Twiford: This week in April is historically cursed

167
"I am not a superstitious person, however, the week of April 14- April 20 is cursed, and I can prove it." - Graphic / Yaz Shaughnessy

I am not a superstitious person, however, the week of April 14- April 20 is cursed, and I can prove it. 

Historically, several massively horrible events have occurred within this period, and it’s just a few too many for me to brush it off as a coincidence, so let’s go over the evidence.

First, and most obviously, Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889. The death toll associated with this birth is hard to calculate. He is responsible for the 12 million deaths in the Holocaust, but I also hold him personally responsible for every death associated with World War II. You may disagree with me on this, but you would be wrong and also defending Hitler, you freak. If this birth had never happened, it is highly unlikely World War II would have started the way it did, if it would have started at all. 

Keeping to April 20 for a bit, exactly 110 years after the birth of Hitler in 1999, two seniors at Columbine committed a school shooting that ended up killing 12 students and one teacher, seemingly at least partially inspired to pick that date because it was Hitler’s birthday, though both shooters killed themselves during the attack, meaning exact motives can’t be ascertained. 

The same date in 2010 brought the world the largest marine oil spill in history after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico. This resulted in 11 deaths and 17 injuries of workers on the rig, with an estimated 60,000 barrels of oil escaping the damaged oil well per day. When the spill was finally able to be fully capped, 134 million gallons of oil had been spilled in the Gulf. The impact of this disaster is ongoing and scientists are still studying the long-term effects on the environment with nearly 100 thousand square miles of surface water contaminated with oil and dozens of species of marine animals killed or injured by the spill and the clean-up activities. 

Moving on to the 19, the siege on the compound belonging to the cult called the Branch Davidians ended in disaster in 1993. While the initial standoff and bloodshed began on February 28, when the federal government, including the ATF and Texas state law enforcement agencies, tried to carry out an arrest warrant for the group’s leader David Koresh, the majority of the 82 people killed in the compound ended up dying on the 19th, when the FBI sprayed tear gas into the building to try to drive them out, causing the cult to burn the compound to the ground while members were still inside. 

Two years later, 168 people were injured on April 19, 1995, when a truck bomb was set off outside of Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The perpetrator believed that this building was where federal agents from the Waco siege were based, and in an attempt to get revenge as he felt the siege was poorly handled, decided to blow up the building. The main perpetrator was also born on April 23, which is out of the range of the cursed week, but it’s still close enough to be worth noting. 

The anniversary of the Virginia Tech shooting, which claimed the lives of 32 people, is marked on April 16th of every year. 

The Boston Marathon bombings occurred on April 15, 2013, killing three people. The bombers escaped and later killed an MIT police officer, Sean Collier, on April 18 and kidnapped another man, stealing his car on the 19, though eventually being caught with the help of the kidnapped man’s memory and details of the ordeal. 

Going farther back in history, on April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching a play at Ford’s theater, dying the next day.

Similarly, the Titanic struck an iceberg and began sinking on April 14, 1912, and was completely submerged by the early hours of April 15, killing the majority of those onboard. 

While this can be chalked up to coincidence, in my opinion, there are just too many hugely cataclysmic events that take place within this week for it to be written off. Also, these are just the ones I could think of off the top of my head, meaning that there are probably more that I personally don’t know about or just didn’t realize fall into this pattern.

Honestly, the entire month of April makes me a little uneasy, with the exception of April 28, which marks the anniversary of the 1945 execution of Benito Mussolini, and April 30, which marks Hitler’s death, because the coward with an ugly mustache didn’t want to answer for his crimes. 

These two events break the April curse, fixing the world and yet again restoring the balance that all of the terrible attacks and disasters listed above had thrown out of whack.

For comments/questions about this story DM us on Instagram @thewhitatrowan or email thewhit.opinion@gmail.com

Comment