#Inauguration of Zachary Taylor

[deadpresidents]

"I had learned this morning that Mr. Buchanan had taken exception to my remark on Saturday last that I should feel that I was deserted by my political family if the members of my Cabinet should call on the President-elect before he called on me. The remark was made because it might have happened that if my Cabinet called on General Taylor he might not afterwards have chosen to call on me at all. As General Taylor belongs to a different political party from myself, and as it was his duty to call on me, if he desired to exchange civilities, I thought it was due to their own self-respect as well as to me that my Cabinet should wait until General Taylor paid his respects to me before they paid their respects to him. In this view all the members of the Cabinet expressed their concurrence on Saturday, except Mr. Buchanan. I learned this morning that Mr. Buchanan had said to a member of the Cabinet that notwithstanding my remark on Saturday he had left the Cabinet-room resolved to call on General Taylor on that day, as General Shields by appointment had called at the State Department to accompany him. He did not, however, do so; but called on General Taylor yesterday, immediately after General Taylor had called on me. Mr. Buchanan is an able man, but is in small matters without judgment and sometimes acts like an old maid."

-- President James K. Polk, on his Secretary of State James Buchanan, shortly before the inauguration of Polk's successor, President-elect Zachary Taylor, in an entry in Polk's remarkable and often immensely petty personal diary (which he religiously updated throughout his Presidency), February 27, 1849.

[fictionadventurer]

Good news! The channel that plays only old History Channel documentaries had a day entirely devoted to American presidents, so I have a lot more president facts to share with you!

(Important note that I have fact-checked nothing. I am only spouting off trivia the way I would if you were here for me to info-dump at).

Andrew Jackson's wife died soon after he was elected president, and he believed her death was caused by the vicious attacks against her during the election. Because he apparently lived his life as though he were a Shakespeare character, he said something along the lines of, "On the grave of this saint, I forgive all my political and personal enemies, but as for those who slandered her, they must look to God for mercy."

When William Jennings Bryan ran against William McKinley in 1896, he went on an epic nationwide whistle-stop campaign. Though he never drank alcohol, he reeked of liquor throughout his tour--because he was using gin as a deodorant! Instead of stopping to bathe, he would wipe himself down with gin to mask his body odor.

After Harry Truman, it became the practice for both presidential nominees to get security briefings months before the election, so when they came into office they'd be up-to-date on world events--with the understanding that all this info was strictly confidential. When Richard Nixon heard that LBJ's administration was putting together peace talks to end the Vietnam War, he went to the South Vietnamese and told them to refuse to go to the table, because if they waited until he was in office, they'd get a better deal. LBJ found out and told the head of the Republican Party to tell Nixon to stop it, because this was treason. Nixon called LBJ back and said this story was untrue and he had nothing to do with any such actions. LBJ knew he was lying, but only because he'd been secretly recording sessions with the South Vietnamese, so he couldn't do anything without exposing his own actions. Because of this, South Vietnam never came to the bargaining table, and the war dragged on more than five years longer.

When Ronald Reagan was shot by an assassin, Soviet submarine activity increased near US shores, and people thought this might be part of a Soviet attack. George Bush, the vice president, was (I think) in Texas at the time, and immediately started flying back to Washington, but his plane didn't have a secure phone line, so he couldn't be in charge of the country, and people weren't sure who was next in line. Both the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense believed that they should be in charge. The press also wanted to know who was in charge, but the press secretary was doing a terrible job at the press briefing, essentially saying that they didn't know who was in command. The Secretary of State then sprinted into the briefing room, took the microphone, and assured everyone that there was a clear chain of command, and he was in charge. The only problem was that he was wrong--he'd completely forgotten that both the Speaker of the House and the President pro tempore of the Senate ranked ahead of him.

At the time this documentary was made (2016), Dick Cheney held the record for the shortest presidency. The president is allowed to temporarily hand over power to the vice president if he's going to be incapacitated. George W. Bush made use of this rule twice when he was going in for colonoscopies, so Dick Cheney served as president for a total of four hours.

[thebreakfastgenie]

A United States president has left office before completing his term nine times. Four deaths from natural causes, four assassinations, and one resignation.

John Tyler assumed the presidency after William Henry Harrison died shortly after inauguration, but was not re-elected four years later, so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Millard Fillmore assumed the presidency after Zachary Taylor died, but was not re-elected so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, but was not re-elected so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Chester Arthur assumed the presidency after James Garfield was assassinated, but was not re-elected so he was only elected to the vice presidency.

Theodore Roosevelt assumed the presidency after William McKinley was assassinated and was later elected to another term.

Calvin Coolidge assumed the presidency after Warren G. Harding died and was later elected to another term.

Harry Truman assumed the presidency after Franklin D. Roosevelt died and was later elected to another term.

Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency after John F. Kennedy was assassinated and was later elected to another term.

Gerald Ford assumed the presidency after Richard Nixon resigned and was not re-elected. Ford was also never elected vice president, he was appointed to the position after Nixon's previous vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned.

Four presidents were elected vice president but not president and one was never elected to either.

[godsavethecam]

Do you have a favorite historical figure(s)?

If I put some more thought into it, I could probably come up with a genuine answer that wasn't "haha look at this fucking guy," but it's gotta be President William Henry Harrison

It will never not be hilarious that the Whig Party's first elected president gave the longest inauguration speech in history, took his oath, and promptly shit himself to death 31 days later.

The Whig Party itself is also just funny in that it ran two successful presidential candidates, but both died very early in their terms (Zachary Taylor died after 17 months in office). Four presidents for the price of two, baby! Meanwhile, Henry Clay, just about the only truly impactful Whig figure (Whigure?), lost all FIVE of his attempted campaigns.

You know what, I'm going to run for president as a Whig. Soon I will be accepting donations for my 2036 presidential campaign, on the platform "Down with King Andrew Jackson"

[leastparanoidandroid]

Okay you’ve asked me so now I want to ask you- Infodump about your favorite historical figures!

okay. okay, here we go.

i have several favorites, but right now i only have the time to infodump about one because this post will be the length of a novel otherwise. here are the historical figures I think are interesting:

john “i am quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood” brown

alan turing alan turing alan turing

if authors count i am utterly captivated by truman capote

charles sumner kicked ass

there was a period in which the ghost of FDR was regularly stealing my ability to speak so that’s something (i do not like him)

and here’s the one I’ve chosen to talk about, because his entire situation was a complete joke: william henry fucking harrison, the ninth president, who nobody gives a single shit about. well, unless you’re my one friend who has an ungodly obsession with him … or, of course, if you’re me.

this man’s presidency was what the kids call absolutely bonkers-fucking-wild. he died just 31 days after his inauguration, and was the first president to die in office. unsurprisingly, he also had the shortest presidential term. ever. yes, this is the thing he’s remembered for �� well, aside from the fact that he had a goddamn theme song, which is clearly also a major part of his legacy considering there’s a they might be giants cover of it out there.

you may be thinking, “daniel, why did he just … die? was it a james polk and/or zachary taylor thing, since water sanitation didn’t really exist then? you know, the classic white house cholera?”

well, yeah, probably. but the most common factoid that people have been repeating for ages now is that he ended up with pneumonia… after delivering the longest fucking inauguration speech in american history. outside. in the rain. without a coat. and he rode there on horseback. just showed up on a horse. the speech was almost two hours long, and clocked in at 8,445 words — and that was after daniel webster (yeah, him) edited it for length.

[polarautismbomb]

so before 1854, there was this huge swath of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains (that had been part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and so fell under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, meaning any states carved out of it north of Missouri's southern border would not be slave states...except for Missouri itself) that was theoretically part of the US but in reality hadn't been grabbed from its indigenous inhabitants yet for the most part, and so hadn't been divided into states or even organized US territories (unlike, say, Oregon, there already was such a thing as the Oregon Territory, covering the same land as the present state and then some)

Stephen Douglas, a Democratic senator for Illinois (who lived in Chicago, was originally from Vermont, and owned a plantation in Mississippi, where his wife was from), had invested heavily in Chicago real estate and had increased its value by using his position as a senator to get a railway built from Chicago to Mobile, Alabama; now he wanted to do the same with a railway from Chicago to the Gold Rush boomtown of San Francisco (where rapid population growth of white colonists and accelerating extermination of the indigenous inhabitants had recently led to California becoming a state in 1850)

such a railway would have to go through the vast expanse of the Louisiana Purchase that was still "unorganized US territory", so he introduced legislation to organize it, that is, establish a territorial government for it, start parceling out land to be grabbed from its indigenous inhabitants to be sold to white colonists and railway companies, etc. Since it was north of Missouri's southern border, slavery would be barred from it, so white southerners in Congress would oppose it (also because many wanted a more southerly route for the first transcontinental railway, building it westward from New Orleans instead), and he needed at least some of them on his side for it to pass

he turned to the F Street Mess, a set of four especially influential senators from slave states, Missouri senator David Rice Atchison, the president pro tem of the Senate and therefore next in line to the president under the rules of succession at the time, the vice president having died in office, and whose name may be familiar as "he was president for a day because Zachary Taylor postponed his inauguration", or as the guy Atchison, Kansas is named after; and three major committee chairs: Virginia senators James Murray Mason and Robert Hunter, who later were prominent Confederate politicians, the latter being Secretary of State briefly in the Jefferson Davis cabinet, the former being at the center of an incident that almost led to war between the US and UK during the civil war; and South Carolina senator Andrew Pickens Butler

they said they'd support Douglas's territorial legislation if it included a repeal of the Missouri Compromise, which he knew would hurt the Democratic Party in the north, but he really wanted that land grabbed and that railway built, and as a plantation owner he had no qualms about slavery anyway. To get a few more northerners in Congress to vote for it, the land was split into the Kansas Territory in the south and the Nebraska Territory in the north (both larger than the present states of those names), so that perhaps slavery would be barred from Nebraska but not Kansas

the president at the time was Franklin Pierce, previously a Democratic senator for New Hampshire, who worried about the impact this would have in the north on the Democratic Party, but he was all for Manifest Destiny, having fought in the recent war to conquer half of Mexico and having urged more expansion of US borders in his inaugural address (and having recently bought some more of Mexico in the Gadsden Purchase, named after the same family as the pwease no steppy flag, and around this time three of the ambassadors he appointed urged US conquest of Cuba, at the time a Spanish colony where slavery hadn't been abolished, to make sure it wouldn't become "another Haiti" less than 100 miles from slave state Florida, i.e. an example to the enslaved of a country where the slaveowners had been overthrown by the previously enslaved, the fear being that as a declining colonial power Spain would be too weak to prevent this from happening)

Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War in the Pierce cabinet, and he urged Pierce to sign the Kansas-Nebraska Act, so he did. Nebraska prohibited slavery (and to this day Omaha is the seat of a county named after Stephen Douglas), but in Kansas what ensued was called "Bleeding Kansas"

David Rice Atchison urged white Missourians to either move to Kansas and vote for slavery there, or to just go there and vote illegally as a non-resident, which many did. In response a movement arose urging white northerners to move there and vote against slavery; a major financial backer of this was the nephew of the textile magnate after whom Lawrence, Massachusetts is named, which is why there's a Lawrence, Kansas named after the nephew

so what happened was most of the white colonists in Kansas were northerners, but the recognized territorial government in Lecompton reflected the many votes of white Missourians who had immediately gone back home, and so slavery was authorized and it was illegal to publicly oppose slavery. Elections were held that established a rival government in Topeka, unrecognized by the federal government, that abolished slavery (but, for the first few years, also had a law making it illegal for black people to live in Kansas). The ensuing civil war in Kansas was the subject of a speech (titled the Crime Against Kansas) given by Charles Sumner, a senator for Massachusetts and a member of the newly formed Republican Party established in reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act (prompting a sweeping party realignment in which most northern Whigs and many northen Democrats became Republicans, while most southern Whigs and some pro-slavery northern Whigs became Democrats, often passing from one the other via the Know-Nothing Party, founded in a reaction against the era's major influx of Catholic immigrants from Ireland after the recent famine)

In this speech Sumner called the Border Ruffians (white Missourians supporting the pro-slavery Kansas government) "hirelings picked from the drunken spew and vomit of an uneasy civilization", condemned the pro-slavery Kansas government disarming supporters of the anti-slavery government (stopping them from defending themselves against the pro-slavery government and from "defending themselves" against the indigenous inhabitants Kansas was being taken from), made fun of senator Butler of the F Street Mess for his speech impediment, referred to slavery as a "harlot" that Butler had married, and went on about how South Carolina fucking sucks (not his exact words) while (when going after the two Virginia senators in the F Street Mess) taking care to distinguish between Virginia as a slave state and Virginia as the home of (since they were and are revered by white northerners and southerners alike) Washington and Jefferson (never mind that they were slaveowners)

so Butler's cousin, congressman Preston Brooks, went up to Sumner's desk on the Senate floor and beat him with his cane, the beating going on with Sumner trapped under the bolted-to-the-floor desk until he wrenched it loose (he was then absent from the senate for the next few years, bedridden from getting beaten to the brink of death and then housebound with PTSD), an act widely praised in editorials written throughout the south. Brooks received many new canes from fellow white southerners labeled things like "hit him again" or "use knockdown arguments, and to this day Brooksville, Florida is named after him

The white-only elementary school in Topeka that Brown v. Board of Education was about was named after Sumner (even though he was against de jure segregation), and Tacoma is the seat of a county named after Franklin Pierce (who was president when the Washington Territory was carved out of the Oregon Territory; Seattle is the seat of King County, originally named after his vice president William Rufus King, but later "renamed" after Martin Luther King)

becoming a history buff will save your life for real bc every time someone says "this is crazy, politics didn't use to be like this! america didn't use to be like this!" you will know enough to say well. on the contrary,

[wausaupilot]

Today in History: Today is Tuesday, March 5, the 65th day of 2024.

On this date: In 2002, American reality TV program "The Osbournes" featuring family of Ozzy Osbourne premieres on MTV.

By The Associated Press Today’s highlight in history: On March 5, 1953, Soviet dictator Josef Stalin died after three decades in power. On this date: In 1770, the Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people. In 1849, Zachary Taylor was inaugurated as the 12th president of the United States. (The swearing-in was…

[brookstonalmanac]

Events 3.4 (before 1900)

AD 51 – Nero, later to become Roman emperor, is given the title princeps iuventutis (head of the youth). 306 – Martyrdom of Saint Adrian of Nicomedia. 581 – Yang Jian declares himself Emperor Wen of Sui, ending the Northern Zhou and beginning the Sui dynasty. 852 – Croatian Knez Trpimir I issues a statute, a document with the first known written mention of the Croats name in Croatian sources. 938 – Translation of the relics of martyr Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia, Prince of the Czechs. 1152 – Frederick I Barbarossa is elected King of Germany. 1238 – The Battle of the Sit River begins two centuries of Mongol horde domination of Russia. 1351 – Ramathibodi becomes King of Siam. 1386 – Władysław II Jagiełło (Jogaila) is crowned King of Poland. 1461 – Wars of the Roses in England: Lancastrian King Henry VI is deposed by his House of York cousin, who then becomes King Edward IV. 1493 – Explorer Christopher Columbus arrives back in Lisbon, Portugal, aboard his ship Niña from his voyage to what are now The Bahamas and other islands in the Caribbean. 1519 – Hernán Cortés arrives in Mexico in search of the Aztec civilization and its wealth. 1628 – The Massachusetts Bay Colony is granted a Royal charter. 1665 – English King Charles II declares war on the Netherlands marking the start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. 1675 – John Flamsteed is appointed the first Astronomer Royal of England. 1681 – Charles II grants a land charter to William Penn for the area that will later become Pennsylvania. 1769 – Mozart departed Italy after the last of his three tours there. 1776 – American Revolutionary War: The Continental Army fortifies Dorchester Heights with cannon, leading the British troops to abandon the Siege of Boston. 1789 – In New York City, the first Congress of the United States meets, putting the United States Constitution into effect. 1790 – France is divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility. 1791 – Vermont is admitted to the United States as the fourteenth state. 1794 – The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is passed by the U.S. Congress. 1797 – John Adams is inaugurated as the 2nd President of the United States of America, becoming the first President to begin his presidency on March 4. 1804 – Castle Hill Rebellion: Irish convicts rebel against British colonial authority in the Colony of New South Wales. 1813 – Cyril VI of Constantinople is elected Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. 1814 – War of 1812: Americans defeat British forces at the Battle of Longwoods between London, Ontario and Thamesville, near present-day Wardsville, Ontario. 1837 – The city of Chicago is incorporated. 1848 – Carlo Alberto di Savoia signs the Statuto Albertino that will later represent the first constitution of the Regno d'Italia. 1849 – President-elect of the United States Zachary Taylor and Vice President-elect Millard Fillmore did not take their respective oaths of office (they did so the following day), leading to the erroneous theory that outgoing President pro tempore of the United States Senate David Rice Atchison had assumed the role of acting president for one day. 1861 – The first national flag of the Confederate States of America (the "Stars and Bars") is adopted. 1865 – The third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America is adopted by the Confederate Congress. 1865 – U.S. politician Andrew Johnson made his drunk vice-presidential inaugural address in Washington, D.C. 1878 – Pope Leo XIII reestablishes the Catholic Church in Scotland, recreating sees and naming bishops for the first time since 1603. 1882 – Britain's first electric trams run in east London. 1890 – The longest bridge in Great Britain, the Forth Bridge in Scotland, measuring 8,094 feet (2,467 m) long, is opened by the Duke of Rothesay, later King Edward VII. 1899 – Cyclone Mahina sweeps in north of Cooktown, Queensland, with a 12 metres (39 ft) wave that reaches up to 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) inland, killing over 300.

[best2daynews]

Today in History: MARCH 5, Stalin dies after long USSR reign - best today news

Today in History Today is Sunday, March 5, the 64th day of 2023. There are 301 days left in the year. Today’s highlight in history: On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people. On this date: In 1849, Zachary Taylor was inaugurated as the 12th president of the United States. (The swearing-in was…

[newswireml]

Today in History: MARCH 5, Stalin dies after long USSR reign#Today #History #MARCH #Stalin #dies #long #USSR #reign

Today in History Today is Sunday, March 5, the 64th day of 2023. There are 301 days left in the year. Today’s highlight in history: On March 5, 1770, the Boston Massacre took place as British soldiers who’d been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people. On this date: In 1849, Zachary Taylor was inaugurated as the 12th president of the United States. (The swearing-in was…

[irreplaceable-spark]

Let us invoke a continuance of the same protecting care which has led us from small beginnings to the eminence we this day occupy, and let us seek to deserve that continuance by prudence and moderation in our councils, by well-directed attempts to assuage the bitterness which too often marks unavoidable difference of opinion, by the promulgation and practice of just and liberal principles, and by an enlarged patriotism, which shall acknowledge no limits but those of our own widespread Republic.

Zachary Taylor, Presidential Inaugural Address March 5, 1849

[deadpresidents]

"Although I have never had the pleasure of a personal acquaintance, nor can I flatter myself that you have ever heard of me before the late convention, yet as I feel quite acquainted with you from a general knowledge of your widely extended reputation, and as our fellow citizens have seen fit to associate our names for the next Presidential contest, I take the liberty by introduction of enclosing a copy of my acceptance of the nomination...I should be happy to hear from you."

-- Millard Fillmore, writing to General Zachary Taylor with his acceptance of the Whig Party's nomination to be Taylor's Vice President in the 1848 election. Not only had Taylor and Fillmore never met before becoming running mates, but they'd never even corresponded prior to this message sent by Fillmore.

The first time that Taylor and Fillmore actually met one another in-person was at the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C. in late-February 1849, just a week before they were to be inaugurated -- and nearly four months after they had been elected President and Vice President.

[fictionadventurer]

Because @maltheniel has enabled me, I'm going to tell you about William Henry Seward.

If you had the American history education that I had, you might have heard of a thing called Seward's Folly--also known as Alaska. Seward was the Secretary of State who was mocked for buying America territory in what appeared to be a barren wasteland, until he was vindicated by the discovery of oil and gold and a jillion other useful natural resources. If you had the education that I had, this is the only thing you heard about him, but the more I look into the Civil War, the more baffling this is, because this guy is everywhere in the political scene of the time.

Seward was an extremely vocal anti-slavery Whig from New York. He started as a US Senator in 1849, and he became part of President Zachary Taylor's inner circle, influencing him to support measures to keep slavery out of the new territories. After Taylor died, the question of slavery in the territories dominated politics for the next decade, with the conflict getting more heated and the positions getting more polarized. The Whig Party fell apart because of disagreements over the issue; Seward held on for as long as he could, but eventually joined the newly-forming Republican Party, and became well-known for his eloquent speeches against slavery.

When it came time to choose the Republican nominee for the 1860 presidential election, Seward was by far the top candidate. All but a shoe-in. Unfortunately, some of his anti-slavery speeches were a bit too eloquent, and gave him a reputation for being much more radically anti-slavery than he was. A significant portion of the party doubted he could win a nationwide election when slavery was such a divisive issue. This gave Lincoln's team a chance to pitch him as a less-radical option, which allowed him to come from behind and win the nomination.

Seward was extremely gracious about the loss, immediately publishing letters announcing his full support of Lincoln as candidate, and putting his own campaign manager to work getting Lincoln elected. Privately, though, he was seething. He had been in politics for decades, helped to build the party, and then lost his chance at the presidency to a guy who'd been working as a backwoods lawyer for the last twelve years.

But he knew his politics, and knew it was better to support the party's candidate than to oppose him. Lincoln offered Seward the prime Cabinet position of Secretary of State--he was qualified for it and deserved it--and Seward accepted. Seward hoped that he'd be able to help select the other Cabinet members, so he could pick people from his own faction who he'd work well with. Then he, with his extensive connections and political experience, could be the real head of the administration, with Lincoln as a compliant figurehead.

Lincoln was having none of it. He listened to Seward's suggestions, but he'd basically already chosen the people he wanted for his Cabinet, across all factions of the party. While he made use of Seward's expertise and trusted him as Secretary of State, he was going to be head of his own administration and be the one making all the final decisions. After a rocky start, Seward came to recognize that Lincoln had a shrewd mind and good judgement, and he became Lincoln's loyal supporter and a good friend.

But there was a persistent idea that Seward was the real power behind the throne, sparked partly by the prominent role he took in Washington between the election and the inauguration. States started seceding almost as soon aa Lincoln was elected, and Seward was the one who had to hold things together in Washington while Lincoln was tying things up in Illinois. He was getting reports from informants, watching out for Southern spies, and keeping Lincoln abreast of what was going on. He gave a stirring speech to Congress urging the Southern states to keep the Union together, offering all sorts of concessions to mollify them, such as amendments preventing the federal government from interfering with slavery. It was a highly controversial speech, and his wife, Frances, raked him over the coals for it. She understood, earlier than almost anybody, that this crisis would turn into a long war about slavery, and that they couldn't afford to bend on that issue, even to keep the Union together. (Lincoln privately approved of several measures Seward talked about, but publicly said little, preferring to see the public's response to Seward before taking official positions.)

Seward was a little bit like a Civil War version of Evil Chancellor Traytor. Under both Lincoln and Johnson, rumors persisted that Seward was the shadowy figure who was really in charge, secretly manipulating the president into making unpopular decisions, even though most of the time, Seward had nothing to do those decisions, and often disagreed at least partially with what the president chose to do.

Best example of the effects of this misconception is the time Seward came under attack during the middle of the war. The war was going badly, and since people couldn't directly attack the president, they started going after Seward. Chase, the Treasury Secretary, told some members of Congress that Seward was the reason the Cabinet couldn't get along, and that he was always trying to take control. These senators wanted to meet with the president and force him to get rid of Seward. When Seward heard about this, he gave Lincoln his letter of resignation, not wanting to cause problems for the administration. Lincoln responded by allowing the senators to join in a Sewardless Cabinet meeting. When confronted with both the senators and the Cabinet, Chase was forced to admit that his stories had been exaggerated, and the other Cabinet members rallied to Seward's defense, resenting Congress' meddling. Lincoln refused to accept Seward's resignation, and Seward returned to the Cabinet, having been saved by Lincoln's political acumen.

I'm going to skip ahead so I can tell you the craziest part of the story. Four days before the Civil War officially ended, Seward got into a carriage accident that left him bedridden with a broken jaw and a bunch of other injuries. When told of Lee's surrender on April 9th, Seward said (through a broken jaw, after barely surviving a painful accident), "For the first time in my life, you've made me cry." (Which is both touching and an incredibly badass claim, given what he's just suffered.)

Five days later, John Wilkes Booth shot the president at Ford's Theater. Everyone knows (or should know) that part of the story. What I didn't know was that his conspiracy also called for Seward's assassination. Booth knew his Shakespeare and didn't want to leave Seward alive as a Marc Antony to eulogize the dead tyrant. (He also wanted to kill Andrew Johnson, but that assassin chickened out, and it's not really important to this story).

While Booth was at the theater, his co-conspirator went to Seward's house under the pretense of delivering medication. When Seward's son wouldn't let him go upstairs, the assassin tried to shoot him and broke his skull with the gun. The assassin then made his way to Seward's bedroom--where, I need you to remember, Seward was still bed-ridden--and stabbed him five times in the face and neck. Like, sliced away flaps of flesh. The only reason Seward didn't die was because the splint for his broken jaw deflected the blade away from his jugular vein. And because his other son and bodyguard made it into the room and forced the assassin to flee.

Chalk this one up in the "Parts of American History I'm Furious No One Told Me About" column.

While Seward was recovering, they hid the president's death from him, thinking he wouldn't survive the shock. But he figured it out three days later when he saw the flags at half-staff through his bedroom window, and realized that if Lincoln were alive, he'd have been the first to come see Seward after the attack.

Of course, Seward survived (badly scarred) and went on to buy Alaska. Which is an interesting story. But not half so interesting as all the stuff that came before it.

[mybeautifulchristianjourney]

Today in Christian History

Today is Monday, March 4th, the 63rd day of 2019. There are 302 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight in History:

1303: Death of Daniel, Grand Prince of Moscow, the youngest son of Alexander Nevsky. He had received as his inheritance a lowly domain centered on Moscow, which he ruled peacefully. Through wise alliances and a timely defeat of the Tatars, he had raised Moscow to preeminence. According to tradition, he founded two monasteries. He became a monk himself shortly before his death. Three and a half centuries later the Russian Orthodox Church will declare him a saint.

1621: Death in Brussels of Ana de Jesús, a discalced (shoeless) nun who had founded several branches of the Carmelites. She had been a close associate of Teresa of Avila. The church will soon declare her “Venerable.”

1805: President Thomas Jefferson in his second inaugural address requests prayer and recalls divine blessings.

1827: Death in India of Sheikh Salih, a notable Indian Christian. At his baptism he had taken the name Abdul Masih, meaning “servant of the Messiah.”

1849: Newly-elected president of the United States Zachary Taylor refuses inauguration on Sunday out of respect for the Lord’s day but is inaugurated on Monday.

1866: Death in Bethany, West Virginia, of Alexander Campbell, co-founder of the Stone-Campbell movement that later will diverge into Disciples of Christ and various Churches of Christ.

1890: Death in Leipzig, Germany, of Franz Delitzsch, German Lutheran Old Testament scholar and theologian, a Christian Hebraist. His greatest contribution to biblical scholarship was an Old Testament commentary he published in collaboration with J. F. K. Keil.

1901: Death in Northfield, Massachusetts, of American evangelist Daniel W. Whittle, author of several popular hymns including “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing,” “Have You Any Room for Jesus?” “I Know Whom I Have Believed,” and “Moment by Moment.”

1906: William Seymour, having preached that tongues is the Bible evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit, is padlocked out of the Los Angeles church at which he had been invited to preach. This will force him to continue his ministry in a private home and soon prompt him to rent space on Azusa Street where revival will break out.

1963: Gaspar Makil, a Filipino missionary to Vietnam, his young daughter Janie Makil and Elwood Jacobson, a missionary from the United States, are killed by the Vietcong while travelling to the Makil home.

2011: A mob of thousands of Muslims burns down the Coptic church of Saint Mina and Saint George in Soul, Egypt, about nineteen miles from Cairo. Authorities at first refuse to send assistance, although they will later rebuild the church.

Photo by Casey Horner on Unsplash

[moved-19871997]

Interesting president facts: Zachary Taylor died 1 year into his presidency from eating cherries and milk. William Henry Harrison has the shortest term as a president: 32 days. He got a cold during his inaugural speech and died of pneumonia a couple weeks later

why do your presidents die so much ):&;)/@£

[histrionic-dragon]

Messing around with other presidents Bucky could have been named after

Loosely in the Heroes are Easy, People are Hard ‘verse--as in the Millard Fillmore scene--but mostly just me playing with weird names that presidents have had.

Peter introduces Bucky wrong or calling him by the names of other presidents when he gets bored.

 “And this is Martin Van Buren Barnes. Martin Van Barnes?”

 ~

“Hey, William Henry Harrison?”

“I’m ignoring you, Peter.”

 ~

“Teddy Roosevelt?”

“Nope.”

“Oh well. He’s too famous anyway.”

 ~

“So you know, Harrison is actually a first name now.”

“You used that one already.”

“Well, there were two President Harrisons! And I think they both died really quick? One of them’s the one who got a cold after his inauguration and died in a month, anyway.”

“Oh, wonderful. So you name me after him. Lovely.”

 ~

“How’s it going, Ronald Reagan?”

“I was an assassin. I kill people. I am a very scary guy.”

 ~

“Jimmy Carter.”

“You got one name partly right.   …Less bad.”

 ~

“James Monroe Barnes!”

“...I’ll take it.”

 ~

Then, of course, somehow Tony gets into it:

“Right, so Peter says it’s got to be some president no knows anything about, like Andrew Garfield—”

“Oh, come on. People know about Garfield. The cat’s named after him, and he was assassinated.”

“…McKinley?”

“Mountain in Alaska. Also assassinated.”

“JFK?”

“He was born after me! Also—assassinated! And I didn’t do it.”

“Whatever you say, Zachary Taylor.”

*sigh*

 ~

“…John Quincy Adams.”

“Seriously? Quincy? Not even his father?”

 ~

“Hi, Ohio muppet!”

“What does that… *five minutes later* I’m not Grover Cleveland!”

 ~

“William Taft—”

“Are you saying I’m fat?”

 ~

“Rutherford B. Hayes over there—”

“I hate you.”

 ~

“Alexander Hamilton—”

“Not even a president!” Bucky yelped.

(Peter in the background: “every other founding father’s story gets told—every other founding father gets to grow old—” *notices them paying attention to him* “Uhhh….”)

Tony: NO. No musicals in the lab. Last time that happened Pepper and Bruce ended singing along to all of Hairspray and Dummy blasted me in the face with the fire extinguisher for weeks. NO MUSICALS. They will rot the robots’ minds and morals.

 ~

“Andrew Jackson.”

“Fuck you. Also, too famous, by Peter’s rules.”

“James K. Polk.”

“Now you’re just on Wikipedia looking up presidents.”

“Well, yes.  Polky.”