Cursed Months: Is August more cursed than April?

In “April, Saturn, & Mercury Retrograde: Something Wicked This Way Comes,” I shared a theory that April is a cursed month. People with birthdays, anniversaries, or other happy April dates didn’t take kindly to the supposition.

Understandably.

But what they didn’t understand at first was the theory doesn’t speculate that anyone who’s born, married, or does anything else of significance in April is cursed.

No. Rather, the theory posits that April might be cursed because so many notable tragedies have happened during the month.

And there have been a lot, or so it seems, but don’t all months see their share of tragedy? Perhaps it just seems like April has more than its fair share?

It’s a rhetorical question. I haven’t taken the time to tally which months have experienced more calamities than others. However, December might be up there. There have been several shootings and natural disasters that have rocked that month too. But I’ve never done any official comparison to see if there are as many, or more, than April.

However, have you ever heard of the August curse? It may rival April for the most cursed month —in some parts of the world.

Let’s take a look at both months and then you can decide if there’s anything to either cursed month theory.

Some of the Tragedies April Has Seen

In defense of the theory, there have been quite a few sad and disturbing events, from assassinations and bombings to disasters (both natural as well as manmade) and the start of wars, including:

1. April 1, 1946: Aleutian Islands earthquake and tsunami (8.6 magnitude killed 165 people)
2. April 2, 1868: Hawaii earthquake (7.9 magnitude killed 77 people)
3. April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King Jr. assassinated
4. April 6, 1917: America Enters World War I
5. April 7, 1922: Picardie mid-air collision (First mid-air collision involving airliners.)
6. April 12, 1861: American Civil War starts
7. April 12, 1864: Union Soldiers massacred at Fort Pillow
8. April 13, 1873: Colfax Massacre
9. April 14, 1865: Abraham Lincoln assassinated
10. April 15, 1912: The Titanic sinks (Hit the iceberg late in the night of April 14, though.)
11. April 15, 2013: Boston Marathon Bombing
12. April 15, 2019: Notre Dame Cathedral Fire
13. April 16, 2007: Virginia Tech Shootings
14. April 17, 2013: West Fertilizer Company Explosion
15. April 18, 1906: – The Great San Francisco Earthquake
16. April 19, 1775: American Revolutionary War Starts
17. April 19, 1993: Waco Siege Ends (Started in February, though.)
18. April 19, 1995:  Oklahoma City Bombing
19. April 20, 1999: Columbine High School Massacre
20. April 20, 2010: Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (a.k.a. BP Oil Spill)
21. April 26, 1986: Chernobyl Disaster

In addition to noting a couple of other tragedies not on the above list —The Ludlow Massacre on April 20, 1914 and the Hillsborough Disaster of 1989— a Florida Today article argued that April’s cruelest week is April 15-21. Cruel indeed.

The August Curse

The August curse is just like the April theory, except it applies exclusively to Russia. Some Russians feel that since 1991, more catastrophes and disasters have struck their country during August than any other month.

Wikipedia lists tragic events that have happened in Russia during April, which includes everything from coup attempts and airplane crashes to bombings and wildfires.

It’s not as long as the April list, mostly because the timeline is more concentrated and it doesn’t include events that have happened all over the world. It focuses solely on Russia.

But is there anything to either theory? Are the months really cursed? Or is there another explanation?

Explanations for Cursed Months

There are at least four explanations for why cursed months may exist, and three of them involve perception.

1. Clustering

The way events are analyzed can account for why it seems like April is cursed. For instance, if you cluster analyze the data and collect a lot of well-known tragedies that all happened in the same time period (ie. April or August), sure. It appears they all share something in common —like the month in which they occurred.

2. Apophenia

If you watched Crime Scene: Vanishing at the Cecil on Netflix, you saw apophenia on display in a couple of ways. It’s when people perceive a meaningful connection between unrelated things.

In the case of the Cecil, specifically Elisa Lam’s death, some felt the hotel’s paranormal activity was responsible. Because surely the hotel is haunted with all the death and murder it has seen, so it stands to reason the ghosts wanted more company and they chose Lam to join their club.

That’s an example of apophenia.

Another one was all the sleuth-from-home detectives who were convinced Pablo Vergara, a musician who went by the stage name Morbid, killed Lam. They cited his creepy music videos that featured violence and murder, a couple of which were shot while he’d stayed at the Cecil. Then news started spreading he’d stayed there the same time Lam had.

Not only did Mexico’s version of the FBI question him after so many “tips” came in linking him to Lam’s death, but the armchair detectives also hounded him relentlessly online. To the point he had a mental breakdown.

However, as Cosmopolitan pointed out, “making a scary video doesn’t make you a murderer.”

Also, the Internet detectives weren’t very good at their “jobs.” Vergara had stayed at the Cecil, but it wasn’t at the same time as Lam. He stayed there a year earlier. He was back in Mexico at the time she vanished.

It’s easy to understand how they got it wrong though. They were desperate to make a meaningful connection between a creepy dark performance artist having some connection with Lam’s death, all because he’d had the misfortune of staying in the same hotel that she died in. He was an obvious target —not to mention an easy one. That’s what you’d call a red herring. Clearly, they need to mix more detective novels in with their true crime to hone their detective skills a bit.

3. Confirmation bias

As humans, it’s natural for us to search out information that supports our beliefs and values. It’s called confirmation bias and runs rampant in everything from politics to the paranormal.

In fact, we’ve seen it on display worse than ever politically speaking the last several years —regardless of which party you identify with. (That’s not to say you’re guilty of it, but I’m willing to bet you know people in your party who are.)

It also occurs all too frequently in the paranormal. If you’re predisposed to believe in ghosts —or something like cursed months— you’ll seek out data that confirms your belief.

A house settling becomes ghostly footsteps. Wind whistling through the eaves become haunted moans. An odd, but not distinct sound, caught on a recorder is interpreted as a voice. Any tragedy with an April date supports the theory that it’s a cursed month. See where I’m going with that?

We can find reasons to believe, even when they’re little better than flimsy, as long as it supports our beliefs.

4. The curse is real

And then there’s always this possibility, except…

How do months get cursed? Who cursed them? Because curses require active participation, which we’ll examine in a follow-up post. Stay tuned…

Check-In

Do you have a month (or months) that harbor hard anniversaries of the heart for you that you feel may be cursed?

For me personally, December harbors several hard anniversaries of the heart, including the night my mom broke the news that my parents were divorcing, the day I was diagnosed with cancer, and the morning my beloved bluetick coonhound and haunt jaunting buddy, Murphy, died.

But I don’t think it’s cursed. I just think some of the most negative sentinel events of my life have happened in December.