Jinxed Realms: Unraveling 50 Curious Tales of Curses

The Hope Diamond Curse is a legend surrounding a famous blue diamond believed to bring misfortune and tragedy to its owners. Associated with historical figures like Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette, it is said to have caused family disputes, financial ruin, and even deaths. Despite its captivating allure, the Hope Diamond remains shrouded in both beauty and superstition. It also glows a brilliant red for several minutes after exposure to UV light, fueling its cursed reputation.

2. The "sweater curse" suggests that giving a hand-knit sweater to a significant other may lead to a breakup or relationship issues, a belief acknowledged by 15% of active knitters in a 2005 poll. Despite its name, the phenomenon is treated as a real-world pitfall in knitting literature, with proposed mechanisms including unlucky timing, the sweater serving as a catalyst for relationship analysis, aversion to hand-knit items, and misdirected attention.

3. Aztec's "Curse of One Rabbit" associates the first year (one rabbit) of the 52-year calendar cycle with famine and catastrophe. It is backed by a study indicating a real climatic origin. Aztec codices and climate-sensitive tree-ring records reveal at least 13 drought years in central Mexico during the prehispanic and early colonial periods, confirming the folklore about the infamous "famine of One Rabbit" in 1454. The statistical significance of the relationship between severe drought and the year preceding One Rabbit suggests a genuine climatic basis for the curse.

4. When a Soviet anthropologist exhumed Timur's body, he found inside the casket an inscription saying, "Whoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I." Two days later, the Nazis invaded the U.S.S.R. A month after he was returned to his tomb, the Nazis surrendered in Stalingrad, marking the beginning of the end for the invaders.

5. There is a movie named Atuk, which has been in development since the 1980s. The film is often considered cursed because, on six different occasions, the actor who offered the lead role died unexpectedly. These include John Belushi, John Candy, and even Chris Farley.

The Curse of Tippecanoe, associated with presidents elected or re-elected in years ending in "0," began with the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841, one month into his presidency. According to folklore, the curse originated from Harrison's involvement in the Battle of Tippecanoe, angering Native Americans who allegedly cursed him. Notable instances include the assassinations of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy, but Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, both elected in "0" years, survived assassination attempts, leading some to believe the curse was broken.

7. The Curse of the Colonel, a 1985 Japanese urban legend, involved a supposed sports curse on the Hanshin Tigers baseball team by the ghost of KFC founder Colonel Sanders. The curse was attributed to the mistreatment of a Colonel Sanders statue thrown into the D?tonbori River by fans in 1985, leading to an 18-year losing streak. The curse only ended in 2023, when the statue was recovered.

8. The Grammy Award for Best New Artist, established in 1960, skips the presentation in 1967 and is awarded based on the artist's first recording establishing public identity during the eligibility year. It is sometimes asserted, with varying degrees of sincerity, that winning the award is a curse, as several award winners (particularly from the late 1970s and early 1980s) were never able to duplicate the success they experienced in their debut year.

9. The Curse of the Ninth is the superstition that a composer will die before finishing their tenth symphony. Beethoven and Schubert both died after their ninth symphonies. Gustav Mahler attempted to beat the curse with musical structural changes, but he also died before finishing his tenth.

10. In 1967, the fierce rivals of the football team "Racing Club" in Argentina put a curse on their stadium by burying seven dead cats under the field. Oddly enough, they stopped winning. It took them 34 years to find all seven, after which they won the championship the same year the last cat was found.

In the Maldives, magic is state-sanctioned with approval, and multiple coconuts have been detained for allegedly being cursed to rig elections.

12. The Curse of the Bambino refers to the Boston Red Sox's championship drought from 1918-2004, stemming from the sale of Babe Ruth to the NY Yankees in 1920. Attempts to break the "curse" included placing a Red Sox cap on the top of Mt. Everest and burning a Yankees cap at base camp.

13. The Sports Illustrated cover jinx is an urban legend associating featured athletes with subsequent injuries or bad luck. One explanation suggests that athletes are often featured after exceptional performances, leading to a perceived decline in performance due to regression toward the mean. Examples like Eddie Mathews, who suffered an injury after appearing on the cover, are cited, but Sports Illustrated addressed the jinx in a 2002 issue featuring a black cat on the cover, suggesting a humorous take on the superstition.

14. The "Curse of the White Star Line," the company that owned the Titanic, unfolds as a tragic saga. The Titanic sank in 1912, the Britannic hit a mine and sank in 1916, and the Olympic faced a mutiny in 1912, collided with a warship in 1911, and a passenger ship in 1934. Each event contributed to the eerie legend surrounding the ill-fated vessels owned by the White Star Line.

15. Anyone who removes Hawaiian rocks from the islands is said to be cursed. People send thousands of pounds of rock, sand, and shells back to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park every year, many with accounts of how the curse has ruined their lives.

The Denver International Airport is guarded by a 32-foot-tall demon horse. "Blue Mustang" (or, as locals like to call it, "Blucifer") is thought to be cursed largely because the sculptor, Luis Jiménez, was killed when a 9,000-pound piece of the sculpture fell on him during construction.

17. After archaeologists opened the tomb of King Casimir IV Jagiellon in 1973, a mysterious "curse" emerged, resulting in the deaths of 15 people who had worked with the Polish ruler's remains. Casimir, born in 1427, defeated the Teutonic Order and established his family as a prominent European dynasty. The so-called curse was later identified as the deadly fungus Aspergillus flavus, present in ancient corpses and tombs, causing illnesses and fatalities among those exposed to the decomposed remains.

18. The Curse of the Billy Goat on the Chicago Cubs originated in 1945, when Greek immigrant Billy Sianis brought his pet goat, Murphy, to Game 4 of the World Series. Despite initially being allowed in Wrigley Field, both were later ejected due to the goat's odor at the command of Cubs owner Philip Knight Wrigley. Outraged, Sianis allegedly cursed the Cubs, predicting they would never win another pennant or play in a World Series at Wrigley Field, a streak that persisted for 20 consecutive years until 1967.

19. On September 30, 1955, film icon James Dean died in a car crash involving his Porsche Spyder, nicknamed "Little Bastard." After purchasing the wreck for $2,500, car customizer George Barris experienced ominous events, including the Porsche falling and injuring a mechanic. During a race in 1956, cars with parts from "Little Bastard" were involved in accidents, leading to fatalities and injuries. The car mysteriously vanished in 1960, and its whereabouts remain unknown.

20. The 27 Club, also known as the Forever 27 Club, refers to a group of influential rock and blues musicians who all died at the age of 27, often under mysterious circumstances. Criteria for inclusion in the club are debated, but it gained prominence due to the deaths of several prominent musicians within a short time, including Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and often Brian Jones. Kurt Cobain is also frequently included in more recent discussions due to his impact on music.

The "Hemingway curse" originated from a tragic pattern of suicides within Ernest Hemingway's family, spanning his father, sister, brother, son, and granddaughter. The term encapsulates the haunting legacy of self-inflicted deaths that marked multiple generations of the Hemingway family.

22. After the opening of Tutankhamen's tomb, tragedy followed. Lord Carnarvon, the project's financial backer, fell ill and died in Cairo from an infection, possibly linked to an insect bite. Legend has it that a power failure coincided with his death, and back in England, his dog died mysteriously. By 1929, eleven people connected to the tomb's discovery had died unnaturally, including Carnarvon's relatives, Richard Bethell, and Lord Westbury, who took his own life. The mummy of Tutankhamun revealed a wound on the left cheek, mirroring Carnarvon's fatal insect bite.

23. The "Guinness Curse" haunting the illustrious brewing family traces back to founder Arthur Guinness, who lost 10 of his 21 children while building the empire. The misfortunes extended to family members facing poverty, insanity, and alcoholism. Two family members died during World War II-one by Jewish terrorists and the other in combat-intensifying the curse, which resulted in a post-war period that was full of suicides, car accidents, and strange incidents.

24. Alamelamma's threefold curse on Raja Wodeyar of the Mysore Kingdom (in India) unfolded as a consequence of his actions. After her husband's army's defeat, she fled with precious jewels to Talakad, which the Raja sought to confiscate. To avoid capture, Alamelamma committed suicide and, during her death, pronounced a three-part curse: Talakad would become a desert, Malangi would turn into a whirlpool area, and the Wodeyars would face issues with offspring. Skeptics attribute the first two curses to environmental changes, while the peculiar pattern of male-only children in every other generation among the Wodeyars over the past 400 years remains unexplained.

25. William Shakespeare's self-penned epitaph serves as a curse against grave robbers, warning of consequences for disturbing his resting place. The inscription reads, "Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare, To dig the dust enclosed here. Blessed be the man that spares these stones, And cursed be he that moves my bones."