A modern person is somehow ashamed to be superstitious and believe in the curse of otherworldly forces, isn't it? For most people, belief in omens and spirits either remained far away in childhood, or is expressed in spitting over the left shoulder and tapping wood three times, no more. But sometimes it happens that you begin to understand: there is still something in the world that neither a call to the police, nor a traumatic pistol under the pillow, nor communications in the highest echelons of power can protect from. Six strange stories: a coincidence or a banal revenge of the inhabitants of the underworld - everyone decides for himself.
1. Curse of Oetzi
In 1991, a group of rock climbers, having set out to conquer one of the alpine peaks in the Ötztal Valley, discovered the remains of a man half frozen into the ice. Deciding that this is one of the victims of avalanches and snow storms, the climbers removed the body with ice axes and sent it to the morgue. After examining the corpse, the pathologists concluded that the man was a resident of the Bronze Age and had been in the mountains for at least 5300 years.
The ice captive was named Oetzi, and scientists came to the conclusion that he died from a blow to the head, which was inflicted on him by unknown pursuers, and when he was found, Otsi was still holding a flint knife in his hands.
After a while, the people involved in this incident began to die suddenly: Rainer Henn, the medical examiner who examined the body, died in a car accident a year after the events, shortly after that an avalanche took the life of Kurt Fritz, the guide who supervised the transportation of the body. Climber Helmut Simon, who first discovered Oetzi, died in 2004 in about the same area, falling into an abyss.
Almost immediately after the funeral of Simon, the head of the rescue team that was looking for him, Dieter Varnecke, died of a heart attack. In April 2005, Konrad Spindler, a professor at the University of Innsbruck, who led a group of scientists who investigated Ötzi, died of a stroke. The series of deaths can be considered a coincidence, but in general, if we consider that hundreds of people were involved in this story, there may be nothing supernatural in the deaths of several of them in 20 years.
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2. The curse of the pharaohs
According to some reports, when opening the tomb of Tutankhamun, a stone was found with the inscription "Death on fast wings will overtake the one who disturbed the peace of the pharaoh," but this did not stop the obsessed Egyptologists Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon: in 1922, a sensational find was solemnly announced … Soon, those who visited the tomb began to die one by one.
Lord Carnarvon died of a mosquito bite, which caused blood poisoning and pneumonia four months after he first entered the crypt. I must say that in the last months of his life he did not differ in good health. A few hours after his death in England, with a squeal, the Lord's favorite dog, Susie, gave up its breath.
American financier George Gould, who visited the tomb, caught a fever and died six months after visiting Tutankhamun. Millionaire Wolf Joel, who came to look at the interior decoration of the pharaoh's tomb, was killed a few months after the visit. Just days after the death of Lord Carnarvon, a member of the Carter archaeological team, Arthur Mays, was poisoned with arsenic. Carter's personal secretary, who was found strangled in his bed in 1929, did not escape death.
Be that as it may, many of the members of Carter's expedition and the opening of the tomb lived long and happy lives, and among the possible reasons for the death of the rest, scientists name poisonous bacteria and mold that lived in the tomb for thousands of years before archaeologists violated their privacy.
3. Curse of Tamerlane
The legendary Central Asian commander and conqueror Tamerlane (Timur) was the initiator of military campaigns that killed about 17 million people in total.
In 1941, J. V. Stalin sent a group of archaeologists to Samarkand (Uzbekistan) to open the tomb of Tamerlane, which seriously alarmed the local residents and the Muslim clergy. According to unconfirmed information, when opening Timur's coffin, an inscription was found: "Whoever disturbed my grave will open the way for more terrible invaders than me." Everyone knows what happened next - on June 22nd, the army of Adolf Hitler invaded the territory of the USSR.
By the way, when in 1942 Stalin ordered to return the ashes of Tamerlane to the tomb and bury them with all appropriate rituals, German troops surrendered at Stalingrad, which was one of the turning points in the Great Patriotic War.
The question for professional historians: who is still responsible for the deaths of 26 million people - Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin or Tamerlane?
4. The Curse of the Hope Diamond
According to one legend, French merchant Jean-Baptiste Tavernier stole this 115-carat blue diamond from an Indian temple, after which he was hunted to death by dogs. But in fact, the gem hunter acquired the diamond in the Sultanate of Golconda, Central India, secretly took it out of the country, and then in 1669 delivered the stone to the French court, where it was bought by the "Sun King" Louis XIV.
The stone did not make itself felt until it fell into the hands of Louis XVI and his wife Marie Antoinette, who were beheaded during the Great French Revolution, after which the diamond was stolen and "floated" again only in 1812 from a London merchant already with a different cut.
The Hope Diamond gets its name from one of the first known owners - British Lord Henry Phillip Hope, who bought the stone at auction in 1830.
Until the end of the 19th century, the Hope family owned the diamond, but at a time of financial difficulties it was decided to sell it. The stone went from hand to hand for some time, and in 1912 went to Evelyn Walsh-McLean, the daughter of the owner of the Washington Post. Soon her son died in a car accident, her daughter committed suicide, and her husband left Evelyn for another woman (by the way, he died in a madhouse).
After the death of Walsh-McLean, the diamond was transferred to the jeweler Harry Winston to pay off her debts, and in 1958 he donated it to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where the Hope Diamond is still located. The postman who was delivering a parcel with a stone to the museum was hit by a truck, but survived, but soon his wife and beloved dog died, and the postman's house burned down.
5. Curse of Tecumseh (Curse of US Presidents)
The 19th century in American history was marked by numerous conflicts and clashes between government forces and representatives of the indigenous Indian population.
In one of the largest local wars of this kind, the leader of the Shawnee Tekumse tribe died. While dying, the proud son of the Indian people cursed future US presidents, who are elected or re-elected in a multiple of 20 years. Tecumseh predicted that these rulers of the United States would die or be killed before the end of their presidential term.
It is believed that the curse lasted up to the seventh generation. The first victim of the leader's posthumous wishes was President William Henry Harrison, who was elected in 1840 - he suddenly died of pneumonia a month after his inauguration. It was Garrison, who was the first governor of Indiana, who defeated the Tecumseh troops in the battle of Tippekanu, which became fatal for the Indians.
The second damned was Abraham Lincoln, elected for the first term in 1860, re-elected in 1864, and he was killed in 1865 by a shot in the head.
The third on the Tecumseh blacklist was destined to become James Abram Garfield: he was elected in 1880, after his inauguration in March 1881, he spent less than six months in office, died as a result of complications after being shot in the back by the psychopath Charles Guiteau.
The fourth was William McKinley, who became president in 1896 and re-elected in 1900. The cause of death of McKinley on September 14, 1901 was gangrene of internal organs, which developed after a gunshot wound to the stomach.
Number five - Warren Harding, who took the presidency in 1920, died in 1923, according to some versions, from a heart attack or from a cerebral hemorrhage.
The sixth was Franklin Roosevelt, who died of a stroke during his fourth term as head of the United States. Of course, among the years of Roosevelt's re-election was a multiple of 20 - 1940.
The well-known John Fitzgerald Kennedy, who led the United States in 1960 and was killed by Lee Harvey Oswald's bullets on November 22, 1963, closes the list.
Elected in 1980, Ronald Reagan broke the pattern by surviving an assassination attempt in 1981 and safely leaving the presidency in 1989.
George W. Bush was also not subject to the curse of the Indian leader: after becoming president in 2000, he survived several assassination attempts, but did not die, after which it became clear that Tekumseh's "term" had expired. Whose curse will be next?
6. "The Curse of Billy the Goat"
In 1945, Bill Sianis, the owner of the Goat Billy Tavern, attended a baseball game between the Chicago Cubs and the Detroit Tigers, bringing a goat with him. The peculiar smell of the animal disturbed the audience, so Billy was asked to leave. Outraged Sianis, leaving, exclaimed: "The Cubs will never win again!"
That game really became fatal for the "Chicago Cubs": since then the team never reached the World Series finals, the fans tried in various ways to remove the "curse", but to no avail. Billy's nephew Sam Sianis even came to one of the Cubs games, of course, taking a goat with him, but this did not work.
The story of the goat that robbed a baseball club of luck is perceived by many as a joke, but true baseball fans are not laughing. In April this year, a headless goat was found tied to a tree near a golf course in Cook County, Illinois, and a few days later, current head of the Chicago Cubs, Tom Rickets, received a package containing a half-decomposed goat's head.