The 1948 election wasn't a close one as it turned out. But it did illustrate how the polls can get it wrong, in this case, very wrong.

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The 1948 election was more of a November Surprise than an October one, but the month of October was pivotal for Harry Truman, as he refused to believe what almost everyone else in the country believed: that the election was a slam dunk for the Republicans. Instead Truman used October to fight back, and his perseverance paid off.

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In 1944, the second world war was in its fifth year. It appeared to be drawing to a close and had turned in the Allies favor, but before the June 6th D-Day Normandy Landing, this wasn't quite so clear. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was coming to the end of his third term and the strain that the presidency and the war had taken on his health was showing ( Read more... )

FDR's successes in addressing the Great Depression and managing the second world war led to a spirit of national unity so strong that the President was elected to four consecutive terms, a record that will never be surpassed without a constitutional amendment. He would not survive his final term, and his successor Harry Truman would not enjoy the ( Read more... )

Harry Truman is another person (like John Tyler or Chester Alan Arthur for example) who never expected to be President and who no one else ever expected to be President. He had poor eyesight, didn't come from a rich family, was a failure as a small business owner and even his wife's mother said that he would never amount to anything. But he ( Read more... )

Probably more has been written about the election of 1948 than any other. It, perhaps along with 2016, remains as the biggest surprising result in Presidential electoral history. 1948 was a year when a lot of people were upset with the political establishment, or so it seemed. Discontent seemed so bad that the incumbent Democratic Party split into ( Read more... )

In 1944, as the Second World War was into its fifth year, many expected that Franklin Delano Roosevelt's presidency was coming to a close, as they hoped the war was. Although Roosevelt was only 62 years old, he looked much older. The war and the other pressures he was under had taken their toll on him physically. Many were shocked when four years ( Read more... )

FDR's successes in addressing the Great Depression and managing the second world war led to a spirit of national unity so strong that the President was elected to four consecutive terms, a record that will never be surpassed without a constitutional amendment. He would not survive his final term, and his successor Harry Truman would not enjoy the ( Read more... )

On July 18, 1940, Franklin Delano Roosevelt broke precedent by being nominated by his party to run for a third term as President. No one else has ever done this before or since. Others have been nominated for president by a major party three times but none after holding the office twice. Ulysses Grant sought a third term after serving two and being ( Read more... )

On July 16, 1945, the United States tested the first atomic bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The following month, the United States Air Force dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, bringing about the end of World War II. The creation of the bomb and its subsequent use ushered in the nuclear age and led to one of the most ( Read more... )