All in All, He'd Have Rather Been in Philadelphia

Today is the 25th anniversary of the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. The Washington Post promises more than it delivers in a retrospective article ("The Assassination Attempt on President Reagan Changed the Future Not Only for Those Involved but for the Rest of the U.S. as Well"--they don't really get in to the implications of how U.S. history was changed) but the piece is still worth your time. It also has extensive links to the original Post coverage from 25 years ago as well as a live chat earlier today with Jim and Sarah Brady.

When news of Reagan's shooting first broke, it seemed like maybe there was something to the zero-year presidential curse. Ever since 1840, every president elected in a year with a zero died while in office. This curse has sometimes been credited to Tecumseh, but I don't recall hearing about his involvement until much more recently (though the connection was apparently mentioned in Ripley's Believe It or Not! way back during the '30s, so it's not exactly new). But did Reagan's survival mark an end to the curse? One essay I found online reframes it a little bit: "Every president elected from 1840 onward in the years ending in 0 either has been shot or has died in office." So maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see, because the most recent president who took office after a zero-year election is still there.

Another little-known fact about the Reagan assassination attempt--and an intriguing one if you're of a conspiracy-minded bent--is that there are some connections between the families of John Hinckley, Jr., and Reagan's vice-president (what was his name, again?). In fact, Hinckley's brother Scott was due for dinner at Neil Bush's house in Denver the evening after the shooting (needless to say, the dinner was canceled). It was reported that the Hinckleys had been big contributors to George H. W.'s 1980 presidential campaign, but the vice president's office quickly denied that, and I'm not sure it's ever been pinned down. Some of the contemporary news reports from AP and UPI have been posted on the Free Republic Website (if you can stand going over there to have a look), or you can just Google "Bush" and "Hinckley" and drown yourself in the conspiracy sites that come up.