August 13, 1914:A Man, A Plan, A Canal

On August 13, 1914, the steamship Christobal, in the service of the US government, made a test run through the Panama Canal in both directions, marking the first passage of a large steamer through its locks. The test was a success. Two days later the canal was officially opened to traffic, with the Ancon making the first official transit of the project that Theodore Roosevelt initiated as president in the early 1900s.

According to the history of the canal at the Panama Canal Authority web site: "Plans were made for a grand celebration to appropriately mark the official opening of the Panama Canal on August 15, 1914. A fleet of international warships was to assemble off Hampton Roads on New Year’s Day 1915, then sail to San Francisco through the Panama Canal, arriving in time for the opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, a world’s-fair type celebration. But no such grand opening occurred. Although the Panama Pacific Exposition went on as planned, World War I forced cancellation of planned festivities at the Canal. The grand opening was a modest affair with the Canal cement boat Ancon, piloted by Captain John A. Constantine, the Canal’s first pilot, making the first official transit....

"Roosevelt is widely given credit for building the Panama Canal, and he likely never disputed the claim. However, of the three presidents whose terms coincided with Canal construction – Roosevelt, WIlliam Howard Taft and Woodrow Wilson – it was Taft who provided the most active, hands-on participation over the longest period. Taft visited Panama five times as Roosevelt’s Secretary of War and made two more trips while President. He also hired John Stevens and, when Stevens resigned, recommended [Col. George Washington Goethals] as chief engineer. When Taft replaced Roosevelt in the White House in 1909, canal construction was only at the halfway mark. Goethals, however, was to write, 'The real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt.'

"The following words of Theodore Roosevelt are engraved in a plaque on display in the Rotunda of the Administration Building, and more than anything else convey his personal philosophy and the spirit of his thinking about the achievement at Panama:

" 'It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.' "

In The Path Between the Seas, David McCullough wrote: "The creation of a water passage across Panama was one of the supreme human achievements of all time, the culmination of a heroic dream of over four hundred years and of more than twenty years of phenomenal effort and sacrifice. The fifty miles between the oceans were among the hardest ever won by human effort and ingenuity, and no statistics on tonnage or tolls can begin to convey the grandeur of what was accomplished. Primarily the canal is an expression of that old and noble desire to bridge the divide, to bring people together. It is a work of civilization."

August 12, 1944:Joesph P. Kennedy Jr. Dies

Lore about the Kennedy family has it that when the eldest son of Joseph P. Kennedy died in World War II, the old man's political ambitions for his son transferred to second son, John. Be that as it may, on August 12, 1944, the elder brother of a future president was killed in the air over England, along with Lt. Wilford J. Willy.

They had volunteered to be part of Operation Aphrodite, an unconventional attempt to destroy German targets in the summer of 1944, especially rocket launching sites. The project ultimately proved to be exceedingly dangerous for its pilots, and ineffective at damaging its intended targets. C'est la guerre.

According to the Joesph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation: "Joe, regarded as an experienced Patrol Plane Commander, and a fellow-officer, an expert in radio control projects, was to take a 'drone' Liberator bomber loaded with 21,170 pounds of high explosives into the air and to stay with it until two 'mother' planes had achieved complete radio control over the 'drone.' They were then to bail out over England; the 'drone,' under the control of the 'mother' planes, was to proceed on the mission which was to culminate in a crash-dive on the target, a V-2 rocket launching site in Normandy.

"The airplane ... was in flight with routine checking of the radio controls proceeding satisfactorily, when at 6:20 p.m. on August 12, 1944, two explosions blasted the 'drone' resulting in the death of its two pilots. No final conclusions as to the cause of the explosions has ever been reached.

"Joe was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross ... and also the Air Medal ... In 1946 a destroyer, the USS Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., destroyer No. 850, was launched at the Fore River shipyards..."

Interestingly, flying nearby at the time of the accident was Elliot Roosevelt, son of FDR. He was in a de Havilland Mosquito to film the mission, and while the explosion damaged his plane, he and his crew were able to return to base.

August 11, 1984:Reagan's Joke

On August 11, 1984, Ronald Reagan gave a radio address that began:

"My fellow Americans:

"I'm pleased to tell you that today I signed legislation that will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they've too long been denied -- the freedom to meet in public high schools during nonschool hours, just as other student groups are allowed to do. This has been given the shorthand label 'equal-access legislation...' "

This was not memorable. A joke by the president, recorded during a sound check, was:

"My fellow Americans:

"I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

August 10, 1874:Herbert Hoover's Birthday

Today is the birthday of Herbert Clark Hoover, mining engineer, world traveler, great humanitarian, arguably the most important Secretary of Commerce the nation ever had, and fall-guy president. But perhaps he had the last laugh: he survived more than 31 years after leaving office, long enough for most people to realize that he had not, in fact, been to blame for the Great Depression. As yet, no man has survived the presidency longer. To beat Hoover, Jimmy Carter would have to live another five years, George H. W. Bush would have to live another 17 years, and Bill Clinton another 25 years.

Less well known is that Herbert Hoover had a namesake sport, Hoover-ball. According to the Hoover Presidential Library and Museum: "Hoover-ball is a combination of tennis, volleyball and medicine ball. White House physician Admiral Joel T. Boone invented the game to keep President Hoover physically fit.

" 'It required less skill than tennis, was faster and more vigorous, and therefore gave more exercise in a short time,' Hoover wrote in his Memoirs.

" 'It is more strenuous than either boxing, wrestling or football,' wrote Will Irwin, a friend of Hoover's, in a 1931 article 'The President Watches His Waistline' in Physical Culture magazine. 'It has the virtue of getting at nearly every muscle in the body.'

"The sport was without a name until New York Times Magazine reporter William Atherton DuPuy christened the game Hoover-ball for his 1931 article 'At the White House at 7 a.m.'

"Hoover-ball was played by teams of 2-4 players with a six-pound medicine ball over a net eight feet high on a court similar to one used for tennis. The game was scored exactly like tennis, and played in similar fashion. The server throws the ball. The opponent must catch it on the fly and immediately return it, attempting to put it where it cannot be reached and returned. The side that misses the ball or throws it out of bounds loses the point.

" 'Stopping a six-pound ball with steam back of it, returning it with similar steam, is not pink-tea stuff,' DuPuy wrote. 'Dr. Boone estimates that as much beneficial exercise is obtained from half an hour of it (Hoover-ball) as from three times as much tennis or six times as much golf.'

"The sport originated in 1928, when shortly after his election Hoover took a goodwill trip to South America. While aboard the battleship Utah on his return, he watched a game of bull-in-the-ring, a medicine-ball game that was popular on naval ships. A soft nine-pound medicine ball was thrown from one to another of the players standing in a circle as the 'bull' in the center tried to intercept it. During the trip, the president-elect played and enjoyed the game, which was the inspiration for Hoover-ball."

August 9, 1974:Ford Becomes President

Thirty-three years ago, Gerald R. Ford succeeded Richard Nixon as president. Probably none of the architects of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, which paved the way for Ford's rise to the presidency, imagined that it would have been applied quite so soon. The amendment had only been ratified by the requisite 38 states in early 1967. Ford was appointed vice president under its provisions (Section 2) in late 1973.

Ford was also the first vice president to succeed to the presidency after the amendment was ratified. In Section 1, the amendment formalized the precedent established by John Tyler in 1841: "In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President."

On the occasion of the first anniversary of his accession to fall after Ford's death, one writer, Quin Hillyer of The American Spectator, offers the opinion that Ford's swearing-in speech is an underrated gem of American oratory: "...on Aug. 9, 1974, Gerald Ford took office with one of the finest, and still most underrated, speeches in modern American history," he wrote on Aug. 8, 2007. "Amidst all the vitriol of Watergate, Ford's speech reminded Americans of the great things that unite us...

"After just a couple of basic introductory sentences, Ford quickly began achieving real eloquence with these words: 'I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers.'

"He then turned his lack of national election into a strength: 'If you have not chosen me by secret ballot, neither have I gained office by any secret promises. I have not campaigned either for the Presidency or the Vice Presidency. I have not subscribed to any partisan platform. I am indebted to no man, and only to one woman -- my dear wife -- as I begin this very difficult job.'

"He followed with some concise and effective encomiums to peace and to candor in government, citing (without overly showy emphasis) Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln as he did so. Then came the most famous line of the speech, followed by four more sentences of appropriate grace:

"'My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. But there is a higher Power, by whatever name we honor Him, who ordains not only righteousness but love, not only justice but mercy. As we bind up the internal wounds of Watergate, more painful and more poisonous than those of foreign wars, let us restore the golden rule to our political process, and let brotherly love purge our hearts of suspicion and of hate...'"

The entire essay is here. The text of Ford's speech is on line many places, including here.

August 8, 1974:Nixon Quits

No president before or after Richard Nixon has ever quit the job voluntarily, though certainly there must have been many moments when the holder of the office wanted to say to hell with it. Nixon's resignation actually took effect at noon on August 9, 1974, but he told the nation the evening before on national television.

"Good evening," he began.

"This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter than I believe affected the national interest.

"In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the nation. Throughout the long and difficult period of Watergate, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to complete the term of office to which you elected me.

"In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough political base in the Congress to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to see the constitutional process through to its conclusion, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of that deliberately difficult process and a dangerously destabilizing precedent for the future.

"But with the disappearance of that base, I now believe that the constitutional purpose has been served, and there is no longer a need for the process to be prolonged.

"I would have preferred to carry through to the finish whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of the nation must always come before any personal considerations.

"From the discussions I have had with Congressional and other leaders, I have concluded that because of the Watergate matter I might not have the support of the Congress that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult decisions and carry out the duties of this office in the way the interests of the nation would require.

"I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first. America needs a full-time President and a full-time Congress, particularly at this time with problems we face at home and abroad.

"To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the President and the Congress in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of peace abroad and prosperity without inflation at home.

"Therefore, I shall resign the Presidency effective at noon tomorrow. Vice President Ford will be sworn in as President at that hour in this office..."

July 24, 1862:Martin Van Buren Dies

DPD is taking a summer vacation for a couple of weeks, but promises to be back in time for one of the main dead presidential anniversaries in the whole calendar on August 8 and 9, which involves a certain disgraced president and his better-liked successor, both within living memory but who nevertheless have gone on to their rewards.

Today is the anniversary of President Martin Van Buren's death in 1862. Van Buren, master political organizer and successful New York politician, as well as Eighth Vice President and then Eighth President of the United States, might be an example of the Peter Principle: he had risen to the level of his incompetency, the presidency. Or perhaps he was just luckless enough to follow a popular president, Andrew Jackson, be at the helm during the Panic of 1837, and then face another popular candidate, William Henry Harrison, in the election of 1840, which van Buren lost.

In 1990, American Heritage magazine had this to say about why Van Buren lost the presidency 150 years earlier: "President Martin Van Buren was by all accounts a likable man, but his cultivated manners were not seen as virtuous by the voters who had elected Andrew Jackson before him. The Whig party decided to exploit Van Buren’s reputation as an aristocrat in the 1840 presidential election by reviving the log-cabin populism with which Jackson had beaten them 12 years earlier.

"On April 14, Whig congressman Charles Ogle of Pennsylvania addressed the House of Representatives on the subject of Van Buren’s White House. The President had asked Congress for $4,675 to renovate the Executive Mansion, and Ogle greeted the request with a three-day tirade in which he mercilessly vilified Martin Van Buren. The packed galleries laughed and cheered as the congressman described a plumed and perfumed dandy 'strutting by the hour before golden-framed mirrors, NINE FEET HIGH and FOUR FEET and a HALF WIDE,' in a 'PALACE as splendid as that of the Caesars, and as richly adorned as the proudest Asiatic mansion.' Van Buren was too vain to eat 'those old and unfashionable dishes, hog and hominy, fried meat and gravy, … [and] a mug of hard cider,' Ogle said. On the presidential table instead were gold utensils and 'Fanny Kemble Green finger cups,' into which the President dipped his 'pretty tapering soft, white lily fingers, after dining on fricandaus de veau and omlette souffle.'

The only response from the White House was a simple certification that 'no gold knives or forks or spoons of any description have been purchased for the President’s house since Mr. Van Buren became the Chief Magistrate of the Nation.' Ogle published his 'gold spoon oration' at his own expense, and copies that circulated throughout the country made him famous. Ogle had set the tone for the Whig campaign that was to propel Gen. William Henry Harrison, the 'hard-cider man' and war hero, to an overwhelming victory in November.

July 23, 1885: U.S. Grant Dies

Cancer caught up with Ulysses S. Grant in the summer of 1885, famously dying just after completing his memoirs, which are considered one of the finest of that genre. Another, more visible, monument to the life of Grant is in New York City -- officially the General Grant National Memorial, popularly Grant's Tomb.

"[Grant] was laid to rest in New York City on August 8th," notes the National Park Service. "Approximately 90,000 people from around the country and the world donated a total of over $600,000 towards construction of his tomb, the largest public fundraising effort ever at that time. Designed by architect John Duncan, the granite and marble structure was completed in 1897 and remains the largest mausoleum in North America. Over one million people attended the parade and dedication ceremony of Grant's Tomb, on April 27, 1897."

President McKinley led the event, held on what would have been Grant's 75th birthday. For the occasion, verse by Walt Whitman eulogizing Grant was read:

As one by one withdraw the lofty actors
From that great play on history's stage eterne
That lurid, partial act of War and peace -- of old and new contenting,
Fought out through wrath, fears, dark dismays, and many a long suspense;
All past -- and since, in countless graves receding, mellowing,
Victor's and vanquish'd -- Lincoln's and Lee's -- now thou with them,
Man of the mighty days -- and equal to the days!
Thou from the prairies! -- tangled and many-vein'd and hard has been thy part,
To admiration has it been enacted!

July 22, 1923:Robert J. Dole's Birthday

Bob Dole, who celebrates his 84th birthday today, has a unique distinction among men who have aspired to be President of the United States. He's the only person to have been nominated for for both vice president (1976) and president (1996) by a major party, yet lose both times. There have been some who have won the vice presidency only to lose in their bids for the top job; and others have lost a vice presidential bid but who captured the presidency later.

Will he be remember for these unsuccessful bids for high office, his long tenure in the US Senate, his Viagra commercials, or his habit of referring to himself in the third person?

During the 1996 campaign, even the National Review seemed exasperated by the habit (from the column Misanthrope's Corner ):

"Welcome to the Doppelganger school of American oratory. At the rate Dole is going, his rhetorical onanism soon will become so deeply embedded in the soil of American politics that Pat Buchanan will have yet another abomination to rip out 'root and branch' -- except that Buchanan has begun using the third person, too.

"How long has Dole been doing this? A search of my files turned up a clipping from November 1992 in which he assured gloomy Republicans that Bill Clinton would not have a legislative honeymoon because: 'Bob Dole is going to be his chaperone.'

"From what is known about speech habits, it probably started much earlier than a mere four years ago. This is a question for a serious scholar to explore. If Dole wins the nomination, Linda Bloodworth-Thomason can do a film biography to show at the GOP convention. After the sunny optimism she brought to The Man from Hope, she can demonstrate her versatility by producing The Pronouning in collaboration with Stephen King.

"The camera pans over Russell, Kansas, following the candidate through his formative years . . .

To his mother: 'Bob Dole's hungry.'

To his father: 'Can Bob Dole have a quarter?'

To his teachers: 'Bob Dole didn't do it.'

To nice girls: 'Would you like to go to the picture show with Bob Dole?'

To bad girls: 'If you did it with all those other guys, how come you won't do it with Bob Dole?'

July 21, 1899:Robert G. Ingersoll Dies

Largely forgotten now, Robert G. Ingersoll (pictured, left) was famed in his day -- the late 19th century -- as a politician and freethinking agnostic. He also had a walk-on part in presidential history. In 1876, he made a famed nominating speech on behalf of James G. Blaine of Maine (pictured, right). Blaine came within a whisker of being nominated by the Republican National Convention that year -- short 28 votes at one point -- but ultimately lost out to Rutherford B. Hayes. Blaine was nominated in 1884, but lost the election to Grover Cleveland.

Ingersoll's nominating speech is known as the "Plumbed Knight Speech," a fine example of high Victorian oratory. The last part of it went as follows: "This is a grand year—a year filled with the recollections of the Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the sacred past; filled with the legends of liberty; a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from the fountain of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call for a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the field; a year in which we call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander—a man that has snatched the mask of democracy from the hideous face of rebellion—a man who, like an intellectual athlete, stood in the arena of debate, challenged all comers, and who, up to the present moment, is a total stranger to defeat.

"Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lances full and fair against the brazen foreheads of every defamer of his country and maligner of its honor. For the Republican party to desert a gallant man now is worse than if an army should desert their general upon the field of battle.

"James G. Blaine is now, and has been for years, the bearer of the sacred standard of the Republic. I call it sacred because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming, and without remaining, free.

"Gentlemen of the Convention, in the name of the great Republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers who died upon the field of battle; and in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so eloquently remembers, Illinois nominates for the next president of this country that prince of parliamentarians, that leader of leaders—James G. Blaine."

The entire speech is here.

July 20, 1969:Nixon Calls the Moon

Thirty-eight years ago, President Nixon made the longest long-distance phone call in history when he spoke to Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the surface of the Moon. Kennedy got the effort going (see May 25), Johnson pushed the program hard, but Nixon got to make the call and leave his signature on the plaques left on the lunar landers. Such are the vagaries of politics.

Nixon: Hello Neil and Buzz, I am talking to you by telephone from the Oval Room at the White House, and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone call ever made from the White House. I just can’t tell you how proud we all are of what you have done. For every American this has to be the proudest day of our lives, and for people all over the world I am sure that they, too, join with Americans in recognizing what an immense feat this is. Because of what you have done the heavens have become a part of man’s world, and as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility, it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and tranquility to Earth. For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the people on this Earth are truly one—one in their pride in what you have done and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth.

Armstrong: Thank you, Mr. President. It is a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only the United States, but men of peaceable nations, men with a vision for the future. It is an honor for us to be able to participate here today.

Nixon: Thank you very much, and I look forward, all of us look forward, to seeing you on the Hornet on Thursday.

Armstrong: Thank you. We look forward to that very much, sir.

A YouTube clip of part of the call is here.

July 19, 1922:George McGovern's Birthday

Today is George McGovern's 85th birthday. His distinction in presidential history is being on the losing end of a landslide -- to a president who later resigned in disgrace. The forces arrayed against the McGovern candidacy in 1972 were formidable, and it's hard to imagine another outcome for that election.

Hard, but not impossible, as Michael Leahy wrote in the Washington Post (Feb. 20, 2005) in "What Might Have Been."

"... Like most presidential nominees who never won the big prize, [McGovern] has become less a major figure than an intriguing footnote... another answer to a set of trivia questions whose correct responses include the names Dukakis, Mondale, Humphrey, Goldwater, Stevenson, Dewey, Willkie, Landon, Smith, Davis, Cox, Parker, Bryan, Blaine and McClellan -- the good, the bad, the forgotten.

"He was a history professor at Dakota Wesleyan before he ever entered politics, which has been a blessing and a curse: The What Ifs never go away. He wonders, for example, what would have happened to his political career had one of the many men to whom he offered the vice presidential nomination in 1972 -- including Edward Kennedy and defeated rival Edmund Muskie -- said yes. Running out of choices and time at the Democratic National Convention, he turned finally to a young senator from Missouri, Thomas Eagleton, who enthusiastically accepted, only to be forced off the ticket after it was learned that he had been hospitalized three times for depression and had twice undergone electroshock treatment in the 1960s.

"What if, McGovern asks, the Democratic convention that year in Miami had not been so chaotic that the vice presidential nomination process, which consumed hours and included several surprise challenges to Eagleton, delayed McGovern from delivering his acceptance speech until 2:48 a.m. Eastern time, by which time most Americans had gone to bed?

"What if, he asks, a group of anti-McGovern forces at the convention had been successful in their effort to unseat a bloc of committed McGovern delegates? 'I would [then] probably have lost the nomination, unjustly,' he says, smiling faintly. 'The ['76] nomination would then have been mine for the asking. I mean no disrespect to Jimmy Carter, who won our nomination that year, but I was the much better known figure at the time. I think I would have beaten both Carter and [then-President] Gerald Ford.'

"Instead, four years later, Carter won the White House, and McGovern was out of elective politics, losing a bid in Republican South Dakota for a fourth term in the U.S. Senate."

July 18, 1947:The Presidential Succession Act of 1947

Sixty years ago today, President Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, once again re-arranging the succession to the presidency. It was the third act of Congress to do so, following laws passed in 1792 and 1886.

In 1945, President Truman "proposed that Congress revise the order of succession, placing the Speaker of the House and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate in line behind the Vice President and ahead of the cabinet," wrote Thomas H. Neale in the monograph "Presidential and Vice Presidential Succession: Overview and Current Legislation" (2003). "Truman argued that it was more appropriate and democratic to have popularly elected officials first in line to succeed, rather than appointed cabinet officers. Although Truman’s proposal also provided for special elections to fill simultaneous vacancies in the presidency and vice presidency, Congress passed only its succession aspects in the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (61 Stat. 380).

"Under the Act, if both the presidency and vice presidency are vacant, the Speaker succeeds (after resigning the speakership and his House seat). If there is no Speaker, or if he does not qualify, the President Pro Tempore succeeds, under the same requirements. If there is neither a Speaker nor President Pro Tempore, or if neither qualifies, then the cabinet officers succeed, under the same conditions as applied in the 1886 act. The Presidential Succession Act of 1947 has been regularly amended to incorporate new cabinet-level departments into the line of succession, and remains currently in force."

July 17, 1744:Elbridge Gerry's Birthday

Today is the birthday of Elbridge Gerry, Fifth Vice President of the United States, whose (unintentional) enduring legacy is a word known far and wide in the English-speaking world. That’s a lot more than most vice presidents get, though the fact that he was vice president was completely irrelevant to the creation of “gerrymander.”

With the rise of political parties vying for victory in changeable electoral districts in the early 19th century, it was a word whose time had come. It survives because it’s instantly memorable, and of course because it describes an activity that carries on to this day. The Word Detective has the following to say about "gerrymander."

“Dear Word Detective: I was listening to our estimable BBC Radio 4 the other morning, and heard mention of a word that has subsequently perplexed me, namely ‘gerrymandering,’ to divide land into electoral units for the benefit of one group of people. Could you please be so kind as to explain?” -- Simeon Holdship, Brussels, Belgium.

“ ‘Gerrymander,’ meaning to fiddle with the boundaries of electoral districts in order to favor a particular party or constituency, is one of the most wonderful inventions of what H.L. Mencken called ‘the American Language.’

“It all started back in 1812, when Gov. Elbridge Gerry decided to rearrange the contours of the Congressional districts in Massachusetts to boost his Democratic party's fortunes. His partisan maneuver drew the attention of Gilbert Stuart, editorial artist for the Boston Centinel newspaper, who incorporated a map of the new districts into a cartoon. By adding a few lines to the map, Stuart created a creature closely resembling a salamander, a small lizard-like amphibian. Centinel Editor Benjamin Russell immediately dubbed the creature a "Gerrymander," the cartoon became one of the most famous in American history, and "gerrymander" entered the American political lexicon.

Both Gov. Gerry and artist Gilbert Stuart went on to further fame. Gerry eventually became Vice President under James Madison. Stuart's mark was a bit more lasting. In addition to having drawn the very first ‘gerrymander,’ Gilbert Stuart painted the portrait of George Washington that adorns the U.S. one-dollar bill."

Vice President Gerry did not survive his term. In fact, neither of James Madison's veeps did. George Clinton became the first vice president to die in office in 1812, and Gerry followed suit as the second in 1814, after only about a year and a half in office.

July 16, 1999:John F. Kennedy Jr. Dies

John F. Kennedy Jr. had a few distinctions as a presidential child. He was the first and so far the only child ever born to a president-elect, coming as he did after his father's election but before his inauguration. When his father became president, he and his sister were the first small children to live in the White House since the second Cleveland administration (which included "Baby Ruth" Cleveland, born 1891, and her sisters).

His father famously died at a relatively young 46. JFK Jr. died even younger, at 38. Eric Nolte, a pilot, wrote the following about the death of the son of the 35th President of the United States in a private airplane crash eight years ago:

"In the last few minutes before Kennedy’s little single-engine airplane went into the heavy seas off Martha’s Vineyard, its radar track showed all the evidence of a mind wobbling in the tortured confusion called vertigo. This confusion steered Kennedy down a horrifying spiral to his death on that hot and hazy night in July.

"The kind of bafflement and panic that killed Kennedy arises in a mind as it struggles with the contradictory signals of its inner ear and its rational faculty. The inner ear evolved over millennia to measure one’s movement in relation to the fixed sensation of gravity. Gravity always acts as a vector pointing straight down to the center of the Earth. The inner ear is equipped with tubes of liquid that shift in response to any movement while the mind compares these signals against this fixed sensation of gravity. This balancing apparatus signals the pilot’s mind and says, 'You are strapped into a seat that is now as level as if you were sitting squarely at your kitchen table.'

"By contrast, at the same moment he was feeling perfectly right-side-up, the aircraft instruments, when correctly interpreted, conveyed the message, 'Your wings are tilted steeply to the right of level, the nose of this airplane is pointing way down, and your airspeed is already howling past the red line.'

"The airplane’s flight path creates forces that befuddle one’s awareness of Earth’s gravity. To judge by the sensations in the seat of your pants, you literally can’t tell up from down, left from right. You are as helpless to move out of the airplane’s acceleration field as you would be if you were pinned to the side of a spinning circus centrifuge when the floor drops away.

"And here is the crux of the matter: the pilot’s emotions drowned out the flight instruments’ story about banking and diving at high speed, and screamed out, 'No way! It can’t be! I’m actually flying straight and level! I know it! I feel it’s true!' "

July 15, 1948:Truman Nominated

A good many Democrats weren't especially excited about nominating Harry Truman for a term of his own as president in 1948. In fact, some elements of the party were so discontent with the president that they bolted -- either to the Progressive Party, which nominated former Vice President Henry Wallace for president and the eccentric Sen. Glen H. Taylor as his running mate; or to Gov. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Mississippi Gov. Fielding L. Wright of the States' Rights Democratic Party, the Dixiecrats.

Some party bosses also wanted to dump Truman and draft Gen. Dwight Eisenhower for the top spot, a sure winner. But when Eisenhower refused to become a candidate for either party that year, the Democrats turned to the devil they knew, whom they also believed would take them to defeat that November.

President Truman wasn't in a defeatist mood when he gave his acceptance speech, a taste of the famed campaign he ran in '48 that did indeed win him a term of his own, contrary to prediction.

"I can't tell you how very much I appreciate the honor which you have just conferred upon me," the president said. "I shall continue to try to deserve it.

"I accept the nomination.

"And I want to thank this convention for its unanimous nomination of my good friend and colleague, Sen. Barkley of Kentucky. He is a great man, and a great public servant. Sen. Barkley and I will win this election and make these Republicans like it-- don't you forget that!

"We will do that because they are wrong and we are right, and I will prove it to you in just a few minutes.

"This convention met to express the will and reaffirm the beliefs of the Democratic Party. There have been differences of opinion, and that is the democratic way. Those differences have been settled by a majority vote, as they should be.

"Now it is time for us to get together and beat the common enemy. And that is up to you.

"We have been working together for victory in a great cause. Victory has become a habit in our party. It has been elected four times in succession, and I am convinced it will be elected a fifth time in November.

"The reason is that the people know that the Democratic Party is the people's party, and the Republican party is the party of special interest, and it always has been and always will be."

July 14, 1913:Leslie Lynch King Jr.'s Birthday

Dead president aficionados know that Gerald R. Ford was not born with that name, and in fact that wasn't his legal name until he was a young man, in 1935. But he did grow up using it. Ford was his stepfather's name; King his biological father's, whom Ford had no contact with growing up -- the better for him, as it turned out. The future president was the product of an unfortunate marriage between Leslie Lynch King Sr. and Dorothy Gardner.

Former Ford administration official James Cannon wrote the following about the circumstances of President Ford's birth in an essay of the president's character: "Dorothy Gardner Ford was a strong and resourceful woman whose own character was tested at the age of twenty. She grew up in a warm, loving family in a small town in northern Illinois where her father prospered as a businessman and served as town mayor.

"In college Dorothy met the brother of her roommate, and fell in love with him. Leslie King was the blond, blue-eyed, charming son of a wealthy Omaha banker who also owned a stage-coach line and a wool business.

"On their honeymoon she discovered that she had made a tragic mistake. Her new husband struck her, not once but repeatedly. When they reached Omaha, where they were to live with his family, she found out that King was not only brutal, but a liar and a drunk. His outward charm concealed a vicious temper...

"She decided to leave King, but discovered she was pregnant. With the encouragement of King's mother and father, she decided to have the baby in Omaha, and did.

"On July 14, 1913, the thirty-eighth President of the United States was born in the mansion of his paternal grandfather, and named Leslie King Jr. Unaccountably, a few days later, King came into his wife's room with a butcher knife and threatened to kill mother, child and nurse. Police were called to restrain him...

"Divorce was rare in 1913, but an Omaha court found King guilty of extreme cruelty, granted custody of the child to the mother, and ordered King to pay alimony and child support. King refused to pay anything...

"By good fortune, in her son's first year, Dorothy Gardner King met a man whose character matched and complemented her own. He was a tall, dark-haired, and amiable bachelor named Gerald R. Ford. By trade, Ford was a paint salesman; in the community he was respected as honest and hardworking, kind and considerate, a man of integrity and character--everything Dorothy's first husband was not.

"The next year she married Jerry Ford and her two-year-old son grew up as Jerry Ford Jr., believing his stepfather was his true father. By Jerry Ford Sr., Dorothy had three more sons, and the Fords provided a strong combination of love and discipline. Ford house rule number one was: 'Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time.' "

July 13, 1985:Ronald Reagan Incapacitated

On July 13, 1985, for the first time in history, the United States had an acting president -- George HW Bush, back when he was Ronald Reagan's vice president. Reagan formally invoked the 25th amendment to the US Constitution, ratified in 1967, declaring his incapacity to exercise the powers of the presidency during an operation remove cancerous polyps from his colon. It was the first time the amendment had been evoked; George W. Bush evoked it in 2002, also for surgery.

To invoke the amendment, a president needs to tell the Speaker of the House and the President pro Tempore of the Senate in writing that he's going to be incapacitated. To resume the powers of office, the president needs to send another notice in writing saying as much. (That's the voluntary process for a president being declared incapacitated. There's an involuntary process spelled out in the amendment that's never been invoked.)

Ronald Reagan sent the following letter about his incapacity:

Dear Mr. Speaker (Mr. President:)
I am about to undergo surgery during which time I will be briefly and temporarily incapable of discharging the Constitutional powers and duties of the Office of the President of the United States.

After consultation with my Counsel and the Attorney General, I am mindful of the provisions of Section 3 of the 25th Amendment to the Constitution and of the uncertainties of its application to such brief and temporary periods of incapacity. I do not believe that the drafters of this Amendment intended its application to situations such as the instant one.

Nevertheless, consistent with my long-standing arrangement with Vice President George Bush, and not intending to set a precedent binding anyone privileged to hold this Office in the future, I have determined and it is my intention and direction that Vice President George Bush shall discharge those powers and duties in my stead commencing with the administration of anesthesia to me in this instance.

I shall advise you and the Vice President when I determine that I am able to resume the discharge of the Constitutional powers and duties of this Office.

May God bless this Nation and us all.

Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan

Later that day:

Dear Mr. Speaker (Mr. President:)
Following up on my letter to you of this date, please be advised I am able to resume the discharge of the Constitutional powers and duties of the Office of the President of the United States. I have informed the Vice President of my determination and my resumption of those powers and duties.

Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan

George W. Bush was acting president from 11:28 a.m. until 7:22 p.m. that day.

Claudia Alta Taylor Johnson, 1912-2007, requiescat in pace

Lady Bird Johnson, First Lady of the United States, 1963-1969

July 11, 1804: Burr Plugs Hamilton

Dueling was already illegal in New York State by 1804, so the Third Vice President of the United States and the former US Secretary of the Treasury crossed over to New Jersey for their duel 203 years ago. It had been a long time in coming: Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton had been political enemies for many years, and specifically Burr blamed Hamilton for torpedoing his try for the presidency in 1800 and the governorship of New York in 1804 -- and with considerable reason. So Burr challenged Hamilton to meet on the field of honor.

American Experience described the scene that summer morning in an episode called "The Duel."

Narrator: Early on July 11th, Aaron Burr and his second, William Van Ness, arrived on the New Jersey shore of the Hudson. At that same moment, Alexander Hamilton reached a dock on the New York shore. He brought with him a doctor and his second, Judge Pendleton, who carried the pistols.

At 7 a.m. Hamilton’s party reached New Jersey and set out for the woods. In a clearing, Burr was waiting. Judge Pendleton described what happened next.

Pendleton: When Hamilton arrived the parties exchanged salutations. The seconds proceeded to make their arrangements. They measured the distance, ten full paces. They cast lots for the choice of position. They then proceeded to load the pistols in each others' presence.

Narrator: Once Hamilton and Burr had loaded pistols in hand, the rules mandated that they take up positions 20 feet apart. When the signal was given, they had three seconds to fire.

It was at this point that the two seconds gave completely different accounts of Hamilton’s actions. According to Judge Pendleton, Hamilton had made a fateful decision: that it would be morally wrong to shoot at Burr.

Pendleton: He had made up his mind not to fire at Burr, but to fire in the air.

Narrator: But according to Burr’s second, William Van Ness, Hamilton showed every sign of intending to shoot his rival.

Van Ness: While his second was explaining the rules, Hamilton raised and leveled his pistol. He then drew from his pocket a pair of spectacles & observed that he was ready to proceed.

Narrator: Van Ness claimed that Hamilton shot at Burr but missed. Whatever Hamilton’s actions, both seconds agreed that after Hamilton fired, Burr stood unhurt. Now, Hamilton’s fate was in Burr’s hands.

Pendleton: The fire of Burr took effect, and Hamilton almost instantly fell. Burr then advanced toward Hamilton with a manner and gesture that appeared to be expressive of regret, but without speaking turned about and withdrew.

Narrator: The doctor was not optimistic about Hamilton's condition.

Dr. Hosack: His look of death I shall never forget. I observed to Mr. Pendleton, that the only chance of reviving him was to immediately get him upon the water.

Narrator: In the hours after the duel, Aaron Burr returned home and, according to his maid, ate a hearty breakfast. Then he sent a note to the doctor to inquire after Hamilton’s health.

Burr had shot Hamilton in the stomach and the bullet had lodged next to his spine. He lingered 36 hours in excruciating pain, with his family and the doctor at his side.