THE 20 YEAR DEATH CYCLE OF AMERICAN PRESIDENT

Between 1840 and 1960, US presidents who were elected in years ending in '0' were either assassinated or have died of natural causes while in office. This 20 year death cycle had been appreciated for many decades. An edition of Ripley's Believe It or Not, published in 1934, noted the coincidental 20 year pattern of presidential deaths between 1840 and 1920, with question marks inserted for the upcoming 1940 entry. This implied that there could be a continuation of the cyclic pattern, which was fulfilled when Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected in 1940 and subsequently died in office in 1945. Based on this 20 year death cycle, several astrologers correctly predicted the death of President John F Kennedy when he was elected in 1960. Similarly, it was expected that President Reagan would also die in office, which almost came to pass with the attempted assassination on March 30, 1981. This marked the end of the 20 death cycle, as President George W Bush completed his full term in office.
Strangely, two Presidents, who were elected in years ending in ‘0’ -- Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D Roosevelt -- both died in their following term after being re-elected in the ‘4’ ended year. Therefore, the 20 year death cycle anticipated the successful re-election of these presidents to the oval office.
Using the Fisher Exact Probability test, the presidential death cycle was shown to yield a significance level of 0.00004, thus confirming that the cycle was very unlikely to occur by chance. A mathematician, Michael Capobianco, applied a more conservative methodology and still produced significance at p < .01. The 20 year death cycle appears to be more than just coincidence, especially as only one president between 1840 and 1960 died in office and was not elected in a '0' year. The exception was Zachary Taylor, who became president in 1848 and died of a stomach ailment in 1850. The cause of death was suspicious and it was speculated he had been poisoned with arsenic. In 1991, his body was exhumed to investigate this theory, but the findings proved negative.
President Elected In
Died
1800 Jefferson
Survived: Died July 4, 1826.
1820 Monroe
Survived: Died July 4, 1831.
1840, Harrison
April 4, 1841. Pneumonia
1860, Lincoln
April 15, 1865. Assassinated
1880, Garfield
July 2, 1881. Assassinated
1900, McKinley
September 19, 1901. Assassinated
1920, Harding
August 2, 1923. Food poisoning
1940, Roosevelt
April 12, 1945. Stroke, medical records missing
1960, Kennedy
November 22, 1963. Assassinated
1980, Reagan
Survived: March 30, 1981. Assassination attempt.Died: June 5, 2004.
2000, Bush
Survived
Adding to the mystery, there have been attempted assassinations on various presidents - Andrew Jackson 1835, Franklin D Roosevelt 1933, Harry Truman 1950, Gerald Ford (two separate attempts in Sept 1975) and Ronald Reagan (1981). (John Taylor survived a shipboard explosion in 1844, but this may have been an accident.) Of the attempted assassinations, only Ronald Reagan was elected in a '0' year compared with four successful murders within the 20 year cycle. Additionally, vice presidents only attained the presidency outside the curse on two occasions - Millard Fillmore after the death of Zachary Taylor in 1850 and Gerald Ford after the resignation of Richard Nixon in 1973 following the Watergate scandal