March 30, 1981: President Ronald Reagan Is Shot

March 30, 1981: President Ronald Reagan is shot in an assassination attempt. It happens as he's walking to his car outside the Washington Hilton.

It was 2:27 PM. A few minutes later, the news reached my mother and me, at the library in East Brunswick, New Jersey. I don't remember why I was there, instead of in school: It was a Monday, not during Spring Break (Easter wasn't until April 19 that year), and I was in the 6th grade, at a school that let out at 2:35. Maybe it was a half-day, due to parent-teacher conferences, or something like that.

No President had been assassinated since John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. My mother was in her senior year of high school; my father, in his senior year of college. Both were sent home early. There were 2 assassination attempts against Gerald Ford in September 1975, but neither came close to succeeding. So this was the first close call that I could remember, and it remains the only one.

Reagan was at the Hilton to give a speech at a luncheon of labor union executives. In his previous career, Reagan was not merely an actor, but served a term as President of an actors' union, the Screen Actors Guild. But he had turned on his fellow actors, and named names of those he suspected of Communist ties, and was never trusted by actors again. By 1965 -- at 54, hardly an age at which actors were, then as now, considered to be done -- his acting career was over.

He went into politics, and was elected Governor of California in 1966 and 1970. Supporters of his made a halfhearted effort to get the Republican Party to nominate him for President in 1968. In 1976, he nearly derailed the nomination of the incumbent President, Gerald Ford, who then lost to Jimmy Carter. In 1980, Reagan gave it one more try, and beat Carter.

Reagan was not friendly toward labor unions once he left SAG. This became obvious later in the year: Having survived the shooting, he exercised his authority as President to fire the striking members of PATCO, the union of air-traffic controllers. American organized labor has never recovered from the Reagan Years.

But that was yet to come. There was no reason to believe that Reagan was shot due to his stance on labor. Secret Service Agents immediately pounced on the shooter: John W. Hinckley Jr., then 25, a mentally ill man who never should have had access to a gun. A court would find him not guilty by reason of insanity, and he remained incarcerated at a hospital for the criminally insane until 2016. With some irony, he shares his birthday, May 29, with John F. Kennedy.

Hinckley, not particularly caring that anyone other than Reagan might be hit, also shot White House Press Secretary James Brady. He was paralyzed, and an early report said that he had died. He was confined to a wheelchair, and became an advocate for gun control. 

Secret Service Agent Timothy McCarthy was wounded. He remains the only Secret Service Agent ever to, as the common saying goes, "take a bullet for the President." In spite of this, he was the least seriously wounded man in the attempt. He later became his Illinois hometown's chief of police.

Thomas Delahanty, a D.C. police officer, was there as part of Reagan's security detail because his usual duty had been interrupted: He was part of a police dog unit, and his dog was sick. The shooting happened so fast that he couldn't do much about it, and he's always regretted that. He was released from the hospital a day before Reagan was. He returned to the Pittsburgh area from whence he came.

Alfred Antenucci and Frank McNamara, both labor officials from Cleveland and among the luncheon's guests, helped to tackle Hinckley.  

Reagan was pushed into the Presidential limousine by Secret Service Agent Jerry Parr, and taken to George Washington University Hospital, a few blocks away. The limo arrived just 4 minutes after the shooting. Reagan was able to walk in, and said to the staff, "Please tell me you're all Republicans." Dr. Joseph Giordano, Chairman of GWUH's Department of Surgery, was a registered Democrat, but told him, "Today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans."

Dr. Benjamin L. Aaron operated on Reagan for 1 hour and 45 minutes, and was able to remove the bullet and stabilize him. The bullet had come within 1 inch of Reagan's heart, and his blood pressure had gotten dangerously low. He had come closer to death than anyone realized.

Meanwhile, there was chaos at the White House. Reagan hadn't signed anything invoking Article 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, turning power over to Vice President George Bush. Bush was on a plane, and word reached him via the plane's radio, and he ordered the plane turned around. But his Air Force Two plane was not as technologically advanced as the planes that served the President as Air Force One, and there was no secure line of communication, so he couldn't give orders as Acting President without risking national security.

The highest-ranking official in the executive branch was the Secretary of State, in this case Alexander Haig, a former U.S. Army 4-star General, and White House Chief of Staff when Richard Nixon resigned the Presidency and handed it over to Gerald Ford.

Note the date on the cover: March 16, 1981,

2 weeks before the assassination attempt.

But between Bush and Haig in the line of succession were the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Thomas "Tip" O'Neill, a Democrat, and at 68 nearly as old as Reagan; and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a Republican like Reagan and Bush, but even older, 78, and with a history of supporting segregation.

What could Haig do? Ask O'Neill to come over to the White House, and be the Acting President until Bush got there? The 25th Amendment was supposed to cover a President's physical or mental inability to do the job. But, in this case, the Vice President, while his ability was unquestioned, didn't have a secure line, and thus, by association, could not be trusted. This was a situation for which there was still no Constitutional provision. Subsequent Air Force Twos would have a secure line and prevent this from ever happening again, but that didn't help on March 30, 1981.

So Larry Speakes, Brady's deputy as White House Press Secretary, was stuck answering questions from the White House press corps, questions to which no one seemed to have any answers. Haig came out, explained things as best he could, and said, "As of right now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President, and in close touch with him. If something came up, I would check with him, of course."

Of course.

Now, for the executive branch, that was true. But Haig made it look like he had orchestrated a coup d'etat. He never recovered from this, and further missteps led him to resign on June 25, 1982. George Shultz, who had been one of Nixon's Secretaries of the Treasury, served as Secretary of State for the rest of Reagan's tenure. Haig never served in public office again, and died in 2010.

In the recovery room, the first people Reagan saw were some of his staff members: White House Chief of Staff James Baker, Baker's deputy Michael Deaver, and White House Press Secretary Lyn Nofziger. (In the terms of the later TV show The West Wing, the posts held by Leo McGarry, Joshua Lyman and Toby Ziegler.) Reagan looked at them, and said, "Who's minding the store?" It may have seemed funny to him then, but he was not, as yet, aware of the Haig drama.

When his wife Nancy was let in, Reagan quoted Jack Dempsey's line after losing the Heavyweight Championship of the World to Gene Tunney in 1926, when Reagan was in high school: "Honey, I forgot to duck."

The fact that Reagan had survived his assassination attempt, and that the last Democratic President to be popular, John F. Kennedy, did not survive his helped to raise Reagan's legend: He got shot and lived, Democrats, so he must be better than your beloved Kennedy.

He was released on April 11. He made a full recovery, although speculation on what the experience did to him, and to Nancy, psychologically has run rampant. He was re-elected in 1984, and served out his 2nd term.

In 1994, he announced that he had Alzheimer's disease. This had been suspected by the public as early as his re-election campaign. Even before that, in spite of his wit and sense of humor, Reagan was often thought of as not particularly intelligent. Certainly, he was intellectually lazy, and believed many things that were untrue, even ridiculous. He died in 2004.

For all but the 1st 69 days of Reagan's Presidency, the aptly-named Larry Speakes had to serve as White House Press Secretary, even though Jim Brady was never officially removed from the post. The White House Press Room was later named for Brady. Despite his ailments, Brady actually outlived Speakes by a few months, as Speakes also developed Alzheimer's. Both men died in 2014.

Nancy Reagan lived until 2016. George H.W. Bush was re-elected with Reagan in 1984, and elected President in his own right in 1988, but was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992. He lived until 2018.

Agent Jerry Parr lived until 2015. The labor officials who tackled Hinckley weren't so lucky: Both men became ill not long afterward. Frank McNamara died just 6 months after the assassination attempt, only 62 years old; and Alfred Antenucci died in 1984 at 71.

As of March 30, 2022, Agent Tim McCarthy, Officer Thomas Delahanty, Drs. Joseph Giordano and Benjamin Aaron -- and John Hinckley -- are all still alive.

UPDATE: Giordano died in 2025. Despite some halfhearted, and considerably less-than-that-brained, attempts on the lives of both George Bushes, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, there wasn't a serious attempt on the life of another President until Donald Trump in 2024 -- and he wasn't in office at the time, and there is plenty of evidence that that one was staged.

*

March 30, 1981, as I said, was a Monday. It was scheduled as the day of the Final of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, to be held at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Had Reagan died -- or, perhaps, if his life was still considered to be in danger as tipoff approached -- the game might have been postponed. Instead, with the knowledge that he was in recovery, the game went forward, with a moment of silence held after player introductions.

Indiana University beat the University of North Carolina, 63-50. Bobby Knight's Hoosiers included Hall-of-Famer Isiah Thomas. Dean Smith's Tar Heels included Hall-of-Famer James Worthy. (Michael Jordan was in his senior year at Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina, but had committed to play at UNC. Laney was a prominent businessman in Wilmington.)

The Major League Baseball season had not yet begun. Opening Day would not be until April 8, so any games played on this day were still exhibitions in Spring Training, and didn't count. And the National Football League was in its off-season.

Nor were there any games played in the National Basketball Association: Its regular season had ended the day before, and its Playoffs had not yet begun. There were 2 National Hockey League games played. The New York Rangers played the Philadelphia Flyers to a 0-0 tie at Madison Square Garden. And the Boston Bruins and the Buffalo Sabres played to a 2-2 tie at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium.

March 4, 1987: President Reagan's Iran-Contra Speech

March 4, 1987: President Ronald Reagan, the Iran-Contra scandal closing in on him, addresses the nation from the Oval Office.

Three months earlier, he had said, from the same desk, "We did not trade arms, or anything else, for hostages." This had since been exposed as untrue, including by the Tower Commission, chaired by a Reagan ally, former Senator John Tower of Texas.

So either the old man was lying (meaning he was a criminal), or it has been done by his people without his knowledge (which means he was incompetent), or he had simply forgotten (which also means he was incompetent).

Any way you slice it, through either impeachment and conviction, or the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, Ronald Reagan should have been removed from the Presidency for Iran-Contra. Indeed, his own people began to wonder if he was losing it.

Instead, he said the following:

The reason I haven't spoken to you before now is this: You deserve the truth. And as frustrating as the waiting has been, I felt it was improper to come to you with sketchy reports, or possibly even erroneous statements, which would then have to be corrected, creating even more doubt and confusion. There's been enough of that.

First, let me say I take full responsibility for my own actions and for those of my administration. As angry as I may be about activities undertaken without my knowledge, I am still accountable for those activities. As disappointed as I may be in some who served me, I'm still the one who must answer to the American people for this behavior... 

A few months ago, I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true. But the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.

As the Tower board reported, what began as a strategic opening to Iran deteriorated, in its implementation, into trading arms for hostages. This runs counter to my own beliefs, to administration policy, and to the original strategy we had in mind.

After this speech, the country (mostly) accepted his word, and left him alone. The Congressional hearings that began in early May never uncovered any evidence to incriminate Reagan. He was permitted to serve through the end of his term on January 20, 1989. America chose to forget he had committed a crime, an impeachable offense.

On November 5, 1994, Reagan released a statement that he had Alzheimer's disease. Some people suspected this as far back as 1984.

*

March 4, 1987 was a Wednesday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. There were 8 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 102-99 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Gerald Wilkins scored 41 points for the Knicks.

* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Washington Bullets, 117-114 at the Capital Centre in the Washington suburb of Landover, Maryland. Jeff Malone scored 48 points for the Bullets.

* The Boston Celtics beat the Utah Jazz, 123-105 at the Boston Garden. Kevin McHale scored 33 points.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Detroit Pistons, 125-120 in overtime at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. Michael Jordan scored 61 points.

* The Milwaukee Bucks beat the Los Angeles Clippers, 110-100 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. (It's now named the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena.)

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Denver Nuggets, 115-107 at the Reunion Arena in Dallas. Mark Aguirre scored 38 for the Mavs.

* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Seattle SuperSonics, 138-124 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.

* The Houston Rockets beat the Sacramento Kings, 108-102 in overtime at the original ARCO Arena in Sacramento.

And there were 3 games in the NHL:

* The New York Rangers beat their arch-rivals, the New York Islanders, 7-5 at Madison Square Garden.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Winnipeg Jets, 3-2 at the Chicago Stadium.

* And the Edmonton Oilers beat the Vancouver Canucks, 8-5 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

And in English soccer, a North London Derby is played in the League Cup Semifinal. Arsenal come from 1-0 down to defeat arch-rival Tottenham Hotspur, 2-1 at White Hart Lane. David Rocastle scored the winning goal as regular time ran out.

February 10, 1967: The 25th Amendment Is Ratified

February 10, 1967: The legislature of the State of Nevada approves the 25th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. They are the 38th State to do so. With three-quarters of the States having approved the Amendment, it is ratified as part of the Constitution, and takes effect.

The Amendment has 4 Sections:

1. In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.

This was required as a clarification. The 1st time a President had died in office, William Henry Harrison on April 4, 1841, the Constitution wasn't clear whether Vice President John Tyler would merely be the Acting President, or would be the President in full. He interpreted the Constitution as saying he was the President in full, and served out the rest of Harrison's term.

That set the precedent for each successive occurrence: July 9, 1850, Zachary Taylor to Millard Fillmore; April 15, 1865, Abraham Lincoln to Andrew Johnson; September 19, 1881, James Garfield to Chester Arthur; September 14, 1901, William McKinley to Theodore Roosevelt; August 2, 1923, Warren Harding to Calvin Coolidge; April 12, 1945, Franklin D. Roosevelt to Harry Truman; and November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy to Lyndon B. Johnson. On none of those occasions was the Vice President being treated as the new President in full seriously questioned.

However, every time the Vice President filled the vacancy in the office of the President, that created a vacancy in the office of the Vice President. And the original text of the Constitution provided no means of filling that vacancy, other than the next election of a President and a Vice President. Therefore, Section 2 of this Amendment was necessary: 

2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.

In addition to the examples provided above, vacancies in the office of Vice President had included: April 20, 1812, George Clinton died; November 23, 1814, Elbridge Gerry died; December 28, 1832, John C. Calhoun resigned (not as a result of scandal); April 18, 1853, William Rufus King died; November 22, 1875, Henry Wilson died; November 25, 1885, Thomas A. Hendricks died; November 21, 1899, Garret Hobart died; and October 30, 1912, James S. Sherman died.

On October 2, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke which left him paralyzed on one side of his body. So, for the last year and a half of his 2nd term, he was still alive, but his health left him incapable of carrying out the duties of the office. And he had come to distrust his Vice President, Thomas R. Marshall.

No President had ever resigned to that point, and Wilson, determined to get the U.S. Senate to approve the Treaty of Versailles, refused to hand the job over to Marshall. (The Senate did not approve the treaty.) And there was no constitutional means to force Wilson's hand: He would have to die, or change his mind about resignation. He refused to do that, and it was hard enough to convince him to not run for a 3rd term in 1920. He lived out his term, and died 3 years after that.

This was right after World War I, but before the great growth of the federal government as a result of FDR's New Deal and the building of the military-industrial complex needed to win World War II. So it could have been a lot worse.

And the potential for it to get worse was there. To the general public, FDR's death was a shock; but to those who knew him, it was not a surprise. His smoking had given him heart disease, and the pressures of the war had given him very high blood pressure.

In 1955, Dwight D. Eisenhower suffered a heart attack. In 1957, Eisenhower suffered a stroke. There was no constitutional means for Vice President Richard Nixon to temporarily take command. And in 1965, LBJ underwent surgery to remove his gallbladder. The Amendment was then being voted on by the States, but there was still no means for Vice President Hubert Humphrey, elected when LBJ was elected to a full term in 1964, to take command.

Therefore, Sections 3 and 4 were necessary:

3. Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.

And then there had to be a provision for when the President is unable to make the determination himself:

4. Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.

In this case, "the executive department" is the Cabinet. In other words, if the Cabinet believes that the President is physically or mentally incapable of carrying out the office, they can remove him, and install the Vice President. If the President actually is mentally capable of making his own decisions -- or if he believes that he is -- Section 4 allows him the constitutional means to fight back. And that provided the potential for the biggest constitutional crisis in the nation's history.

From the Amendment's adoption in 1967 through 2021, the 25th Amendment has been invoked on these occasions:

* October 10, 1973, Section 2: Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in scandal. On October 12, Richard Nixon, by this point President, and himself mired in scandal, appointed House Minority Leader Gerald Ford to be Vice President. Ford was qualified, and well-liked by both parties, and, although hearings as to his fitness for the office were necessary, there was never any doubt that Congress would confirm him. They did so on December 6. But Ford did not serve the entirety of the rest of Agnew's term as Vice President, because...

* August 9, 1974, Section 1: Nixon resigned, and Ford was sworn in as President.

* December 19, 1974, Section 2: Ford had appointed former Governor Nelson Rockefeller of New York to be Vice President. Although not as popular with Congress as Ford -- even some Republicans didn't trust him, because he wasn't conservative enough, dooming his bids for President in 1960, '64 and '68 -- he was confirmed, mainly because it had been a long 2 years in Washington, and nobody really wanted a fight. Ford served the rest of Nixon's term as President, and Rockefeller served the rest of Agnew's term as Vice President.

* July 13, 1985, Section 3: President Ronald Reagan signed a letter noting his temporary disability, and underwent cancer surgery. He signed a second letter reclaiming the powers and duties of the office. Vice President George H.W. Bush was Acting President from 11:28 AM to 7:22 PM (in each case, Eastern Time), and there was no issue with Reagan returning to the job. Whether Reagan's later-acknowledged Alzheimer's disease had already begun to take effect before he left office on January 20, 1989 has been debated, but no action was taken in regard to that possibility. Bush was elected President in his own right in 1988, and his son was elected in 2000.

* June 29, 2002, Section 3: President George W. Bush transferred power to Vice President Dick Cheney, so that he could undergo a colonoscopy. Cheney held the office from 7:09 to 9:24 AM. Democrats had already been joking that Bush was just a puppet, and Cheney was "the real President" anyway. But Cheney took no dictatorial action in his 135 minutes as Acting President, though he did hold 2 meetings.

* July 21, 2007, Section 3: Bush underwent another colonoscopy, and Cheney had the power of the Presidency from 7:16 to 9:21 AM. Again, Cheney took no action as Acting President. This time, he didn't even leave the official Vice Presidential residence and go to the White House.

* November 19, 2021: Section 3: President Joe Biden underwent a colonoscopy, and Vice President Kamala Harris became the 1st woman ever to hold the power of the Presidency, from 10:10 to 11:35 AM. As of February 10, 2022, no details of her activities during those 85 minutes has been released. Nevertheless, there was no emergency, foreign or domestic, that required her to take action.

President Bill Clinton was caught up in scandal for most of 1998. Early on, there was the question of whether he would resign, and who Vice President Al Gore would select as his Vice President under Section 2. Clinton never resigned, and, though impeached, there was never any question that he would be acquitted, and he and Gore served out their respective terms.

Likewise, Donald Trump's time as President was one scandal after another, and he became the only President ever to be impeached twice. But with a firewall of protection from the Republican-controlled Senate, there was no way he was going to be convicted and removed, thus elevating Vice President Mike Pence to the Presidency, invoking Sections 1 and 2.

Nor did Trump consider invoking Section 3 after he caught COVID on October 2, 2020 -- 101 years to the day after Woodrow Wilson's stroke -- and was hospitalized for 3 days. Nor did the Cabinet consider invoking Section 4 at that time.

Through February 10, 2022, Section 4 has never been invoked. As far as is publicly known, there have been 4 occasions on which it was seriously considered:

* March 30, 1981: Reagan was shot in an assassination attempt. Reagan did not invoke Section 3. Vice President Bush was on a plane, and he ordered it turned around and flown back to Washington. By the time he landed, Reagan was out of surgery. Bush held Cabinet meetings until Reagan was released from the hospital on April 12, but he and the Cabinet never invoked Section 4.

Dr. Daniel Ruge, Physician to the President, later said that he should have told Reagan, while he was still conscious, to invoke Section 3, and that, in light of that not happening, Bush and the Cabinet should have invoked Section 4.

* February 27, 1987: Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker took office as White House Chief of Staff on this day. He had been one of Reagan's competitors in the Republican Primaries in 1980, and Reagan had enjoyed watching Baker get his policies through the Senate. Some White House employees went to Baker, and told him to look for signs of Reagan's cognitive decline, and consider invoking Section 4. But Reagan seemed all right that day, and the question did not come up again.

Dr. Ruge only served as Physician to the President in Reagan's 1st term, and claimed he saw no evidence of cognitive decline. But he wasn't there during the 2nd term.

* May 9, 2017: Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, one of many actions he took that seemed too crazy for a President to do. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein approached Pence to discuss the possibility of invoking Section 4, but Pence has denied that the invocation was going to be seriously considered.

* January 6, 2021: The Capitol Insurrection. Demonstrators chanted, "Hang Mike Pence!" Pence was not hanged, but, this time, he did seriously consider asking the Cabinet to invoke Section 4. But with the insurrectionists dispersed, and the Electoral Vote certified, and Trump having just 2 weeks left in office, Pence decided there was no point. There was: Trump was never mentally fit for the Presidency.

On the 2002-03 season finale of the NBC drama The West Wing, Zoey Bartlet (played by Elisabeth Moss), daughter of President Jed Bartlet (Martin Sheen), was kidnapped. The President thought he was psychologically compromised by this, so he invoked Section 3. Since the Vice President, John Hoynes (Tim Matheson), had resigned due to scandal, and no new Vice President had yet been confirmed, this transferred power to the next man in line, the Speaker of the House of Representatives. This was Glenn Walken (John Goodman), meaning the Presidency passed from a Democrat to a Republican.

Walken held the office for 3 days, until Zoey was rescued in the 2nd episode of the next season, and, invoking Section 3 a 2nd time, Bartlet reclaimed the office. Both transitions of power were peaceful.

*

John Tyler, the Vice President whose rise to the Presidency forced the question, but didn't get a definitive answer for another 126 years, had served Virginia in both houses of Congress, and had served a term as Governor. In order to make their Presidential nominee, William Henry Harrison, more appealing nationwide, the Whig Party nominated Tyler, a Democrat, on their ticket.

It was the 1st rhyming ticket in Presidential history, as songs were written with the words, "Tippecanoe and Tyler too!"

Harrison Statue, Cincinnati

Most of Harrison's Cabinet resigned shortly into Tyler's term, and the Whigs expelled him from the Party, dubbing him "His Accidency." He vetoed more bills than the previous 9 Presidents combined, and was the 1st President to have one of his vetoes overridden by Congress. 

On his last full day in office, he signed a bill annexing Texas. In 1861, with Virginia having seceded from the Union, he was elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, but died early the next year, without having taken his seat.

Under the law then in effect, the next person in the line of succession after the Vice President was the President Pro Tempore of the Senate -- in other words, the Vice Vice President. So if something happened to Tyler from April 6, 1841 to May 31, 1842, the next President of the United States would have been Senator Samuel Southard of New Jersey; and from then until March 4, 1845, Senator Willie Mangum of North Carolina.

The City and the County of Tyler, in Texas, and its high school, are named for John Tyler. Virginia Route 5, between Richmond and Williamsburg, is named the John Tyler Highway. Tyler's plantation, Sherwood Forest in Charles City, is on that Highway; while Harrison's, Berkeley Plantation, is just off it, 11 miles away.

Tyler Tomb, Richmond, Virginia

Thomas Ewing, a once-and-future Senator from Ohio, served as Secretary of the Treasury for the start of the Harrison-Tyler term. In 1849, President Zachary Taylor named him the 1st U.S. Secretary of the Interior. He is the only man to be appointed to the Cabinet by 2 Presidents who then died in office. He was the last surviving member of Harrison's Cabinet, and also the last of Tyler's Cabinet, living until 1871.

Harrison was played by Douglass Dumbrille in Ten Gentlemen from West Point in 1942, James Seay in The Brave Warrior in 1952, and David Clennon in Tecumseh in 1994. There are at least 6 towns, including one in Hudson County, New Jersey, named for Harrison; and 4 Counties: In Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Mississippi.

Harrison, Ohio is home to a William Henry Harrison High School. So are Evansville, Indiana, near Harrison's Grouseland mansion; West Lafayette, Indiana, home of Purdue University, and not far from the site of the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where Harrison's victory got him the nickname "Old Tippecanoe" (or "Old Tip" for short).

Though born in Virginia, as was Tyler, Harrison was the 1st President to represent Ohio, and the 1st President to represent Indiana.

NOTE: My cutoff date for this project is 1869, the year of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, the 1st openly professional baseball team, and the 1st American football game. I had managed to work in references to most pre-1869 Presidents. This was the only way I could think of to do it for "Tippecanoe," or for Tyler, too.

*

February 10, 1967 was a Friday. Actress Laura Dern was born, to actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd. Writer-director Vince Gilligan, creator of the TV series Breaking Bad, was also born that day.

Baseball and football were out of season. And no NHL games were scheduled. But there were 4 games played in the NBA that night:

* The New York Knicks beat the Chicago Bulls, 122-121 at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. This was the Bulls' 1st season. They moved to the Chicago Stadium the next season.

* The Boston Celtics beat the San Francisco Warriors, 137-136 in double overtime at the Boston Garden. For the Celtics, John Havlicek scored 28 points, and Bill Russell had 19 points and 32 rebounds. For the Warriors, Rick Barry had 43 points.

* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Los Angeles Lakers, 148-131 at the Philadelphia Civic Center. For the Sixers, soon to win their 1st NBA Championship, Wilt Chamberlain scored 37, had 24 rebounds and 12 assists. At the time, blocked shots were not kept as a statistic. He probably had at least 10. This would have been a quadruple-double. For most players, this would have been the game of a lifetime. For Wilt, it was just another day at the office.

* And the Cincinnati Royals beat the Detroit Pistons, 133-104 at the Cincinnati Gardens.