Dead Presidents

[Renew Deal]

Someone sent me this. I don't know if it 100% legit, but most of it looks right.


-----Original Message-----

Look what happens when a President gets elected in a year with a "0" at
the end.

1840: William Henry Harrison (died in office)
1860: Abraham Lincoln (assassinated)
1880: James A. Garfield (assassinated)
1900: William McKinley (assassinated)
1920: Warren G. Harding (died in office)
1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt (died in office)
1960: John F. Kennedy (assassinated)
1980: Ronald Reagan (survived assassination attempt)
2000: George W. Bush ????????????

And to think that we had two guys fighting it out in the courts to be
the one elected in 2000.

You might also be interested in this. Have a history teacher explain
this if they can.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.

Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.

Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.

Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.


Now it gets really weird.

Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy's Secretary was named Lincoln.

Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.

Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.

John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839. Lee
Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.

Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.

Now hang on to your seat.

Lincoln was shot at the theater named "Ford,"
Kennedy was shot in a car called " Lincoln" made by "Ford," Booth and
Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

And here's the "kicker":

A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with Marilyn Monroe.

Creepy, huh?

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

1. There was a story about a "curse" about the White House...

regarding presidents who were elected during a year ending with zero. I don't remember the details, but I believe everything you've posted is true.
Now I'm creeped out.

[htuttle]

4. Tecumseh's Curse

Legend has it that that when the Shawnee Chief Tecumseh as defeated by General William Harrison, Tecumseh laid a juju on him, as follows:

'Harrison will win next year to be the Great Chief….... He will die in his office….. I who caused the Sun to darken and Red Men to give up firewater tell you Harrison will die. And after him, every Great Chief chosen every 20 years thereafter will die. And when each one dies, let everyone remember the death of our people."

...or something like that.

If that's all the bad karma this country got from wiping out the indigenous cultures of North America, we'd be damn lucky...

[Quizzical]

2. I think credit for this goes to Donald J. Sobol.

Maybe he got it from somewhere else. He wrote a book called Strange but True: 22 Amazing Stories, which I read years ago and remembered. I was pretty sure there was this list in there. Took me only ~25 seconds to find the book. I am so good.

Sobol's text is pretty similar, including the order. Sobol ends with this, though: "Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled to a storehouse, a farmer's barn. Oswald shot Kennedy from a storehouse, a book repository, and fled to a theater. <Then the one about both names having 15 letters.> The names Andrew Johnson and Lyndon Johnson have thirteen letters each. The names Lincoln and Kennedy have seven letters each."

Sobol includes these that are not on that list: "Both served their country in war; Lincoln in the Black Hawk War, Kennedy in World War II <spooky>. Both gained political stature through debates; Lincoln with Stephen A. Douglas, Kennedy with Richard M. Nixon."

Some of this is fairly spectacular coincidence, but if you search any events thoroughly enough, you're bound to find many parallels.

edit: Meh. Brackets...

[Quizzical]

5. Not that anyone cares...

But Mr. Sobol likely got this from somewhere. As I was thinking about remembering that chapter in Stange but True, I recalled another book called Mysteries of the Unexplained. In a chapter called "Coincidences," they have a fairly similar list. Their list of acknowledgments is too long and not specific enough to find out from where they may have lifted it.

[TruthIsAll]

3. All very true except...Oswald killed no one..

...

[JasonBerry]

6. ONE other thing to add

(If you buy the Warren Report - and I don't)

- Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and ran to, and was confronted, at a theater.

- Booth shot Lincoln at a theater and ran to, and was confronted, at a warehouse.

It is all a bit bizarre and I'm not one usually impressed by these things.

[maveric]

7. Umm. ..Marylin Monroe died (was killed???) in 1962.

One year before the assasination.

[wuushew]

8. The crux of the argument is if Raygun broke the curse?

He was shot and "almost" died

or perhaps died a mental death from his Alzheimers.


Does it apply only "elected" Presidents or only those who have sworn the oath".

[JasonBerry]

10. Good point

With the disease, it's quite possible to argue he "died" in office. It's all very weird.

[Journeyman]

9. Lincoln had no secretary named Kennedy. . .

his private secretaries were John G. Nicolay and John Hay (who went on to become Secretary of State for both Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt).

[ISUGRADIA]

11. Snopes.com take on Lincoln/Kennedy coincedences

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/linckenn.htm

They conclude "The coincidences are easily explained as the simple product of mere chance. It's not difficult to find patterns and similarities between any two marginally-related sets of data, and coincidences similar in number and kind can be (and have been) found between many different pairs of Presidents. ..."

And the zero "curse":

http://www.snopes.com/history/american/curse.htm