King Tut's Curse
"Death Shall Come on Swift Wings To Him Who Disturbs the Peace of the King..." -Supposedly engraved on the exterior of King Tutankhamen's Tomb
The king was only nineteen when he died, perhaps murdered by his enemies. His tomb, in comparison with his contemporaries, was modest. After his death, his successors made an attempt to expunge his memory by removing his name from all the official records. Even those carved in stone. As it turns out, his enemies' efforts only ensured his eventual fame. His name was Tutankhamen: King Tut.
In 1891 a young Englishman named Howard Carter arrived in Egypt. Over the years he became convinced that there was at least one undiscovered tomb. That of the almost unknown King Tutankhamen. Carter found a backer for his tomb search in the wealthy Lord Carnarvon. For six years Carter dug looking for the missing Pharaoh and found nothing. Then, on November 4th, 1922 his workmen discovered a step cut into the rock. Then they found fifteen more leading to an ancient doorway that appeared to be still sealed. On the doorway was the name Tutankhamen.
Carter immediately sent a telegram to Carnarvon and waited anxiously for his arrival. Carnarvon made it to Egypt by November 26th and watched as Carter made a hole in the door. Carter leaned in, holding a candle, to take a look. Behind him Lord Carnarvon asked, "Can you see anything?"
Carter answered, "Yes, wonderful things."
The tomb was intact and contained an amazing collection of treasures including a stone sarcophagus. The sarcophagus contained three gold coffins nested within each other. Inside the final one was the mummy of the boy-king, Pharaoh Tutankhamen. The day the tomb was opened was one of joy and celebration for all those involved. Nobody seemed to be concerned about any curse.
A few months later tragedy struck. Lord Carnarvon, 57, was taken ill and rushed to Cairo. He died a few days later. The exact cause of death was not known, but it seemed to be from an infection started by an insect bite. Legend has it that when he died there was a short power failure and all the lights throughout Cairo went out.
By 1929 eleven people connected with the discovery of the Tomb had died early and of unnatural causes. This included two of Carnarvon's relatives, Carter's personal secretary, Richard Bethell, and Bethell's father, Lord Westbury. Westbury killed himself by jumping from a building. He left a note that read, "I really cannot stand any more horrors and hardly see what good I am going to do here, so I am making my exit."
What horrors did Westbury refer to?
The press followed the deaths carefully attributing each new one to the "Mummy's Curse." By 1935 they had credited 21 victims to King Tut. Was there really a curse? Or was it all just the ravings of a sensational press? Perhaps, the power of a curse is in the mind of the person who believes in it. Howard Carter, the man who actually opened the tomb, never believed in the curse and lived to a reasonably old age of 66 before dying of entirely natural causes.
Winchester Mystery House
The history begins at the height of the Civil War when Sarah Pardee met and married William Wirt Winchester, the son of the manufacturer of the famous Winchester Repeating Rifle. They had one child, Annie Pardee, who died of marasmus about one month after birth. Then, about 15 years later, William died of pulmonary tuberculosis (March 7, 1881). Mrs. Winchester was deeply upset by the deaths of her husband and daughter and seems to have consulted a spiritualistic medium. Reportedly, the medium explained that the spirits of all those who had been killed by the rifles her family had manufactured, had sought their revenge by taking the lives of her loved ones. Further, these spirits had placed a curse on her and would haunt her forever. But the medium also stated that she could escape the curse by moving west, buying a house, and continually building on it...as the spirits directed. In this way, she could escape them and, perhaps find the key to eternal life.
Whether Mrs. Winchester believed the medium or not is unclear, but she did move to what is now San Jose, California in 1884 and purchased an eight-room farmhouse from Dr. Robert Caldwell. Dr. Caldwell came to San Jose from Kentucky by wagon train. He built the farmhouse in San Jose and lived there with his family (wife and 9 children) until he sold it to Mrs. Winchester. The family remained in San Jose from 1848 until at least 1932, when Dr. Caldwell's daughter Caroline died.**
Mrs. Winchester immediately began her never-ceasing building project. With a great deal of money and very few responsibilities, she satisfied her every whim and notion by keeping a staff of 18-20 domestic servants, 10--22 carpenters and 12-18 gardeners and field hands constantly busy. She had no master plan for a house and according to her carpenters, built whenever, wherever, and who-so-ever she pleased, always directed by the spirits. As a result of the constant building, tearing down and remodeling, the mansion's form shouldered its way ever higher into the skyline as its great bulk crept over the surrounding acres, engulfing several outlying structures over the southeast section of her 161 acre estate. She built steadily, 24 hours a day for 38 years, until her death in 1922.
During the 38 years Mrs. Winchester worked on her mansion, local people would pass by the estate and would wonder at the strange and mysterious construction. Many would try to explain it to others. From one telling to the next, many strange stories would arise.
