July 10, 1792:George Dallas' Birthday

Millard Fillmore fans know that 157 years ago today he took the oath of office as the 13th President of the United States. For more on him and his achievements, see January 7.

Fillmore may be the nation's most obscure president, but vice presidents always trump presidents in obscurity. George M. Dallas, the 11th Vice President of the United States, serving during James K. Polk's term, was born this day in 1792 in Philadelphia.

The city in Texas may be named for him, but that isn't quite clear. According to the Dallas Historical Society: "Over the years, there has been a lot of debate about the name Dallas. We know that Dallas County was named for George Mifflin Dallas... However, all that is known about the origin of Dallas for the name of the city is that John Neely Bryan named it for 'his friend, Dallas' There are several candidates for whom this friend might be.

"The town was known as Dallas early in 1842. At that time, George Dallas was a practicing lawyer in Philadelphia. He had never been very far west, and Bryan had never been very far east, so it's doubtful they ever met..."

In any case, George M. Dallas, a Jacksonian Democrat, was variously a prominent attorney in Philadelphia, mayor of that city, US Senator from Pennsylvania, and US Minster to Russia before becoming vice president; and US Minister to Britain afterwards. As for the vice presidency, he had this to say:

"Except that he is President of the Senate, [the vice president] forms no part of the government:—he enters into no administrative sphere:—he has practically no legislative, executive, or judicial functions:—while the Senate sits, he presides, that's all:—he doesn't debate or vote, (except to end a tie) he merely preserves the order and courtesy of business . . . [When Congress is in recess] where is he to go? what has he to do?—no where, nothing! He might, to be sure, meddle with affairs of state, rummage through the departments, devote his leisure to the study of public questions and interests, holding himself in readiness to counsel and to help at every emergency in the great onward movement of the vast machine:—But, then, recollect, that this course would sometimes be esteemed intrusive, sometimes factious, sometimes vain and arrogant, and, as it is prescribed by no law, it could not fail to be treated lightly because guaranteed by no responsibility."

July 9, 1850:Zachary Taylor Dies

Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States, got sick on July 4, 1850, and grew progressively worse after that with fever, abdominal discomfort, nausea, and cramps. Doctors gave him calomel and opium, and toward the end bled him. None of that did any good, and he died on July 9, the second president to die in office, a little more than nine years after William Henry Harrison.

It's not so remarkable that he was carried off by some infectious disease in 1850, which killed a lot of people. Perhaps more remarkable is that he survived as long as he did during his military career, which began in 1808. During his service, he suffered yellow fever, dysentery, malaria, and assorted other fevers and sicknesses -- the lot of the pre-modern soldier. As president, he spend much of the summer of 1849 ill with severe diarrhea and fever, and the nation feared for his life at that time. So the 66-year-old Taylor wasn't in the best shape by the summer of 1850, and Washington City wasn't a particularly healthy place to live in those days.

Taylor left behind one of the notable what-ifs of presidential history. Would he have supported about the Compromise of 1850, as his successor, President Fillmore, did? And if not, what would have happened? An early attempt at secession successfully suppressed in person by President Taylor, as a commander in the field, that would ward off disunion for a generation? A bungled military attempt by the president that would ensure Southern independence? Something else not involving Taylor's military experience?

July 9 is also the day, in 1896, that William Jennings Bryan gave the speech that made him famous and won him the first of three nominations by the Democratic Party for president. For more on the "Cross of Gold" speech, see March 19.

July 8, 1957:Grace Coolidge Dies

Grace Coolidge, nee Goodhue, died 50 years ago today, unless reports that she died a little before midnight on July 7, the anniversary of one of her son's death, are correct. She married future president Calvin Coolidge in 1905 and survived him by nearly a quarter-century.

She among the most enthusiastic baseball fans ever to live in the White House, according to baseball writer David Pietrusza. "...during the Roaring Twenties, the First Lady could be regularly seen at Washington's Griffith Stadium, often chatting with Senators players (the Coolidges attended the wedding of Senators 'Boy Wonder' manager Bucky Harris in October, 1926 -- of course, Harris had married the daughter of an administration official, Alien Property Custodian Howard Sutherland) and keeping hubby Calvin from bolting the park after perfunctorily performing his duties as ceremonial first-ball tosser," writes Pietrusza in "Grace Coolidge, First Lady of Baseball."

" 'She used to come to games,' Harris recalled, 'and sit right by the Senators' dugout. She came to the games with Cal and stayed there when the President would leave early. and then she'd come to other games alone.

" 'All the Washington players knew her and spoke to her. she was the most rabid fan I ever knew in the White House.'

"During the first game of the 1924 World Series which featured the local Senators versus John McGraw's New York Giants, the president, never one to idle time on entertainments, suddenly stood up to leave. Washington had never been in a World Series before. The immortal Walter Johnson was on the mound. It was the ninth inning, the score knotted at 2-2. Grace Coolidge sputtered, 'Where do you think you're going? You sit down,' as she grabbed his coat tails.

"The chief executive sat right back down."

Also, Nelson A. Rockefeller, 41st Vice President of the United States, would have been 99 today. He never realized his dream of capturing the presidency, and never in fact was nominated for that position or the vice presidency by the Republican Party. He remains only one of two people appointed the job under rules specified by the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution.

Curiously, Nelson A. shared a birthday with his grandfather, patriarch John D. Rockefeller Sr., born July 8, 1839. The elder Rockefeller lived to be nearly 98, and presumably didn't die in the company of a young mistress.

July 7, 1865:Lincoln Assassination Conspirators Executed

Unlike the other presidential assassinations, the murder of President Lincoln actually was the result of a conspiracy, and by the summer of 1865, the federal government had dispensed punishment to those it determined were in on the plot. It did so in an unorthodox way, through a military commission, which raised eyebrows then, as it still does.

Still, for conspirators such as Lewis Powell and David Herold, there was no question of their guilt -- Powell had attacked Secretary of State William Seward, and Herold was with him. Later Herold was captured at the same time that John Wilkes Booth was shot dead. George Atzerodt was likewise clearly guilty of conspiring to kill Vice President Johnson, though he chickened out when it came time to try.

But what about Mary Surratt, owner of the boarding house where the plot was hatched? It seems likely that she knew what was going on, and perhaps even helped, but the evidence isn't absolutely conclusive. A shadow of a doubt might have saved her in a civilian court, but the military commission thought she was guilty.

"On June 29, 1865, the Military Commission met in secret session to begin its review of the evidence in the seven-week long trial," wrote Douglas Linder in Famous American Trials. "A guilty verdict could come with a majority vote of the nine-member commission; death sentences required the votes of six members. The next day, it reached its verdicts. The Commission found each of the prisoners guilty of at least one of the conspiracy charges. Four of the prisoners (Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, George Atzerodt, and David Herold) were sentenced 'to be hanged by the neck until he [or she] be dead.' Samuel Arnold, Dr. Samuel Mudd and Michael O'Laughlen were sentenced to 'hard labor for life, at such place at the President shall direct.' Edman Spangler received a six-year sentence.

"The Commission forwarded its sentences and the trial record to President Johnson for his review. Five of the nine Commission members, in the transmitted record, recommended to the President -- because of 'her sex and age' -- that he reduce Mary Surratt's punishment to life in prison. On July 5, Johnson approved all of the Commission's sentences, including the death sentence for Surratt.

"Surratt's lawyers mounted a frantic effort to save their client's life, hurriedly preparing a petition for habeas corpus that evening. The next morning, Surratt's attorneys succeeded in convincing Judge Wylie of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to issue the requested writ. President Johnson quashed the effort to save Surratt from an afternoon hanging when he issued an order suspending the writ of habeas corpus 'in cases such as this.'

"Shortly after one-thirty on the afternoon of July 7, 1865, the trap of the gallows installed in the courtyard of the Old Arsenal Building was sprung, and the four condemned prisoners fell to their deaths. Reporters covering the event reported that the last words from the gallows stand came from George Atzerodt who said, just before he fell, 'May we meet in another world.' "

July 6, 1921:Nancy Reagan's Birthday

Though no one knew it at the time, the only movie ever made to star both a president and first lady was 1957's Hellcats of the Navy, a submarine picture with Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis, who turns 86 today. Davis had married Reagan in 1951, a few years after his marriage with another actress, Jane Wyman, ended. It was Nancy's last picture; her husband's was The Killers in 1964, just before he started on the political path that would take the both of them to the White House in the 1980s.

For a Hollywood marriage, the Reagans' was remarkably durable: about 53 years. That's also quite long among presidential marriages, only a few of which have been over 50 years. Both John Adams and his son John Qunicy were married over 50 years, and in the 20th century, besides the Reagans, the Trumans, Eisenhowers and Nixons also celebrated golden wedding anniversaries. George H.W. and Barbara Bush have been married the longest thus far, however, over 62 years now.

As for Hellcats of the Navy, "Submarine movies are almost an entire genre unto themselves... [for example], there has to be a 'silent running' scene where the crew hunker down as quiet as church mice and try to avoid detection by an enemy destroyer," notes the movie review web site Rotten Tomatoes. "The destroyer naturally detects the sub at some point, and men brace themselves against the impact of depth charges. Damage ensues, with water leaking in and spraying about.

"Hellcats of the Navy is no exception, following the requirements of the submarine genre to the letter. There are also several conventions of war films that this movie follows; some characters are killed in action, of course, and they tend to be exactly the ones a viewer would expect. If this were an episode of Star Trek, they would all have been wearing red shirts. There is also a fairly unrealistic moment where Commander Abbott [Reagan] dons a wetsuit and ventures outside the sub by himself to try to effect important repairs; this is, of course, strictly a Hollywood idea, and one could easily imagine William Shatner doing exactly the same thing.

"Another war movie cliché is the love triangle, involving a conveniently placed nurse. The nurse in this case is Lt. Helen Blair, played of course by future First Lady Nancy Davis. Her triangle involves Abbott, who recently ended a relationship with her, and Wes Barton, an officer aboard Abbott's sub, who has been seeing her on the rebound. Davis isn't given much to do in her part, but she does a good job of playing the slightly war-weary realist. Hers is a role that calls for a certain maturity, not starry-eyed romantic innocence, and she does well with what she has to work with. The conventions of the genre would normally call for her to be merely a prize for Abbott and Barton to fight over, but both the script and her performance give her an identity and strength beyond what one might normally expect."

Today is also George W. Bush's birthday (61), but he is still very much with us.

July 5, 1902: Henry Cabot Lodge Jr.'s Birthday

Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., grandson of the famed Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge who was President Wilson's nemesis on the League of Nations, is himself a presidential history footnote. For one thing, in 1952 he was Dwight Eisenhower's campaign manager. At the same time, he was running for re-election to the US Senate from Massachusetts, but lost that contest to John F. Kennedy.

His services to Eisenhower did not go unrewarded, however, and the new president made Lodge ambassador to the United Nations. He clearly didn't share his grandfather's disdain for international organizations.

Lodge never ran for president himself, but in 1960 he was Richard Nixon's running mate, and lost the vice presidency by the same paper-thin margin that put Kennedy and Johnson into office that year. Later, on March 10, 1964, in something of a surprise, he won the New Hampshire Republican primary, capturing a little more than 33,000 votes, or 35.5 percent of the votes cast, as a write-in candidate. He had had a small, but dedicated band of supporters in that state, it seems.

Lodge's surprise in New Hampshire didn't give him any momentum in the rest of the contest for the nomination. The party's ultimate nominee, Barry Goldwater, was second in the New Hampshire primary that year, just ahead of Nelson Rockefeller. Richard Nixon, another write-in, was fourth, and poor old Harold Stassen was sixth -- behind Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, the first woman to be elected in her own right to both the US House and Senate.

July 4, 1826:A Most Remarkable Coincidence

It's one of the first facts that presidential enthusiasts learn: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died on the same day of the same year, and not just any day of any year, but July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years to the day that the United States declared independence. Seldom do lifespans dovetail so neatly with historical anniversaries.

Adams and Jefferson weren't the only presidents to die on Independence Day, however. James Monroe did as well, but five years later in 1831, and thus July 4 is the only day in all of the calendar to claim three chief executives. Only two dates have claimed two: March 8 (Fillmore and Taft) and December 26 (Truman and Ford).

The only vice president to die on July 4 -- not counting Adams and Jefferson, who held that post before the presidency -- was Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, Lincoln's first vice president. He held on until the summer of 1891.

Only one president celebrated his birthday on the Fourth of July, Calvin Coolidge, who was born in 1872. Coolidge also happens to be the only vice president ever born on that patriotic day.

July 3, 1754 & 1775: Pivotal Days for Washington

July 3, 1754, was a miserable day for Lt. Colonel George Washington, 22. After a day's fighting, he was obliged to negotiate the surrender of his position, known to history as Ft. Necessity, in western Pennsylvania. The British under Washington had just lost the first skirmish of a worldwide war with the French, whose North American theater is known as the French and Indian War.

According to the National Park Service: "On the morning of July 3, a force of about 600 French and 100 Indians approached the fort. After the French took up positions in the woods, Washington withdrew his men to the entrenchments. Rain fell throughout the day, flooding the marshy ground. Both sides suffered casualties, but the British losses were greater than French and Indian losses.

"The fighting continued sporadically until about 8 p.m. Then Capt. Louis Coulon de Villiers, commander of the French force... requested a truce to discuss the surrender of Washington's command. Near midnight, after several hours of negotiation, the terms were reduced to writing and signed by Washington and Mackay. The British were allowed to withdraw with the honors of war, retaining their baggage and weapons, but having to surrender their swivel guns. The British troops left Fort Necessity for Wills Creek on the morning of July 4, From there they marched back to Virginia. The French burned Fort Necessity and afterwards returned to Fort Duquesne."

Things were a lot different 21 exactly years later. One the same day in July, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the middle-aged Washington assumed command of the colonial forces fighting British regulars -- and not even yet for independence.

From "Washington Takes Charge" by Joseph J. Ellis in the January 2005 Smithsonian magazine: "The siege of Boston from June 1775 to March 1776 marked Washington’s debut as commander in chief. Here, for the first time, he encountered the logistical challenges he would face during the ensuing years of the war. He met many of the men who would comprise his general staff for the duration. And here he demonstrated both the strategic instincts and the leadership skills that would sustain him, and sometimes lead him astray, until the glorious end.

"The story of the siege can be told in one sentence: Washington’s makeshift army kept more than 10,000 British troops bottled up in the city for more than nine months, at which point the British sailed away to Halifax. Less a battle than a marathon staring match, the conflict exposed the anomalous political circumstance created by the Continental Congress, which was prepared to initiate war a full year before it was ready to declare American independence.

"Although Washington subsequently claimed that he knew by the early fall of 1775 that King George III was determined to pursue a military rather than political solution to the imperial crisis, he went along with the prevalent fiction that the British garrison in Boston contained 'Ministerial Troops,' meaning that they did not represent the king’s wishes so much as those of evil and misguided ministers."

July 2, 1881:President James A. Garfield Shot

In the summer of 1881, a delusional office-seeker named Charles Guiteau shot James Garfield, who had been president only since March of that year, at Sixth Street Station of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad in Washington, DC. One bullet grazed the president's arm, the other lodged in his chest.

For Guiteau's fate, see June 30. As for Garfield, the ever-informative Dr. Zebra notes that, "At his trial, the assassin Guiteau admitted shooting the President, but denied killing him. Instead, he claimed that Garfield's physicians killed him. Although Guiteau was executed because his defense was not strong enough, he was probably correct.

"Garfield's original wound was 3.5 inches long, and ended with the bullet lodged in a harmless part of the abdomen. The wound was probed by the fingers of numerous physicians during the rest of Garfield's life so that, by the time of his death, the wound track was 20 inches long and oozing pus.

"It seems reasonable that the terminal event in Garfield's life was a myocardial infarction. However, the wound could have contributed to the terminal event in three ways, all of them derived from the fact that Garfield was mightily infected for a period of three months:

1. It seems reasonable to suppose that Garfield had anemia of chronic disease, which would have lowered the ischemic threshold.
2. Chronic infection could have led to amyloidosis. If it affected the heart, then it is not surprising that an ischemic event would have been so rapidly fatal.
3. It is becoming increasingly clear that coronary atherosclerosis is an inflammatory, perhaps infectious, disease. It is possible that Garfield's chronic inflammation and infection could have accelerated atherosclerosis."

Also: On July 2, 1932, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention in 1932 in Chicago. It was the first of FDR's great radio speeches, and "New Deal" entered the American political lexicon at that time.

On July 2, 1964, Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a bill whose passage owed much to the new president's political skills. Its more formal title includes "To enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes."

July 1, 1898:TR at Kettle & San Juan Hills

Teddy Roosevelt, who grew up hearing stories of the Great Rebellion, hankered for a piece of that kind of action for himself, and he got his chance in Cuba during the war with Spain. After the outbreak for hostilities, Roosevelt gave up his post as assistant secretary of the Navy and was instrumental in organizing the 1st US Cavalry Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, which is much better known by their nickname "Rough Riders."

According to Scott Mingus Jr., writing in "Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders at Kettle Hill" at MilitaryHistory.com: "Around noon [on July 1, 1898], the First Infantry Division began their assault on San Juan Hill with the support of General Joseph Wheeler's Cavalry. Seeing the attack on adjacent San Juan Hill starting, Roosevelt still in position in reserve below Kettle Hill became more and more impatient. Finally he was given the command to start the Rough Riders' assault up Kettle Hill. Roosevelt, feeling very excited, began to ride up and down the line urging the men forward. Seeing Roosevelt personally urging them forward, momentum quickly spread and finally the entire regiment was on the move forward, passing the forward lines of other American units...

"As the American cavalry and infantry reached the lower slopes of the hill, Spanish fire became more deadly and more accurate. But... the Rough Riders and their supports continued to steadily climb the hill. As the Americans reached the second fenceline, it became apparent to the Spanish defenders that to avoid hand-to-hand combat, they must withdraw. ...then they began to withdraw.'

"Reaching the top of the hill, the Rough Riders established some initial defensive measures to secure the area as the Spanish on the higher San Juan Hill began to fire upon them. Seeing that the attack on the adjacent height was not going too well as heavy fire and other obstacles were stopping the forward progress, Roosevelt himself decided to lead a charge, a decision reinforced when three Gatling guns got to the top of Kettle Hill to support an attack.

"Shouting for his men to follow, he jumped over a barbed wire fence and ran down the slope. Roosevelt ran about one hundred yards when he turned around to notice that only five of his troopers had followed him down the slope into the swale between Kettle and San Juan Hills. Roosevelt turned around and returned to the crest of Kettle Hill where his troopers claimed they did not hear his order to charge. Forming them quickly into an assault line, Roosevelt again ordered the charge.

"This time, the entire regiment with support from other nearby forces went forward towards San Juan Hill.... By two thirty in the afternoon, the entire heights were possession of the American troops. With the victory at San Juan Heights, the Americans were able to move into the city of Santiago and establish a good offensive position to fire on the Spanish fleet in the harbor. With the subsequent destruction of the Spanish fleet from an attack from Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, the Americans were able to win the battle, and force and early end to the war.

"Theodore Roosevelt's personal actions at the battle of San Juan Heights would win him the nation's highest military honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor.... His enthusiasm, confidence, bravery, and high regard for his troopers would him enduring fame with his Rough Riders, who associated victory solely with Roosevelt, not with their actual commander Leonard Wood, who has all but been forgotten by history."

Curiously, Roosevelt didn't receive the Medal of Honor in his lifetime; he wasn't nearly as popular with the establishment in Washington as with the public after his deeds on the San Juan Heights. The medal was awarded to him posthumously by President Clinton toward the end of his administration in January 2001. In receiving it, TR became the only president ever to win a Congressional Medal of Honor.

June 30, 1882:Charles Guiteau Hanged

The 19th century wasn't shy about showing murderers the business end of a noose, and that was the fate of Charles Julius Guiteau (pictured), hanged this day in 1882, just short of a year after shooting James Garfield, 20th President of the United States. President Garfield would have surely lived had he been shot a few decades later, since medical science would have been up to the task of saving him. Guiteau might have survived in later years as well, with an acceptance of an insanity plea. But not in the early 1880s.

History House describes Guiteau's trial: "Garfield died on September 19 [1881], sending Guiteau into a short period of fervid prayer. It dawned on Guiteau that his mission really had been divine; after all, how else could God dictate Garfield's death and deny the prayers of so many other god-fearing Americans? On October 14, Guiteau was arraigned..."

His defence: "I plead not guilty to the indictment and my defense is threefold: 1. Insanity, in that it was God's act and not mine. The Divine pressure on me to remove the president was so enormous that it destroyed my free agency, and therefore I am not legally responsible for my act. 2. The president died from malpractice ...if he had been well treated he would have recovered. 3. The president died in New Jersey, and, therefore, beyond the jurisdiction of this court."

The jury was having none of it: "On January 23, the jury deliberated for less than an hour before sending Guiteau to the gallows. Even after the sentencing, he tried to cash in on his new-found celibrity. He tried to sell the suit he shot Garfield in for $100; he sold his autographs or autographed pictures ($9 a dozen, advertised in local newspapers).

"On June 30, he awoke to be led to his death. He requested the flowers doubtlessly sent by his legions of admirers be sent to his cell, only to be told there were none. He recited an interminable, repetitious, self-penned poem while standing before the noose ("I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad/ I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad/ I am going to the Lordy, I am so glad," etc.), and the State promptly stretched his neck for the assassination of President James A. Garfield. The crowd of thousands cheered."

The full article is here.

June 29, 1852:Henry Clay Dies

In the antebellum years, Henry Clay was one of the leading politicians of the nation, and before the end of his life, known as "the Great Compromiser." Perhaps it's fortunate that he didn't live to see the nation rupture in the 1860s. In early 1850, speaking on behalf of legislation that would become the Compromise of 1850, Clay said: "I implore, as the best blessing which Heaven can bestow upon me upon Earth, that if the direful and sad event of the dissolution of the Union shall happen, I may not survive to behold the sad and heart-rending spectacle."

Clay was never president, but had aspirations for that office, and played a pivotal role in the election of 1824, which was decided in the US House of Representatives. Clay was Speaker of the House at the time, and threw his support behind John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson, whom Clay hated. Adams won and shortly thereafter appointed Clay as his Secretary of State. Jackson's supporters called it a "corrupt bargain" and the ill-will it caused was one of the elements of Adam's defeat in 1828.

From the Library of Congress' American Memory series: "Representing the state of Kentucky in the U.S. Congress, Clay eloquently promoted the 'American System,' his plan to support domestic industry and agriculture (and reduce dependence on imports) through improved transportation routes, a protective tariff, and a national bank. In 1820, he negotiated the passage of the first of the three pieces of legislation that earned him the titles of the 'Great Pacificator' and the 'Great Compromiser.' The Missouri Compromise, the first piece of legislation, soothed the anxieties of both Southern and Northern factions by maintaining a balance between the number of states that permitted slavery and those that prohibited slavery.

"Clay was unsuccessful in his bid to become presidential candidate of the Democratic Republican Party in 1824. He then gave his support to John Quincy Adams and when Adams won the election, he appointed Clay secretary of state. Clay again failed in his bids to become the presidential candidate of the National Republican Party in 1832 and of the Whig Party in 1844. His opposition to the annexation of Texas—because the state's entry into the Union would have upset the balance of slave and free states—cost him the presidential election of 1844. Nonetheless, he remained a guiding force in American political life, exercising leadership in both the House and the Senate."

June 28, 1836:James Madison Dies

Even a unsympathetic revisionist like Richard K. Matthews in If Men Were Angels: James Madison and Heartless Empire of Reason (1995) offers an amazing list of the if the "major political positions" of James Madison, Fourth President of the United States:

"He was in the forefront of the movement for a new constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation; architect of the Virginia Plan, champion of a strong central government, and unofficial but dedicated note-taker of the proceedings at the Philadelphia convention; a persuasive rhetorician both at the Virginia ratifying convention and as the political propagandist Publius -- one of the two principal authors of The Federalist; leader of the inaugural House of Representatives where he proved to be a reluctant, but ultimately forceful champion of the Bill of Rights, helped organize the new central government, and served as ghostwriter and adviser to President Washington; cofounder of the Republican party; Jefferson's trusted confidant as well as his secretary of state; president during America's second war of independence; and elder statesman, nationalist and protector of the Constitution."

June 27, 1950:Truman and Korea

Some wars have had more than one president preside over them, but only one president has presided over two distinct major wars -- Harry Truman -- though he came to the presidency late in World War II and was out of office before the end of the Korean War. On June 27, 1950, he gave the order for the US armed forces to assist the South Korean government in fighting the North Korean invasion that began on June 24.

A statement from the president that day said: "... in these circumstances I have ordered United States air and sea forces to give the Korean Government troop cover and support. The attack upon Korea makes plain beyond all doubt that Communism has passed beyond its use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war. It has defied the orders the Security Council of the United Nations issued to preserve international peace and security..."

Korea, then, became the hot theater for the Cold War that day. Elsewhere in the statement, President Truman notes that he has ordered the US Seventh Fleet "to prevent any attack on Formosa. As a corollary of this action I am calling upon the Chinese Government on Formosa to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland. The Seventh Fleet will see that this is done." Though skirmishes continued for some time after that between the People's Republic and the Republic of China, that was effectively the end of the Chinese Civil War, and created the political anomaly that Taiwan is today.

Way down in the fifth paragraph, the president also said: "I have similarly directed acceleration in the furnishing of military assistance to the forces of France and the Associated States in Indo China and the dispatch of a military mission to provide close working relations with those forces."

June 26, 1963:Ich bin ein Berliner

On an historic visit to West Berlin in the summer of 1963, President Kennedy made one of his more memorable speeches, known at the time and to history for this line: "All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words, 'Ich bin ein Berliner' "

It was not a reference to a jelly doughnut, as David Emery in About.com explains in reply to a question:

"Dear Guide:

"I have heard and read from several different sources the story that John F. Kennedy made a major German language blunder in his famous 'Ich bin ein Berliner' speech in Berlin, Germany. The story goes that he should have said 'Ich bin Berliner' ('I am a citizen of Berlin'), and that 'Ich bin ein Berliner' really means 'I am a jelly doughnut.' (A Berliner is in fact a type of jelly doughnut made in Berlin.)

"Several years ago when I visited Germany, I found myself having drinks with a German journalist who struck me as fairly intelligent, so I asked her the question. She said that it is certainly not true. President Kennedy said the phrase absolutely correctly, although possibly with a thick American accent... She said that if President Kennedy had said, 'Ich bin Berliner,' he would have sounded silly because with his heavy accent he couldn't possibly have come from Berlin. But by saying 'Ich bin ein Berliner,' he actually said 'I am one with the people of Berlin.' "

"Dear Reader:

"Your friend, the journalist, was on the mark. This is truly The Gaffe That Never Was, despite reports to the contrary in venues as prestigious as the New York Times and Newsweek magazine. Experts say Kennedy's German grammar was flawless when he uttered those words near the Berlin Wall on June 26, 1963. The phrase had been translated for him by a professional interpreter.

"It is true that the word "Berliner" in German denotes a particular kind of jelly-filled pastry as well as a citizen of Berlin. But look at it this way: If I were to tell a group of Americans that my editor is a New Yorker, would any of them really think I've confused him with a well known weekly magazine?

"...while the proper way for a Berlin native to say 'I am a Berliner' is 'Ich bin Berliner,' the proper way for a non-native to make the same statement metaphorically is precisely what Kennedy said: 'Ich bin ein Berliner.' In spite of the fact that it's also the correct way to say 'I am a jelly doughnut,' no adult German speaker could possibly have misunderstood Kennedy's meaning in context."

June 25, 1876: Custer’s Last Stand

Never a president, in fact barely eligible for that office when he died, George Armstrong Custer nevertheless has a connection to the presidency – he managed to piss a president off and nearly miss his appointment with Death on an obscure hill in the Montana Territory, a fate that has made him better known than most 19th-century presidents.

In the spring of 1876, Lt. Col. Custer testified before Congress during an investigation of corruption in the War Department. His testimony, though not ironclad, pretty much confirmed what most people suspected: that Secretary of War William W. Belknap (pictured), and Orville Grant, the president's brother and an Indian agent, were ardent bribe-takers. Later that year, Belknap earned the dubious distinction of becoming the only cabinet member to be impeached by the US House of Representatives.

Naturally, Custer's testimony vexed President Grant, who responded by pulling Custer from his next assignment, which was to take part in a campaign against hostile Cheyennes that summer. Custer wrote to the president, asking him to reconsider: "I appeal to you as a soldier to spare me the humiliation of seeing my regiment march to meet the enemy and I not share its dangers." Perhaps to get the well-known Custer out of his hair for a while, the president relented and sent him along to "share the dangers" of the Indian Wars which, in this case, proved very dangerous indeed.

June 24, 1908:Grover Cleveland Dies

He was fat, loved cigars and beer, and survived an exceedingly dangerous operation in the 1890s to remove a cancer in his jaw, but it wasn't until 1908 that Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States, passed away, apparently of heart disease. He had his run of three-score and ten years, plus one.

From page one of the June 25, 1908, New York Times:

PRINCETON, N.J., June 24. -- Grover Cleveland, twice President of the United States, died at 8:30 o'clock this morning at his home here, with his wife at his bedside. The only others in the sick chamber, besides the nurse were his friend of long standing, Dr. Joseph D. Bryant, and two other physicians. His children were away at the Cleveland New England home, Tamworth, N.H.

"The end came unexpectedly to the general public and to the former President's hosts of friends as well. Its announcement has thrown the Nation into mourning and created profound sorrow in the little university town where he had lived quietly with his family and his books since he withdrew from public life. All day messages attesting their keen regret have poured in here from every part of the country.

"Mr. Cleveland having been in ill-health since last Fall, the hurried arrival of the three physicians at the family home late yesterday gave rise to fears that his illness had taken a serious turn. Mrs. Cleveland set all misgivings at rest by a statement in which she declared her husband safely on the road to recovery.

"Failure of the heart's action following complications of pulminary thrombosis and oedema, is given as the immediate cause of death by Dr. Bryant, who came here from New York on Tuesday.

"For many years Mr. Cleveland had been a victim of severe gastric attacks and a sufferer from rheumatic gout, ailments which, according to his physicians, induced the attack of heart weakness to which he succumbed. With Mrs. Cleveland and Dr. Bryant in the death chamber were Dr. R.L. Lockwood of New York and Dr. J.M. Carnochan of Princeton. Mr. Cleveland's four surviving children, Esther, aged 14; Marion, 12; Richard, 10; and Francis Grover, 5, are at the Cleveland Summer home in New Hampshire with Mrs. Cleveland's mother.

"When it was found that the ex-President would be a long time convalescing from the serious illness which gave his friends so much alarm this Spring, the children were sent to the Summer home Mr. Cleveland built two years ago at Tamworth, N.H. Esther and Richard were summoned after their father's death, and are expected here to-morrow."

June 23, 1972:The Smoking Gun

In a morning conversation on June 23, 1972, between President Richard Nixon and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman (pictured), the two discussed what to do about the break-in at Democratic National Headquarters the week before at the Watergate. They agreed that the best course of action was to tell the FBI to stop its investigation. That and two other conversations about the matter were caught by the Oval Office's tape recording system, and became the essence of the Smoking Gun tape.

The conversations came back to haunt Richard Nixon. In the summer of 1974, the president lost his bid to keep his tapes under wraps, including the Smoking Gun, in the US Supreme Court 8-0. According to the Gerald Ford Presidential Library: "On Monday, August 5 [1974], he released tapes of three conversations between himself and Haldeman recorded six days after the break-in. The text showed the president obstructing justice by ordering the FBI to end its investigation of the break-in. At the Cabinet meeting the next day, Vice President Ford stated that, as 'a party in interest,' he would have no further public comments on the issue. Nixon's remaining support in the House and Senate crumbled."

A transcript and audio file of the Smoking Gun tape is here.

June 22, 1993:Pat Nixon Dies

It's easy to get the impression that as far as public life was concerned, it was "enough already!" for Pat Nixon in the 19 years between 1974 and her death from lung cancer in 1993. (She might well have felt that way after 1960.)

According to firstladies.org, "The immediate years following Nixon's resignation and his and Pat Nixon's return to their San Clemente, California estate "La Casa Pacifica" were difficult. Pat Nixon helped to maintain the former president through a series of traumas, ranging from legal wrangling resulting from his resignation to physical disability. In late 1974, he nearly died from phlebitis and other complications resulting from it, and then suffered through a depression.

  "In July 1976, Pat Nixon suffered a stroke, resulting in the temporary loss of speech and use of her left side. Through a rigorous physical therapy routine, she was able to rehabilitate full use of her motor and speaking skills, but her strength would remain uncertain. She most enjoyed the years following 1980 when she and the former president relocated to the East Coast where they were able to spend time with their children and grandchildren. Pat Nixon only rarely permitted the use of her name for various projects, including a San Clemente historical celebration, a fundraising effort to renovate and re-interpret the Smithsonian Institution's First Lady's exhibit, and a Carter Center conference on women and the U.S. Constitution. As a former First Lady, she only appeared at three public events, the dedication of Pat Nixon School (1975) in the Los Angeles area, named for her; the dedication of the Richard Nixon Birthplace and Museum (1990) in Yorba Linda, California and the dedication of the Ronald Reagan Library and Museum (1991). She accompanied her husband back to China during his first of several return visits to that nation, but never joined him on the four trips he made back to the White House."

June 21, 1774:Daniel D. Thompkins' Birthday

The Sixth Vice President of the United States, Daniel D. Thompkins of New York, holds a number of vice presidential distinctions. He was the second of only seven men to serve two full terms; he was James Monroe's vice president through his entire time in office, from 1817 to 1825. He had the shortest life span of any vice president, dying just before his 51st birthday, when he'd been out of office only 99 days. He was also the last vice president born before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.

And he's the only vice president mentioned in Miracle on 34th Street, during Kris Kringle's "psychological evaluation" by the hostile Mr. Sawyer.

Kris: Excuse me, are you Mr.Sawyer?

Sawyer: Yes. You are?

Kris: Kris Kringle.

Sawyer: Ah, yes. I didn’t recognize you without —

Kris: Without the red suit? Well, I thought it more appropriate for our meeting to wear this.

Sawyer: And that cane – do you always carry that?

Kris: When I’m in street clothes, yes. Made it myself from one of the runners of my sleigh.

Sawyer: Your what?

Kris: My sleigh. And look, that’s a fine silver top, isn’t it? Looks like a sleighbell.

Sawyer (abruptly): Who was the first president of the United States?

Kris: Oh, we’ve moved on to the test, have we? Well, at least try to challenge me, Mr. Sawyer. You’d be better off asking who the Vice President was during the Monroe administration.

Sawyer: Just answer the question.

Kris: Gracious! George Washington.

Sawyer: Thank you.

Kris: The answer to the other one, by the way, is Daniel D. Thompkins, in case you’d like to use it.