Pneumonia, Assasination and Bull Moose ( with the side of hickory)

Many times the legacy of some US presidents is not the policy and laws they put into place, but the way their presidency ends.  To this date eight American presidents have died in office. Half of them were killed by assassin’s hand and the other half kicked the bucket, because of illness. The average citizen will name two, Kennedy and Lincoln, who both did tremendous things during their time in office. But the other six are either inconsequential presidents or leaders so bad we rather forgot them. Some of the deaths were quite interesting, so I am going to talk about those in this blog.  

William Henry Harrison was a record breaker in terms of presidency. His inaugural speech was the longest one in the history. Clocking over hour and half, the eight and half thousand words speech was tedious and boring. At the polar opposite his presidency was the shortest one.  He had to travel somewhere one night. It was raining that night and even for the persuasions of his servants he refused to put on a coat. Saying, “I am no child to fall ill with an illness due to some rain.” One month later he died due to pneumonia caused by the nightly ride. His vice-president John Tyler had taken the office, after his ironic death.

Nearly sixty years later a doctor named Roswell Park was interrupted in a middle of surgery. He said he could not leave “even if it were for the president of The United States.” He was told that he would have to operate on William McKinley, the president of the United States. He was shot by an anarchist. Funnily enough he had urged the crowd not to lynch the assassin which have probably saved his life. Would you do that in this kind of situation? Due to the botched surgery that the first doctors who were summoned did a really bad job, so a gangrene developed in his stomach, which had killed him.

Some presidents have refused to die. Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981 only sixty-nine days into his presidency. Even for his wounds he still managed to crack some jokes. But the president that looked into the face of death and laughed is Theodore "Teddy" Rooselvelt. The biggest badass to ever serve as the president. He was shot after saying the first sentence of a speech he was supposed to give. After the audience calmed down he said, " I do not know whether you fully understand that I have been shot." While unbuttoning his coat to show the bloody shirt he triumphantly proclared, " But it takes more than a bullet to kill a Bull Moose!." He gave the one and half hour long speech he originally planned and only then let anyone take him to the hospital. 

The last president I want to talk about is Andrew Jackson - the craziest of the presidents. He had a nickname " Old Hickory Jackson", because of the walking cane he always carried around. This cane is crucial to the story. While attending a funeral of some political ally, he was attacked by an assasin weilding two guns and so became the first president on whom an assassination attempt was made. Both of the pistols  misfired and did nothing to Jackson. He had turned around and jumped on the would-be assassin and started beating him to death with his cane. Mind you, he was seventy-two at the time. The onlookers had to get Jackson of the poor soul. Last thing want to share about Jackson is his parrot. It had to be removed from his funeral due to yelling scandalous obscenities and vulgar words.