the last president born as a British subject, was elected
1841, March 4: WHH is inaugurated
1841, April 4: WHH dies, perhaps of pneumonia, but more likely from septic shock. John Tyler, who ended up having 15 children, became President. He still has a living grandson.
1860: Abraham Lincoln was elected.
1864: Lincoln was reelected.
1865, April 14: Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth and died the next day when Andrew Johnson became President.
1880: Rutherford Birchard Hayes is President.
1880: James Abram Garfield was elected President and inaugurated the following March 4
1881, July 2: Garfield is shot by Charles J. Guiteau over a perceived political slight
1881, September 19: Garfield dies, probably from sepsis. Chester Alan Arthur became President.
1896: William McKinley is elected and inaugurated the following March 4
20th century
1900: McKinley is re-elected and inaugurated the following March 4
1901, September 6: McKinley is shot by Leon Czolgosz
1901, September 14: McKinley dies from the shot and gangrene. Theodore Roosevelt, the first sitting President to make a diplomatic trip abroad, took office. He was also the youngest person to become President.
1920: Warren Gamaliel Harding is elected and inaugurated the following March 4
1923, August 2: Harding died, likely from a cardiac arrest, though it was thought at the time it was a cerebral hemorrhage. Calvin Coolidge, the only President born on the 4th of July (1872), was sworn in early the following morning. He was visiting his family in Vermont. “His father, a notary public and justice of the peace, administered the oath of office in the family’s parlor by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. on August 3, 1923, whereupon the new President of the United States returned to bed.”
1932, 1936: Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected, then reelected president, inaugurated the following March.
1940: FDR was reelected and inaugurated the following March.
1944: FDR was reelected and inaugurated the following March.
1945, April 12: FDR died of a cerebral hemorrhage. Harry S. Truman, his third Vice-President after John Nance Garner (two terms) and Henry A. Wallace became President.
1960: John Fitzgerald Kennedy was elected and inaugurated the following January 20. He was the youngest person elected President and also the youngest President at the end of his tenure.
1963, November 22: JFK was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald and possibly another. Lyndon Baines Johnson became President.
another Teddy
When Ted Kennedy, the youngest child of Joseph and Rose Kennedy, contemplated running for President in 1980, I was extremely worried for him. All of his brothers died violent deaths. On August 12, 1944, Joe and Rose’s eldest child, Joe Jr., “a Navy pilot, was killed on an air mission.” The second child, JFK, was assassinated, as was the seventh child, Robert Francis Kennedy, in June 1968 while running for President.
Fortunately, Teddy was unable to describe why he wanted the office, and he lost the Democratic nomination to the incumbent, Jimmy Carter, who was the first President born in a hospital. In 1979, he was also the first to light the National Menorah, officially observing Hanukkah celebrations.
Of course, Ronald Reagan, the Republican, was elected in 1980 and was inaugurated the following January 20. On March 30, 1981, Reagan was shot by John Hinckley. Was the curse still in effect? Fortunately, no. I didn’t vote for him, but I didn’t want him getting killed.
Not incidentally, knowing this arcane stuff has made remembering the Presidents in order easier. The only President to die in office who didn’t fit the pattern was Zachary Taylor, elected in 1848, inaugurated on March 4 of the next year, died on July 9, 1950 from circumstances still under debate. Millard Fillmore succeeded him. There were four Whig party Presidents: WH Harrison, Tyler, Taylor, and Fillmore, who collectively served only eight years.
