Was Warren Harding's Death "Written in the Stars?" 100 Years Later, a Look at the Prediction That Haunted a First Lady and Her Legacy

First Lady Florence Harding’s fascination with astrology reveals her struggle with the tension between fate and free will.

President Warren G. Harding with First Lady Florence Harding . (Photo: Library of Congress, October 25, 1920. Prints & Photographs Division)

In 1920, a Washington, D.C. astrologer and clairvoyant named Madame Marcia Champney predicted that then-Ohio Senator Warren G. Harding would win the presidency, but die a “sudden, violent or peculiar death” before the end of his term. Champney spoke as she examined Harding’s astrological birth chart during a session with Harding’s wife Florence, who would become the first lady of the United States the next year after Champney’s prediction about Harding’s win came true. Unfortunately, so too would Champney’s prediction about Harding’s demise. Around 7 p.m. on Thursday Aug. 2, 1923, after a short illness during a tour of the western United States, the 57-year-old Harding died of a heart attack at a San Francisco hotel. Less than a half hour later and 3,000 miles away, Champney glanced at Warren Harding’s birth chart and the clock, and told a journal…