Throughout history, people have promoted curse stories for various reasons. For sports fans, curses can help explain the loss of their favorite team. When a cause of death is poorly understood, curses can provide an explanation. For an Imperial nation, curses can betray the anguish of being punished for colonizing and taking artifacts. And sometimes curses arise because someone just wanted to make up a story.
Here are some important curses from history.
1. The curse of King Tut (and other “mother’s curses”)
The funerary mask of Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun.
Hannes Magerstaedt / Getty Images
In February 1923, a British archaeological team opened the tomb of Tutankhamun, or “King Tut,” an Egyptian pharaoh in the 14th century BC Two months later, when the team sponsor died of a bacterial infection, the British newspapers claimed without proof that he “d died because of the” curse of King Tut “. Whenever subsequent members of the team died, the media again dredged up the alleged curse.
The Curse of King Tut and other famous “Mommy’s Curses” were invented by Europeans and Americans as their countries removed priceless artifacts from Egypt. After the Titanic sunk in 1912, some newspapers even promoted a conspiracy theory that the ship sank because of a “mom’s curse.”
READ MORE: Craziest Titanic Conspiracy Theories, Explained
While it is not known how many people actually took these “curses” seriously, these stories have become extremely popular subjects for horror films like The Mummy (1932) and its many iterations, as well as comedies like Mom’s boys (1936) and Abbott and Costello meet the mummy (1955).
2. The curse of the tomb of the Polish king
Casimir IV Jagiellon.
Heritage Images / Getty Images
In 1973, a group of archaeologists opened the tomb of 15th-century Polish king Casimir IV Jagiellon in Krakow, Poland. As with the opening of King Tut’s tomb 50 years earlier, European media promoted the event, and the researchers involved reportedly joked that they risked a curse on the tomb by opening it.
When some of the team began to die soon after, some media speculated it was due to a curse. Experts later found traces of deadly fungi inside the tomb that can cause lung disease when breathed in. This is the cause of their death.
3. The Hope Diamond Curse
Evelyn Walsh McLean, one of the owners of the famous Hope Diamond, c. 1915.
News Agency / Getty Images
In the 1660s, French gem merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier purchased a large diamond of unknown origin during a trip to India. Yet by the 20th century, a myth had arisen in the United States and Europe that Tavernier had stolen the diamond from a statue of a Hindu goddess. Newspapers and jewelers who broadcast this story claimed that the diamond was cursed and brought bad luck to those who owned it.
In 1839, the diamond is said to have resulted in Henry Philip Hope, a Dutch collector based in London and the origin of the modern name of the stone – the Hope diamond. Some time later, European and American newspapers began to claim that the Hope Diamond carried a curse.
French jeweler Pierre Cartier is said to have used these stories to improve the diamond’s value when he sold it to American heiress Evelyn Walsh McLean in the early 1910s. After his death, he went to an American jewelry company, who exhibited it before giving it in 1958 to the Smithsonian Institution, where it is today.
READ MORE: 8 of Halloween’s most hair-raising folk legends
5. The curse of Tippecanoe (or the curse of Tecumseh)
The Battle of Tippecanoe, where General Harrison fought Tecumshe on November 7, 1811.
Glasshouse Vintage / Universal History Archive / Getty Images
By the middle of the 20th century, the American media began to notice a trend in presidential deaths. Starting with William Henry Harrison and ending with John F. Kennedy, every 20 years the country elects a president who would die in office.
Harrison, the first president to die in office, was elected in 1840. Other presidents who have died in office include Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860 (and 1864); James A. Garfield, elected in 1880; William McKinley, elected in 1900; Warren G. Harding, elected in 1920; Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected in 1940 (as well as in 1932, 1936 and 1944); and JFK, elected in 1960. The only president between Harrison and JFK to escape this model is Zachary Taylor, who was elected in 1848 and died in 1850.
In the 30’s, Believe it or not Ripley claimed that the “pattern” was due to a curse that Shawnee Chief Tecumseh placed on Harrison and future presidents after Harrison’s troops defeated Tecumseh at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811 (Tecumseh died two years later in another battle against Harrison’s troops.) This story likely originated with non-Native Americans, and resembles other “curses” in American books and films about disturbing Native American cemeteries.
WATCH: Halloween Documentaries on HISTORY Vault
6. Macbeth’s curse
There are a lot of superstitious people in the theater world. It’s bad luck to wish actors good luck, hence the reason people tell them to ‘break their legs’ instead. And it is also the misfortune of uttering the word “Macbeth” in the theater except during a performance of Shakespeare’s play. Supposedly, this is because tragedy has historically happened to the productions of the play. In reality, these stories are a mixture of fabrication and selective selection of evidence.
The legend of the play seems to have started with Max Beerbohm, a British cartoonist and critic born in the 1870s, almost three centuries after Macbeth’s first performance. Beerbohm – perhaps annoyed that Macbeth was such a popular play – made up a story that the first actor chosen to play Lady Macbeth died just before the play’s opening night.
Since then, this story has been part of a myth that the play is cursed and brings bad luck to those involved in it. While there have been real accidents at MacBeth’s races throughout its 400+ year history, these accidents attract more attention than accidents at other plays due to the so-called “curse.” “.
READ MORE: Did Shakespeare Really Write His Own Plays?
7. Billy Goat’s curse on the Chicago Cubs
A fan pushes a goat in a cart outside Wrigley Field prior to the start of the 2017 home opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 10, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson / Getty Images
As with the theater, there are also a lot of superstitions in the world of sport. One of the most famous is the so-called “curse of the goat” on the Chicago Cubs.
In 1945, a tavern owner named William “Billy Goat” Sianis was reportedly barred from bringing his domestic goat, Murphy, into Chicago’s Wrigley Field to watch the Cubs play the Detroit Tigers in the World Series. Supposedly, Sianis put a curse on the Cubs, saying they would never win this or any other World Series again.
Before that, the Cubs had won the World Series only twice before, in 1907 and 1908. When they lost the World Series in 1945, the curse gained credibility. In 2016, when the Cubs won the World Series for the first time in over a century, the American media promoted the idea that the curse was broken.
The Billy Goat curse is similar to the Bambino curse, which is said to have started when the Boston Red Sox traded Babe Ruth in 1919 and ended when the team won the World Series in 2004. There is also the Rapper Lil B’s curse on Kevin Durant, who Lil B posted in a 2011 tweet and lifted in 2017 in another tweet. When the Golden State Warriors won the NBA Finals that year with Durant winning the MVP title, sports media jokingly (or not?) Proclaimed that Lil B helped by lifting the curse.
