The popular belief itself is certainly encyclopaedia like content regardless of its truth For example we are quite sure now that Hera or Zeus are only myths but they have their place in an encyclopaedia I think speaking about national catastophes we need only those that were really fatal blows not everything that went wrong in the course of our history I think the traditional list is quite obvious 1241 1526 1849 1920 1956 Luckily no present day event has a similar magnitude from some wider perspective they are only a strong storm small riots etc What the article really needs I think are literary sources mentioning the curse I vaguely remember for example a V r smarty poem from the 1850s but I m not sure