The odds of two American presidents dying on the same specific day of the year are slim — about 1 in 133 for any given pair. The odds that two of them would die on the same day, and that the day would be the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, are astronomical.
It happened anyway. And it's just one of several bizarre coincidences that run through the deaths of U.S. presidents.
My dad was the one who told me the Adams and Jefferson thing. I thought he was making it up. He was not.
July 4, 1826: Adams and Jefferson
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson — the second and third presidents, two of the five men who drafted the Declaration of Independence, and former bitter political rivals who had reconciled in old age through a decade of correspondence — both died on July 4, 1826.
It was the 50th anniversary, to the day, of the document they had both signed.
Jefferson died first, at his Virginia estate Monticello, around 12:50 p.m. Adams died five hours later at his home in Quincy, Massachusetts. Adams's final recorded words are reported to have been "Thomas Jefferson survives." He did not know that his friend had already passed.
Both men had clung to life through the final days of June. Jefferson, 83, slipping in and out of consciousness, reportedly asked "Is it the Fourth?" Adams, 90, had been fading for weeks. Neither man chose the date — but the symbolism was lost on nobody.
July 4, 1831: James Monroe
Five years later, James Monroe — the fifth president, another Virginia Founding Father, and a veteran of Washington's Continental Army — also died on July 4.
Three of the first five presidents had now died on the same date. Three.
Monroe was the last of the Virginia Dynasty and had helped author the Monroe Doctrine. His July 4 death in New York City pushed what had seemed a striking coincidence five years earlier into something that felt, to his contemporaries, like providence itself.
July 4, 1872: No, Wait, That Was a Birth
Here's where the pattern breaks — and doubles back on itself. Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president, was born on July 4, 1872. He is the only U.S. president born on Independence Day.
Coolidge took the oath of office on August 3, 1923, in his father's Vermont farmhouse after Warren G. Harding died in San Francisco. His father John, a notary public, administered the oath by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m.
The Tyler Curse: Two Presidents, One Descendant Line
John Tyler, the 10th president, was born in 1790. His grandson Harrison Ruffin Tyler was born in 1928. As of 2024, Tyler had living grandchildren — despite having been born during the Washington administration.
The pattern is absurd. John Tyler fathered 15 children across two marriages. His 14th child, Lyon Tyler, was born when Tyler was 63 and fathered his own children into his 70s. Lyon's son Harrison was born in 1928 and lived into his 90s. A president born two and a half centuries ago still has direct grandchildren alive today — a chain of remarkable late fatherhood, not time travel.
The Zero Year Curse
This one freaked me out the first time I read about it.
Starting in 1840, every U.S. president elected in a year ending in zero died in office — for seven straight elections:
- 1840: William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia 31 days into his term.
- 1860: Abraham Lincoln was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in 1865.
- 1880: James A. Garfield was shot in 1881, dying 79 days later.
- 1900: William McKinley was assassinated at the 1901 Buffalo Exposition.
- 1920: Warren G. Harding died suddenly in 1923 on a trip to Alaska.
- 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt died in office in 1945.
- 1960: John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963.
The "Curse of Tecumseh," as some called it — supposedly laid down by the Shawnee leader's brother after his 1811 defeat at Tippecanoe — finally broke with Ronald Reagan, who was elected in 1980 and survived an assassination attempt in 1981. George W. Bush, elected in 2000, survived his two terms. Joe Biden, elected in 2020, survived his.
Superstition or statistical noise? Probably the latter. Seven presidents from a span of 120 years isn't as improbable as it first sounds, given the medical realities of the 19th century and the political violence of the 20th. But the pattern was uncanny enough to trouble Nancy Reagan during her husband's presidency, and it's the kind of coincidence historians still point out.
The Long Retirements
Not every coincidence involves death. Jimmy Carter, who lived from 1924 to 2024, set the record for longest post-presidency: 43 years and 10 months. He also became the longest-lived president ever, reaching 100 years and 89 days before his death in December 2024.
Carter's predecessor in the longevity rankings was Herbert Hoover, who lived 31 years and 230 days after leaving the White House. Both men outlasted most of their presidential peers by decades.
The takeaway? Being president is probably bad for your nerves, but if you survive the job, the office may actually extend your life. Most presidents live longer than the average American man of their generation. Adams, Jefferson, Monroe — all three July 4 presidents — lived past 80.
Just not, as it turned out, past July 4 of their final year.