On May 8, 1884 (140 years ago today) Harry S Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, was born in Lamar, Missouri. If you're wondering what the "S" stands for, it doesn't stand for anything. His parents chose "S" as his middle initial to please both of his grandfathers, Anderson "Shipp" Truman and Solomon Young. Apparently this was a common ( 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... )

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is definitely one of the most biographied presidents, and it is understandable why. He served as President longer than anyone has (or will unless there is a Constitutional Amendment allowing a President to hold the office for longer than two full terms.) He held the office through a Great Depression and then a World War, ( 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... )

In 1940, the Republican Party nominated a candidate who was a wealthy businessman who had never been elected to public office. (Sound familiar?) He was running against a president who was seeking to do something no president had ever done before: win a third term in office.


( Read more... )

On December 26, 1972 (51 years ago today) Harry Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, died at the age of 88 in Kansas City, Missouri.


( 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... )

By the time the 1948 Republican presidential primaries came around, the party believed that they were due for a return to the White House. Democrat Franklin Roosevelt had won the last four elections, but Roosevelt was not dead and gone. His successor, Harry Truman, appeared vulnerable, so much so that Truman himself was willing to step aside from ( Read more... )

By the time the 1940 Presidential election had approached, Franklin Roosevelt had served two full terms in office. Up to that point in time, no president had successfully won a third term. At this point in time the Constitution did not prohibit such a thing, as would later be the case. But most presidents had followed the example set by George ( Read more... )