19. Until 2016, the Cubs Had Not Won a World Series Since The Days of the Ottoman Empire
By 1945, the Cubs were already in the midst of a long title drought, having last won a World Series in 1908. In 1908, Babe Ruth had still not made his MLB debut. Teddy Roosevelt was still in the White House. Mark Twain was still alive. Russia was ruled by a Tsar. Kaiser Wilhelm II still ran Germany. A sultan still headed the Ottoman Empire. A Hapsburg emperor still ruled the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
In Vienna, a young weirdo named Adolf Hitler was chasing his dreams of becoming an artist. Archduke Franz Ferdinand was still alive, and nobody had dreamt of WWI, let alone its sequel, which had concluded only a month before Murphy was kicked out of Wrigley Field. By 1945, things had already changed drastically since the Chicago Cubs’ last World Series victory. Sianis’ dire warning became known as the “Curse of the Billy Goat”, and it took the Cubs’ already long World Series drought, and extended it another 71 years, until 2016.