Tecumseh's Curse (Zero Year or Twenty Year Curse)

In the shortest US Presidency on record, William Henry Harrison died after only one month in office.

Ironically, he died of a cold he contracted after standing in the rain and delivering the longest inaugural speech in the history of the Presidency.

Some believe his bizarre death was the fulfillment of a Shawnee curse placed on the Presidency and the first in a string of deaths in a twenty year cycle.

Tecumseh (pictured) was the leader of the Midwestern Shawnee whose dream of uniting Indian tribes into an Indian Confederacy was crushed when Harrison, then as Governor of Indiana Territory, decimated his forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe.

Unable to regroup, the embittered Tecumseh joined with the English against the Americans in the War of 1812 and laid a curse on Harrison - "Harrison will die. And after him, every Great Chief chosen every twenty years thereafter will die."

This curse/prophesy has held true for 120 years.

In 1840 the hapless Harrison died and was replaced by Tyler.

Elected twenty years later in 1860 Abraham Lincoln was shot dead by pro Confederate John Wilkes Booth.

James Garlfield, elected in 1880, died after being shot by Charles Guiteau, a disgruntled man whom Garflield had turned down for a civil service job.

Elected in 1900, William McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist.

Elected in 1920, Warren Harding died three years later of a mysterious illness while on tour.

Re-elected in 1940, Franklin D Roosevelt died of a cerebral haemorrhage early in his fourth term in 1945.

John F Kennedy, elected in 1960, was shot dead in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald.

Although there have been many attempts on the lives of Presidents not elected in "zero years", no assassination attempt on a President elected in any other year resulted in death. Conversely, all but one attempt on a "zero year" President did.

Only one sitting President not elected in a year starting with a zero died in office (Zahary Taylor who died of cholera in 1850).

Put another way, of 46 total elections (between Washington to Clinton), nine vice presidents inherited the Presidency, an overall chance of 19.5% but from a zero year election (of which there were 8 over that time frame), the chance of a vice president coming to the Presidency was 87.5%.

Ronald Reagan was the first exception - elected in 1980, he survived a bullet fired by John Hinkley. George W Bush, elected in 2000 is still going strong.

Perhaps it was all just coincidence after all.