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I find the idea of curses in history really fascinating. There's one in the U.S. that not a whole lot of people know about, but an Indian chief cursed William Henry Harrison that if he went to war against them, he would indeed become president. But, he added, he wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it, and every twenty years, the president would die in office.
Harrison did this and became President. But during his inaugural speech, which was 2 hours long in the freezing cold and he lacked sufficient protection against the cold, he got pneumonia (sp?) and died thirty days later. Then, twenty years after him, Lincoln was in office and was assassinated.

Died Under the "Curse"

1840 ... William Henry Harrison
1860 ... Abraham Lincoln
1880 ... James A. Garfield
1900 ... William McKinley
1920 ... Warren G. Harding
1940 ... Franklin D. Roosevelt
1960 ... John F. Kennedy

It's only President Reagan who cheated death, but he was shot.
And a pretzel attacked President Bush a few years back... Maybe that was when he was supposed to die, but he didn't. I personally hope that Hilary is in office in 2020...
Sorry to all Hilary fans.
But if you have any interesting curses throughout any point in history, please share!

Well, it's not medieval or renaissance-y, but in my home city of Boston, Massachusetts, it was believed our baseball team, my beloved Boston Red Sox, was cursed because after our last big winning season (88 years ago) the owner of the team wanted to finance a Broadway show--so he sold his star pitcher, the famous Babe "Bambino" Ruth, to the New York Yankees for 125,000.00--a massive sum back then. We only occasionally won our league pennant, and never the World Series, between then and 2005--and it was called the Curse of the Bambino. smile Fans of the team were officially known as "God's Most Pitiful Creatures--Red Sox Fans!" Owwies.... smile

However, in 2005 we beat the Yankees to win the League pennant, then beat the St. Louis Cardinals in 4 straight games to break the curse. This year we fought our way into First Place in April and remained there all season, then won the Pennant--and swept the Colorado Rockies in 4 straight games.

Curse Reversed for sure.... smile

Chicago Cubs fan here... our curse involves a goat. And we still haven't won! I believe it was the owners of the Bily Goat Tavern - this was goodness know how many years ago mind you... The gentalman was bringing the goat to Cubs games and they were winning. Then, for some stupid reason, they wouldn't let him bring the goat in to the game and he cursed the team and owners and everything - saying the Cubs would never win a World Series... and we never have....

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Here is a good one!
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I live in Chicago, IL. Home to some of the tallest buildings in the world! Like the The John Hancock Center.
First of all it was designed as a trapezoidal structure. - You'll find out why that is bad in a minute...

A little over three years after the Hancock’s completion, a 29-year-old Chicago woman named Lorraine Kowalski fell to her death from her boyfriend’s 90th-floor Hancock Center apartment. To this day, detectives are dumbfounded by the event; the building’s windows are capable of withstanding more than 200 pounds of pressure per square foot and winds of more than 150 miles per hour, yet Kowalski actually broke through the glass. Four years later, a transmitter technician for a local radio station plunged to his death from the 97th floor offices of his television station. Just three months later, a 27-year old tenant “fell” from his 91st-floor apartment while studying for an exam at breakfast. In 1978, a 31-year old woman shot a man to death in his home on the Hancock’s 65th floor, and in 1998, beloved comedian Chris Farley was found dead in the entrance hall of his 60th-floor apartment. Most recently, in March of 2002, a 25-foot aluminum scaffold fell from the building’s 43rd floor, crushing three cars, killing three women, and injuring 8 others. All of these incidents were called “baffling,” “inexplicable,” and seemingly unmotivated by detectives and journalists.

Many years before construction on the Hancock began, the area it would occupy was part of the most luxurious residential district in the city -- the Gold Coast -- and this neighborhood, still known as Streeterville -- was already thought to be a cursed tract of land. Cap Streeter was a ragtag former sea captain who made a living ferrying passengers between Chicago and Milwaukee on a beat up old schooner he owned with his wife. After the vessel literally washed up on the Chicago shore during a storm, Cap decided to settle down in the city for good. He staked claim to the very parcel of land on which he had run ashore: prime lakefront property much in demand by Chicago‘s first families. Cap found the land so lovely that he decided to share the beauty. He set up shop in the old Tremont Hotel, selling tracts of “his“ land to willing buyers. Soon a legion of squatters peppered the lakefront, angering Chicago’s elite and the city council that served them. But when the city tried repeatedly to run off the trespassers, Cap and company responded with shotguns, batons and all manner of homemade weapons.

The battle over “Cap’s” land -- which he called Streeterville -- raged until the man’s dying hour -- and beyond. On his deathbed, Cap cursed “his” land and swore that no one would ever be happy on it again. Then is the “Curse of Cap Streeter” the source of the Hancock’s problem?

In 1930, a baby boy was born in his family’s posh home in the 800 block of Chicago’s North Michigan Boulevard, the same block as the Hancock would someday occupy. Musically gifted, Anton Szandor LaVey grew to enjoy a colorful career with many facets, playing in nightclubs and even taming lions for a time. On a spring night in the 1960s, LaVey brought some like-minded friends together, ceremoniously shaved his head, and founded what he called the “Church of Satan,” an institution that was part religion, part philosophy, and all based on his own extensive ideas about love, hate, pleasure, and will.
When occultists like LaVey saw the plans for the Hancock revealed, they were devastated. The problem? Not necessarily one for the city itself, but for the residents and workers of the Hancock structure.
LaVey wrote many essays during his time as the Satanic Church’s leader, including fascinating analyses of the problems of modern architecture. LaVey knew -- as most occultists do -- that the trapezoidal shape holds significant power for arcane forces: traditionally, the shape is believed to serve as a doorway or “portal” for occult -- or even diabolical -- forces. As a young man, LaVey was fascinated with the thought of H.P. Lovecraft, whose horror novels often feature characters grappling with the dangers of “strange angles,” and it was Lovecraft’s work which led LaVey to first pursue his study of modern architecture’s sometimes deadly capabilities.

The structure’s legend inspired Harold Ramis’s Hollywood dream of a diabolical building: the centerpiece of his film, Ghostbusters. Second, the late, little Heather O’Rourke, myth-shrouded star of the Poltergeist films, took a turn for the worst after a final publicity plug... held in one of the Hancock’s studios. Third, a number of controversial or distressed personalities have called the Hancock home; among them, talk show host Jerry Springer, Catholic priest and novelist Andrew Greeley, and -- as mentioned -- comedian Farley, whose time in the building was riddled with drug and alcohol abuse, the eventual cause of his death.

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I know - I wrote to much....

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