Legends 51: Royal
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The entire filming process had been miserable. Plagued with bad luck from the very start, the making of the 1956 film The Conqueror had not gone well. It was consistently delayed and over budget, turning what should have been the studio's darling into their worst nightmare.

Not even its famous producer, Howard Hughes, could save it from disaster. You see, the film was about Genghis Khan, but John Wayne had been cast in the lead role. Yes, the white, gunslinging Western actor had been chosen to portray the Central Asian conqueror.

On top of everything else, the crew filmed in Utah's Escalante Desert, where the days were blisteringly hot and the nights were freezing cold. Making a movie in the desert isn't fun in the best of times, but in this instance, it also wasn't safe. You see, the Conqueror was filming just 140 miles downwind from the Nevada test site, where the U.S. government was testing hundreds of nuclear bombs. The military had told the crew that it was safe to film there,

But they had lied. Or maybe they just didn't realize how bad the fallout from their tests really was. Because out of the 220 cast and crew for The Conqueror, 91 of them developed cancer. And 46 of that 91 died as a result.

Today, The Conqueror is still considered by many to be one of the worst movies ever made, and it's also thought to be the most cursed film in history. No other Hollywood production has had as high a death toll, and hopefully, none ever will again.

All the collective wealth and power of Howard Hughes and John Wayne couldn't save the cast from nuclear fallout. As obvious as that may be, to our celebrity-obsessed culture, it almost seems wrong. After all, movie stars never seem to be touched by hardship. From the outside, it looks like they have it all: the money, the fame, the perfectly white teeth. When someone has everything, how can anything ever go wrong?

Well, as it turns out, even having everything you want is never a guarantee that you won't end up cursed. I'm Aaron Manke and this is Lore Legends. The vultures were circling, but they weren't lurking over a man who was already dead. No, these vultures were so hungry that they would do anything, even eat a perfectly healthy victim. And so they circled lower and lower. And then they attacked.

If you've never seen a vulture in real life, then you may not grasp how truly terrifying this would be.

Each one can weigh up to 30 pounds and have a wingspan of up to 10 feet. Their talons are like razors, and their beaks are like knives. So when they all ganged up on this lonely traveler, the poor man did not stand a chance. They tore at his cloak and pecked at his face, screeching for fresh meat. But then, just as quickly as they had descended, they were gone, chased away by a flock of ravens.

The Ravens had no way of knowing that they had just saved an ancestor of the Habsburg family, one of the most powerful dynasties in European history. Even we don't know who he was. We're never given his name. The legend simply claims that around 1000 CE, the Habsburg royal lineage was almost brought to its knees by some hungry birds, and then it was saved by the Ravens.

The man was so grateful to the birds that he constructed a beautiful tower for them in the forest. And there they lived for generations, basking in the spoils of their good deed. But while history may have a long memory, humans do not. Only a hundred years after the ravens saved this traveler, one of his descendants destroyed the tower to build himself a grand castle on the very same spot. A few of the ravens were even killed in the process.

But the ravens got their revenge. They called upon the Turnfalcon. These supernatural birds look like ravens, but their feathers are pure white. Depending on who you ask, they either brought about tragedy or simply predicted it. But regardless, the Turnfalcon are said to have portended every single lost battle and every single Habsburg death. If anything terrible were to befall the family, anything at all, then the Turnfalcon would be there.

And trust me, the Habsburgs had their fair share of tragedy. Those birds were hard at work. The tern falcon were seen before every major Habsburg death. I can't recite every single instance for you today. We're talking about hundreds of years of history here. But I can share some of the most interesting sightings.

In the mid-19th century, for example, the tern falcon were spotted flying over Archduke Maximilian and his wife Charlotte while they were taking a walk through the garden. One of them was reported to have even landed on the train of Charlotte's dress. Anyone watching the couple may have thought that these birds were a good luck symbol, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Only a short while later, Maximilian was executed by firing squad in Mexico.

In January of 1889, the Turnfalcons circled over Schönbrunn Palace, screeching a warning cry. Soon after their visit, the Austrian Crown Prince and his teenage mistress, Maria Bezzera, were found dead in his hunting lodge. As far as anyone could tell, it had been a murder-suicide, but the investigation didn't reveal many details behind the crime. All that they could surmise was that the prince had murdered her first, and then turned the gun on himself.

Less than 10 years later, in September of 1898, the Turnfalcon appeared outside the window of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, flying across the blue sky and circling a warning. The very next morning, the emperor was told that his beloved wife, Sisi, had been assassinated the night before.

But the most famous Turnfalcon appearance came in the summer of 1914. The Duchess Sophie was walking through the streets of Vienna when she heard the crowd around her gasp. They were all whispering, "The Turnfalcon!" And sure enough, when Sophie looked up, she saw a group of large white birds circling overhead and screeching. The Duchess knew what they meant. Death was coming for her family.

That night, she begged her husband to stay secluded, but he wouldn't hear it. The couple left Vienna only a few days later. And then, Sophie and her husband, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, were both assassinated in Sarajevo, kicking off the First World War. The Habsburgs were some of the wealthiest, most powerful people in the world. But no amount of influence could save them from a worldwide conflict or from themselves.

You see, most of the Habsburgs throughout history did actually believe that they were cursed by the tern falcon. But here's the thing, though. Historians disagree. I mean, sure, maybe they really did see some giant white birds flying around before they died. But most scholars don't think that the tern falcon were the real curse. No, the real Habsburg curse was inbreeding. The Habsburgs were famous for intermarrying. That's how they consolidated so much power. They just married other Habsburgs.

Unfortunately, this had some pretty unfortunate side effects. Most famously, the Habsburg jaw, which is a very polite name for their jutting jaws and their deformed facial features.

Their inbreeding did more to their bloodline than give them physical deformities, though. It also cursed them with a variety of congenital issues, like epilepsy, infertility, and insanity. All that said, we can't blame every Habsburg death on incest. After all, marrying their cousins had no bearing on whether or not they were assassinated.

But many more Habsburgs died from illness and genetic disorders than they did from a bullet. And as the years passed by, it became harder and harder for most of them to have children. It's thought that the end of the Habsburg dynasty was finally brought on not by the Ravens' revenge, but by some poorly chosen family planning. Motivated, of course, by power.

On April 19th of 1956, the entire world stopped and watched as Hollywood royalty married into a real royal family. When she met Prince Rainier III in 1955, Grace Kelly had already made a name for herself as one of the movie industry's greatest beauties. So it's no surprise that the Prince of Monaco fell hard and fast. Following a whirlwind courtship, the two announced their engagement only eight months after their first meeting.

The wedding itself was lavish, taking place over the course of two days. Over 700 guests attended the two ceremonies, and thousands attended the evening galas. Across the globe, over 30 million people tuned in on their television sets to see Grace Kelly graduate from actress to princess.

The broadcast had been a stipulation from MGM Studios, which only allowed Grace out of her contract with them if they could televise the event. I'm sure that as she walked down the aisle, Grace felt that she was finally free. She had been released from her grueling Hollywood schedule, and she was marrying into one of the wealthiest nations on Earth. Her veil may as well have been a pair of wings billowing out behind her, lifting her away from her troubles.

Little did the new princess know that she was simply leaving one gilded cage for another, and those wings would soon be clipped.

Despite their beautiful wedding, the prince and the princess went on to have a famously rocky marriage. No one knows all the details, but Grace Kelly's unhappiness was evident. Some say that Rainier humiliated her by keeping a string of mistresses. Others say that Grace was bored and wanted to work in Hollywood again. And still others say that after years in the spotlight, she longed for a private life that she could never have.

It all came to a head when she was 52 years old. In September of 1982, Grace was driving home with her daughter when her car veered off the road and fell down a mountainside. The next day, she was pronounced dead. And once again, millions of people tuned in to watch yet another pivotal moment in Grace's life, her funeral.

The most widely accepted theory about her death is that she had a stroke while driving. Others were more skeptical, attributing the accident to anything from a suicide to an assassination. But the most popular conspiracy was that she had simply become another victim of the Grimaldi Curse.

Monaco's royal House of Grimaldi is an old one, stretching back to when Francesco Grimaldi captured Monaco's throne in 1297. And some people believe that the Grimaldi curse goes back that far, originating with Francesco himself. Known as Francisco the Malicious or Francisco the Spiteful, he was, unsurprisingly, not a very nice man. It's said that after being exiled from Genoa, he and his men snuck into Monaco disguised as monks.

Then, still dressed as holy men, they slaughtered all the castle's inhabitants, taking the fortress for themselves. From that point on, the Grimaldi line was cursed. And it still is, even to this day. Another story claims that the curse originated with Prince Rainier I, Francisco's cousin. According to this legend, after defeating the Flemings in 1304, Rainier kidnapped and assaulted a Flemish woman. But then the woman morphed into a witch.

As punishment, she cursed him and all of his descendants to never be happy in their marriages. And the curse seems to have stuck. There is very little evidence that Annie Grimaldi has ever had a happy, successful marriage. But there are many stories about deeply unhappy unions. In 1660, for example, Prince Louis I of Monaco married Catherine Charlotte de Grimond. Before their marriage, Catherine Charlotte had been involved in a passionate love affair with her cousin,

Her family assured the Grimaldis that the affair was a thing of the past. But sadly, it was not. Catherine Charlotte picked right back up with her lover and collected many more along the way. By 1665, she had secured the crown jewel of her collection, King Louis XIV of France. Her marriage to the Prince of Monaco ended only a few years later.

And one last example can be found in 1920, when Princess Charlotte of Monaco entered into an arranged marriage with Count Pierre du Polignac of France. The couple had two children together, but it was a miserable union. Pierre had multiple indiscreet affairs. By the mid-1920s, the couple had separated, and they were officially divorced in 1933.

Fortunately, this story has a much happier ending than that of our leading lady, Grace Kelly. Once she was free from her marriage, Princess Charlotte went on to get a degree in social work. Then she converted a Grimaldi family estate into a halfway house for ex-convicts, where she lived with her lover, the infamous jewel thief, René Guerrier. As it turns out, you don't need a wedding ring to find happiness. But it never hurts to have a partner who's willing to steal one for you.

The Shogun didn't have the luxury of fear. That was for lesser, weaker men. At least it should have been. But despite that, one fear had burrowed its way into his very bones until it had turned into a deep-seated paranoia. Dying by the sword.

And sure, I think any of us would agree, being cut in half is a pretty scary prospect. But the shogun wasn't afraid of just any old blade. No, Tokugawa Ieyasu was afraid of dying by one sword and one sword only, the Muramasa katana. Muramasa was a Japanese sword maker, or as some scholars believe, he may have been two sword makers working under the same name. Almost nothing is known about the man himself, but his swords would be remembered as

as legendary. Katanas with Muramasa engraved on the tang started showing up around the year 1500. They quickly spread through the country, too, becoming the gold standard that all other blades would follow. Compared to other swords of that era, the metal was stronger, and the blades were sharper. They were of such high caliber that they even became the preferred sword for Japan's samurai.

Eventually, Muramasa started a sword-making school, ensuring that his blades would be passed on to future generations. His legacy as the greatest sword maker in the history of Japan was cemented, but the swords themselves soon gained a very different kind of reputation. They were just so well made, and they were so incredibly good at killing people. Some became convinced that there had to be a supernatural explanation. And so, the rumors spread.

Now, some people believe that Muramasa must have been a bloodthirsty madman who imbued his insanity into his blades. Others claim that he sourced his metal from bloody battlefields. And yet others believe that Muramasa had made some kind of a deal with a demon in exchange for his sword-making skills.

And among the warriors who actually used his swords, it was believed that a Muramasa sword craved blood so badly that if they ever failed to kill anyone in battle, then they would be forced to turn the blade on themselves. And if the sword remained sheathed for too long, then it would possess its owner to commit

terrible acts of violence. There's even one specific legend about a samurai who tried to remove the Muramasa signature from the blade in an effort to disrupt its demonic powers. But that night he woke up in a pool of blood. He had been pulled into a trance and murdered his own wife.

And it's certainly easy for us to laugh these superstitions off now. They were swords, of course, just hunks of metal. They weren't alive and they certainly weren't malicious. But let's take a step back here from our modern rationale. The Muramasa Katana rose to prominence during the Warring States period.

It was one of the most violent times in Japanese history, essentially 100 years of civil war. For many, death was a constant companion. So put yourself in their shoes and imagine seeing men do unspeakable things to your family and friends, and doing it all with a blade that sliced and diced like nothing you had ever seen before. These swords beheaded entire families. They gutted villages.

They cut down armies. And experienced that way, it would be only natural to say that those blades were possessed by a demon. At least it might be easier to blame a sword rather than to admit that your fellow humans were capable of such evil. Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu certainly felt that way. That's why he went on such an intense campaign against them.

He may have been superstitious about the blades, but he wasn't a weak-minded man. This shogun was the shogun, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate, which kicked off the Edo period. Under his rule, he reshaped Japan's entire political system.

By the time Tokugawa rose to power in 1603, Muramasa was long dead, but his swords lived on, and that made the Shogun nervous. You see, he believed that there was a curse on his family, and that curse had everything to do with Muramasa katanas.

According to the stories, a large number of his family members had been killed by Muramasa blades. His grandfather had been sliced from his hip to his shoulder by one in 1535. And when the Shogun was only six years old, his father was assassinated with a Muramasa. His own son even used a Muramasa to take his life in a suicide ritual called seppuku. Although considering the Shogun had been the one to order his son to die, I'm not really sure if that one counts.

Regardless, the Shogun convinced himself that Muramasa blades had it out for his bloodline, so he outlawed them from his Shogunate. Anyone caught with a Muramasa blade would be sentenced to death.

And he meant it, too. According to legend, a Nagasaki magistrate and his son were discovered to have been hoarding dozens of these blades. Both were forced to commit seppuku as punishment. Many of today's surviving Muramasa swords have missing or altered signatures on the tang. After the edict, most people had just tried to pass them off as blades from a different maker. After all, well-made swords were expensive, and the right blade could be the difference between life or death on the battlefield.

Tokugawa was a skilled warrior in his own right, so he clearly knew this. He even owned a Muramasa katana himself. But of course, he decided that that one was okay. In the end, though, his fears were unfounded. He didn't die by the blade at all. Instead, he passed away at the age of 73 from illness. But by then, the damage had been done. The Muramasa was a cursed blade, and it was a curse that made them incredibly valuable.

It's very easy to assume that power and privilege guarantees happiness and long life. After all, those material trappings have a way of seeming, at least on the surface, like anyone's dream come true. But all one has to do is open a history book to realize just how misguided that assumption truly is.

Power and wealth rarely buy safety. In some instances, in fact, it actually magnifies the risk. Abuse your power enough and you are bound to make yourself a target. As we've learned today, privilege has a way of tempting fate. And that was definitely true of the events in Japan. The Shogun's fear of Muramasa Katanas cemented them in national memory. Although, probably not in the way that he hoped.

You see, over the years, the curse of the Muramasa evolved. People no longer interpreted it as a curse against a single family. They came to believe that the swords were a curse against the entire shogunate itself. And so, if they wanted to bring down the shogunate, they needed Muramasa blades.

During the Civil War of the mid-1800s, those opposed to the Tokugawa shogunate acquired a collection of Muramasa katanas as a symbol of their opposition to the dynasty. Some were real, and some were forgeries. But the authenticity wasn't what mattered here. It was all about what they represented.

destroying the shogunate entirely. Muramasa blades, both real and fake, were used by the anti-shogunate faction throughout the Civil War. And whether or not it was due to the curse, they had their victory. Power was returned to the emperor in 1868, ending the shogunate forever. In a roundabout way, Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu had created a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Muramasa swords did not cut him down, but they destroyed everything.

that he had built. I hope you enjoyed today's journey through the dangerous and frightening world of royal curses. It's fair to say that with great power comes great risk of losing everything. And while that has been true for most of history around the world, it's often believed that Americans are immune. One story, however, calls all that into question. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.

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The rain poured down in sheets, filling the early spring air with a biting chill. The streets were gray, with almost no foot traffic out or about. In short, it was an absolutely miserable day to be in Washington, D.C. Regardless, about a thousand people were gathering on the National Mall, undeterred by the weather. After all, it's not every day that you get to see a president sworn in.

The newly elected President William Henry Harrison was outside with the crowds, braving the freezing rain to make the longest inauguration speech in history. It was a triumphant moment. Until it wasn't. You see, that day, President Harrison had famously elected not to wear a coat, and in doing so, he sealed his fate. Just 31 days later, he would be dead.

Here in America, we fought a war for the right to never bow to hereditary royalty again. But that doesn't mean that the presidency doesn't have its fair share of curses. And believe it or not, some people think that our curse took its first victim right there on that blustery inauguration day. Those who believe in the curse say that it dates all the way back to 1811, nearly 30 years before President Harrison took office.

When he was a much younger man, he led a thousand troops to destroy the Shawnee village of Prophetstown. Prophetstown was established by Tecumseh, who dreamed of a new Native American confederacy where his people could live in peace. The little settlement had been the beginning of a dream.

A dream that was crushed by Harrison. Legend has it that after Prophetstown was burned to the ground, Tecumseh laid a curse on Harrison and by association the United States presidency. Other versions of the legend claim that it was actually Tecumseh's brother who cursed Harrison in 1813 after Tecumseh was killed by Harrison's troops.

And I think it's important to pause and remind folks for the reason behind the stereotypical Native American curse. It was common to demonize the indigenous people of North America by attributing supernatural powers to them. It was part of a longstanding tradition among white Christian Europeans that blamed all of their own misfortune and setbacks

on the work of the devil. And in the process, it allowed these colonizers to feel less guilty about what they were doing to those people. So whenever you hear a legend about a Native American curse or haunted ancient burial grounds, what's really on display is the othering of indigenous peoples.

Now, this curse in particular, they say, was dormant for years. But then President Harrison took office in 1840 and died immediately. And in the decades that followed, a disturbing pattern emerged.

Any president whose term started in a year that ended in a zero died while in office. Seriously, their prospects were incredibly grim, and they only got worse as the years went on. Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860 and assassinated during his second term in 1865.

James A. Garfield was elected in 1880 and shot by an assassin in July of 1881. William McKinley won re-election in 1900 and was assassinated in 1901. Warren G. Harding was elected in 1920 and died of either a stroke or a heart attack three years later. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected for his third term in 1940 and he died of a cerebral hemorrhage not long after the start of his unprecedented fourth term in 1945.

And, of course, John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960 and assassinated three years later. And then something odd happened. The trend was interrupted by Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980 and survived the entirety of his term. In fact, he didn't die until 2004, making him the longest-living president in American history. At the time, anyway, that title has since been commandeered by Jimmy Carter.

It's been speculated that when Reagan survived a 1981 assassination attempt, he broke the curse. Because ever since his tenure, the legend seems to have lost its teeth. George W. Bush was elected in the year 2000 and survived his term. So did Joe Biden, who was elected in 2020. Looking back, I think it's fair to say that if there really was any truth to the legend, that curse is now a thing of the past.

This episode of Lore Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Cassandra DeAlma. Don't like hearing the ads? I've got a solution for you. There's a paid version of Lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Plus, subscribers there also get weekly mini-episodes called Lore Bites. It's a bargain for all of that ad-free storytelling and a great way to support this show and the team behind it.

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