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Generations of tragedy, scandal, and heartbreak have plagued some of history’s most fascinating dynasties. In this countdown, we explore infamous tales of royal misfortune, mysterious deaths, and eerie legends surrounding legendary clans across Europe, America, and Asia. Which tragic family history left the deepest impression on you? Share your thoughts in the comments!
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00:00The Romanoff curse! The Romanoff what? What are you talking about?
00:03Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we'll be discussing historic families that suffered
00:08from generations of tragedy, loss, and heartbreak. Jack Kennedy is a man who doesn't cry,
00:14who rarely shows emotions, but that day Jack Kennedy breaks down.
00:19The Nepalese royal family. According to legend, the first king of Nepal,
00:24Prithvi Narayan Saha, brought a curse upon his bloodline when he refused an offering of food
00:29from a holy man.
00:30Shah offered the man a bowl of curd to show his respect. The old man drank it all,
00:35and then regurgitated it back into the bowl. He asked Shah to drink it to show his devotion.
00:44Repulsed, Shah dashed the bowl to the ground.
00:47That holy man was said to be Baba Garakhnat, an immortal yogi with supernatural powers.
00:52The offended Garakhnat told the king his dynasty would end after 10 generations.
00:59Throughout its history, the curse has overshadowed the house of Shah, but would it really come true?
01:08The 10th king of Nepal, Barendra Saha, was killed in a brutal massacre carried out by his son,
01:13the crown prince Dipendra. 10 members of the family were killed, allegedly over the family
01:18forbidding Dipendra to be with the daughter of a rival family.
01:21Never in the history, even in our mythology, in the Hindu mythology, you know, it's common for kings
01:26to kill other kings. But the father being killed by the son, the patricide, and the regicide that
01:34took place, and the matricide, was unusual and unprecedented in anybody's history.
01:39The Guinness family. Arthur Guinness made a name for himself when he established his famous brewery in
01:44the mid-18th century, but it seems his good fortune ended there. Rumors of a Guinness family curse
01:50began after multiple generations of Guinnesses appear to be plagued with tragedy.
01:54It's common for Katie! Send it away!
01:58But it's not within my powers, man. Once it's sent out, it can never return empty.
02:02Out of Arthur's 21 children, 11 died before reaching adulthood. His grandchildren were said
02:08to suffer from alcohol use disorder, and his great-great-grandson, the politician Lord Moyne,
02:13was assassinated in Cairo in 1944. Indeed, his assassination remains a defining moment in the
02:20chronicles of British engagement in the Middle East, and, as we'll see, the first of many eerie
02:26moments associated with the oft-called Guinness family curse. In 1966, Una Guinness lost her son in
02:32an infamous car accident. Lady Henrietta Guinness took her own life in 1978. And across the extended family
02:39tree, there can be found a litany of tragedies over the years. The Guinness misfortunes have
02:44continued, with several other Guinness descendants losing their lives in tragic accidents persisting
02:49into the 2020s. My grandfather had this, your grandfather had that, and we just happened to draw
02:55the short end of the stick. The house of Grimaldi. A seemingly supernatural force would inflict the pain
03:00and suffering promise in these prophetic words. Never will a Grimaldi find true happiness in marriage.
03:08The ultra-lux micro-state of Monaco has been ruled by the Grimaldi family since 1297, but for much of
03:15their reign, the family has been rumored to be cursed. As the story goes, in the 14th century,
03:20Prince Rainier I kidnapped a woman who turned out to be a witch. The witch cursed the Grimaldi family
03:26to suffer from eternal unhappiness in marriage. Rainier cruelly laughed this off and abandoned the
03:31supposed witch at the sight without a backward glance. Little did he know, while his name would
03:37live on with the monarchs of Monaco for 700 years, he was condemning his descendants to lifetimes of
03:43misery. Since the alleged curse, several generations appear to have been plagued by divorce, infidelity,
03:49and tragedy. The wife of Prince Louis I had several affairs before she left him to become the
03:54mistress of King Louis XIV of France. And Prince Rainier III married Grace Kelly, who died aged 52
04:01after a tragic car accident. Family curse, or just endless bad luck? How does one separate that?
04:08There's always the right to know, yes, the news that's fit to print, but then there's the morbid curiosity.
04:21The Wadiar royal family. The legend of the Mysore curse states that in 1612, when the Wadiar royal
04:27family captured Queen Alamellama of the Vijayanagar empire, she put a curse upon the family before
04:33taking her own life. It translates to something like, let Talakad be filled with sand, let Malingi
04:40be a whirlpool, and let Mysore rulers be childless. Remarkably, the curse came true. The old city of
04:47Talakad was buried in sand, the river became a whirlpool, and male heirs were only produced every
04:53other generation. It wasn't until 2017, when the current ruler and his wife welcomed a healthy baby
04:59son, that it was believed the curse had been ended.
05:01All of these points sort of created a convenient history as well. So you can say those things as
05:08well, but there's the irrational side of it where it actually, there is a pattern as well. So there
05:14is a side we cannot explain, but my rational points I think should go ahead.
05:19The Von Erich family. The 2023 film The Iron Claw depicted a dramatized version of a very real chain
05:38of tragic events that came to be known as the Von Erich curse. Patriarch Fritz Von Erich, whose real
05:44name was Jack Atkison, built one of the most famous professional wrestling dynasties in the history of
05:49the sport, but he lost five of his six sons before his own death in 1997. Every one of the Von Erich boys
05:56wanted to be just like dad. Nothing could separate them until death came along. His eldest, Jack Jr.,
06:04drowned at just six years old. David died of enteritis age 25, and Mike, Chris, and Carrie all took their
06:11own lives. Only Kevin survived, and his two sons would continue their family legacy by becoming
06:16professional wrestlers as well. Family was important to him, and a lot of the wrestlers, you know, they picked
06:21their career over the family, and you see that affect them later on in life, and now family is important,
06:28and now the fact that we can do a family business together, and it's, it really is, I couldn't have wrote it out
06:34any better. The House of Borgia. What rules this family, mother? Love. Ambition. Ambition rules this
06:47family. My fathers, my brothers, and I would have to add to that my own if I don't want to live in a
06:55garden of weeds. This Spanish family was incredibly powerful during the Renaissance, producing two
07:01popes in two generations. The Borgias also made some powerful enemies at this time, who allege their
07:06rise to power had been achieved through corruption, scandal, and betrayal. The idea offends you?
07:12Revenge me? Make sure it offends God himself. So God will take his revenge then? Yes, he will,
07:18with our help. Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI, murdered one of his political opponents and kept
07:25many mistresses. His illegitimate son, Cesare, was suspected of murdering his sister Lucrezia's lover
07:30and his own brother Giovanni. You were in pain, brother. I can feel it.
07:38Yes, I am in pain.
07:42He would end your pain.
07:47Yes.
07:50And I would end yours.
07:52Lucrezia herself was accused of several poisonings. While murder for political gain was not uncommon in
07:58this era, some recent historians have alleged that the Borgia's bad reputation was primarily rumors
08:03spread by their prominent enemies.
08:06The House of Stuart. The Stuart family was marked by death, infertility, and rebellion from the beheading
08:11of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587. Mary's grandson, Charles I, was beheaded as well after a devastating
08:18civil war broke out in England.
08:19From the parliamentary point of view, yes, I think he probably did have to die for the
08:27pacification of the kingdom. From his point of view, he had to die for the preservation of the
08:33monarchy. Though his son, Charles II, was a popular king, he was unable to produce any legitimate
08:39heirs. His death led to a crisis of succession when his illegitimate son, the Duke of Monmouth,
08:45sparked a bloody uprising against his uncle, James II, who had taken the throne. Monmouth was then,
08:51you guessed it, beheaded.
08:53James had easily overcome what had only ever been a revolt of enthusiastic amateurs.
08:59But James II was so unpopular that he was removed during the glorious revolution,
09:04replaced by William and Mary. The Stuart reign ended with Queen Anne, who died in 1714 and produced
09:10no heirs. I lost some 17 children. Some were born as blood, some without breath, and some
09:24were with me for a very brief time. The Romanov family.
09:27Matushka, why are you afraid? Why am I what? I think you're frightened.
09:35Grigory Rasputzian was a mystic and faith healer who earned the favor of Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina
09:42Alexandra when he appeared to be able to ease the pains of their son Alexei, who suffered from
09:47hemophilia. Though the royal family liked and trusted Rasputzian, other members of the imperial
09:52court conspired against him. Knowing this, Rasputzian sent a letter to Nicholas containing a dire warning.
09:58If I'm killed by the nobles, that will mean the end of you and your dynasty, and none in your family will live
10:10more than two years. Nicholas's cousin, Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, led the group of assassins
10:15responsible for Rasputzian's death in 1916. Within months, Russian revolutionaries forced Nicholas to
10:22abdicate the throne. Following a period of house arrest, the Bolsheviks murdered the Romanov imperial
10:27family in July of 1918. Rasputzian prophecy of doom was absolutely correct. He was killed
10:35by aristocrats, and after that, less than two years, Tsar was gone, and his family was gone.
10:42The Kennedy family. The Kennedy family really represented America on the rise,
10:47an immigrant country where anybody could get ahead. If they were smart enough, if they were ambitious
10:53enough, people would look at the Kennedy and they would see the American dream.
10:57One of the most famous families in American history is also said to have suffered from one
11:02of the most infamous family curses. The first incident occurred in 1944, when pilot Joe Kennedy Jr.
11:08died in an aircraft explosion. His sister Kathleen died just a few years later in a plane crash.
11:14There is woven through the Kennedys a sense of doom,
11:16and by the late 40s, only Jack remains of the Golden Trio.
11:21Before John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, he had lost two children in infancy. It's said that
11:28his wife Jackie even brought the curse with her when she remarried, as the Onassis family also
11:33experienced similar losses. Other deaths include Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, JFK Jr. and Carol
11:40Bessette Kennedy's death in a plane crash, and a trail of other accidents, heartbreaking incidents,
11:45and sudden losses continuing up to more recent times.
11:48Sadly, the Kennedy family is all too familiar with tragedy this year, marking the 20-year anniversary
11:54of that deadly plane crash that took the lives of JFK Jr., his wife and sister-in-law.
12:00As for the investigation here, authorities still looking into the exact circumstances
12:04surrounding Saoirse's death.
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12:22The House of Habsburg, one of the most prominent and powerful royal families in history, the
12:27Habsburgs met their fair share of suffering during their centuries-long reign.
12:31One alleged Habsburg curse states that the family slighted a flock of supernatural ravens called
12:45Turnfalken, which began haunting the family. It was said that whenever misfortune was coming
12:50for the Habsburgs, ravens would appear, including at the beheading of Marie Antoinette.
12:54At that moment, which must be an incredible moment of panic, she still reflects perfect form.
13:04She climbed the stairs to the guillotine very lightly, without a pause, a sort of natural heroism.
13:13The family was also known for its rampant inbreeding, which resulted in physical deformities,
13:18and likely contributed to the high mortality rate of Habsburg children. Finally, it was the death of a
13:24Habsburg, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, that set off World War I, one of the bloodiest conflicts in
13:29European history.
13:30It was a terrorist group, the Black Hand, that killed the Archduke. But by blaming the Serbian
13:36government, not the terrorists, Austrian hardliners saw a chance to take care of troublemaking Serbia
13:43once and for all. Things quickly spiraled out of control.
13:48Do you think these historical bloodlines were really cursed, or were they just unfortunate coincidences?
13:53Let us know in the comments.
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