Truly appalling, however, was that not everyone knew 1860 was the year of Lincoln’s first election, although of course everyone knew he’d been assassinated.

The year 1840 offers yet another especially interesting piece of presidential history. William Henry Harrison was elected. In those days inauguration was on March 4. (It didn’t move into January until FDR was president. The nation decided that the wait until nearly spring for Roos­evelt’s inauguration had been too long, given the urgency of addressing the economic woes of the Great Depression. So 1933 was the last year it was March 4, and it was then moved to January 20). Harrison gave his inaugural address outdoors. The weather in early March in Washington, D.C., is usually mild, but in 1841 it was not. Harrison did not wear an overcoat. A month later he died of pneumonia. Causality, of course, is open to question, but the result was that Harrison became the first U.S. president to die in office.

No. That’s the answer to your question. Not a single one of the young medical trainees knew anything about Harrison or his vice president, John Tyler. What a shame. Because it’s a fascinating story.

Harrison, you see, was not a politician, but a war hero, best remembered for the Battle of Tippecanoe. (Remember the campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too?”) He was recruited by the Whig Party, which was desperate to win the White House. The Whig party was opposed to just about everything Andrew Jackson (Democratic president elected in 1828 and 1832) stood for, but they had learned from dealing with the hero of the Battle of New Orleans (1815) just how popular war heroes can be. Harrison was perfectly willing to run on the Whig party platform, which was very short on detail, as he had no fixed political principles of his own. The Whigs then needed a candidate for the No. 2 spot on the ticket. Harrison was from Ohio, so they looked south of the Mason-Dixon line for geographic balance and asked John Tyler of Virginia. Tyler was a Democrat, but apparently not a loyal Democrat, as he agreed to run for VP as a Whig.

Then Harrison died, and Tyler assumed office. This had never happened before, and the Constitution was not entirely clear on how it should work. The Constitution said that in the event of the death of the president, the “powers and duties” of the office “shall devolve on the Vice President.” What wasn’t clear, however, was whether the VP actually became president, with all of the accoutrements of the office, or whether he was just the acting president.