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