The election of 1892 may have something in common with the election of 2024 (at least until this past July), in that a former president ran against an incumbent president. In 1888 Benjamin Harrison defeated incumbent President Grover Cleveland by a margin of 233 to 168 in the electoral college, despite the fact that Cleveland received more votes. ( Read more... )

As with all modern Presidential elections, there is a media obsession with polling data, as pundits try to predict what will happen on November 5, 2024 (election day.) Nationwide polling data predicts a very close election, and as Thomas Dewey and Hillary Clinton learned the hard way, polling data can often be wrong. Polling data also comes with a ( Read more... )

On August 20, 1833 (191 years ago today) Benjamin Harrison, the 23rd President of the United States, was born. Harrison was the first (and so far the only) grandson of a former President to also become President. His grandfather was William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States, and his great-grandfather, also named Benjamin Harrison, ( Read more... )

Alternate Presidents is a collection of 28 short stories edited by Mike Resnick, speculating on what history might have been like if the outcome of 28 presidential elections would have been different. This anthology was released on February 15, 1992. This book is a delight to read. Resnick, a Hugo Award winning science fiction writer, also ( Read more... )

Benjamin Harrison has the distinction of being the only president whose predecessor and successor were the same man. (Will Joe Biden match this feat in November? Stay tuned!) When he left office, Harrison remained in Washington, DC before leaving to visit the World's Columbian Exposition (better known as the Chicago World's Fair) in June of 1893. ( Read more... )

Grover Cleveland is unique in that (so far) he is the only President to have served non-consecutive terms in office, and therefore he had two periods of what some would call retirement. Just like another President from New York, Cleveland left office after failing to win re-election, telling everyone that he would be back. Or at least that's what ( Read more... )

On April 4, 1841 (183 years ago today) William Henry Harrison became the first president to die in office. His death came only a month after his inauguration, raising a number of questions about succession upon the death of a president, and leading to the setting of precedent thereafter.


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William Howard Taft did not want to be President, or at least that wasn't his dream job. He wanted to be Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, and eventually he would get his wish, though he would first have to turn down appointments to the court to answer the call of duty of his friend Theodore Roosevelt, a man he would be close to and ( Read more... )

Another one of the forgotten Presidents, Benjamin Harrison fit the mold of many of the late 19th century presidents. He was Republican, he had fought in the Civil War, he had been an opponent of slavery and he believed in high tariffs, a measure intended to protect the American worker from foreign competition. He had been a lawyer, and by most ( Read more... )

Grover Cleveland is the guy who messed up the numbering system for Presidents. He won the popular vote in three consecutive elections, but only won the electoral vote in two of them, the first and the last. Because of that, he is counted as the 22nd and the 24th President of the United States. He also has the distinction of being the first Democrat ( Read more... )