A closer look
Journalists completely fabricated the legendary Curse of the Pharaohs when Howard Carter discovered the intact tomb of King Tutankhamun in 1922, desperate to sell newspapers with thrilling tales of ancient Egyptian magic. The media breathlessly reported that Lord Carnarvon, the financial backer of the expedition, was murdered by supernatural forces when he died from a mosquito bite shortly after opening the burial chamber. In reality, statistical analysis later proved that the vast majority of the archaeologists and workers who excavated the highly publicized tomb lived incredibly long, healthy lives into their seventies and eighties without facing any mystical wrath. The entire narrative was just a massive, incredibly successful clickbait campaign from the 1920s, demonstrating that the media's willingness to completely invent supernatural threats for a profit is a time-honored tradition that predates the internet by nearly a century
