William McKinley
Born: January 29, 1843
Assassinated: September 14, 1901
Term in Office: 1897-1901
I can't verify that this man was the inspiration for the Muppets character Sam the Eagle. Something in the eyebrows... or the scowl. The Muppets office down at Disney won't return my calls.
McKinley was the third President to be gunned down while in office. While being attended to, when the crowd had started to beat the gunman, the President is said to have yelled, "Boys, don't let them hurt him." He held onto life for 14 days before succumbing. Two bullets had felled him. One was removed; the second couldn't be found. A newly invented X-ray machine that might have helped find it was sent by Thomas Edison but was never used.*
The tragic ending capped a life that saw a lot of tragedy. Early in his marriage his two daughters died in childhood, one just months after being born. His first vice-president, Garret Hobart, a man on whom McKinley counted for advice, died before the end of the first term.
Aside from the most well-known William McKinley fact, his being the Commander-in-Chief for the Spanish American War, here are a few other bits of info relevant to this post on the guy...
- After the victory over Spain, the U.S. seized control of Manila in the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico from that European colonizer.
- Seen as a strategic move in the Pacific, Hawaii was annexed shortly after the war with Spain, the islands' monarchy having been overthrown a few years earlier.
- McKinley's picture is on the $500 bill. I just opened my wallet to confirm that info. Confirmed.
- That tall mountain in Alaska, the tallest on the North American continent, was named (unofficially) for McKinley during his campaign for president in 1896 (officially named in 1917 by Woodrow Wilson). The naming has been disputed for decades. An Alaskan board in 1975, out of respect for the native Koyukon Athabaskan people, brought back its original name of Denali. In 2015, that renaming became official, though various Congressional members from Ohio, McKinley's birth state, have explored ways to get the 25th President's name reinstated. Donald Trump proposed doing just that in 2017, but the Alaskan senate shot down that proposal.
Peace to all, and keep your eyebrows trimmed.
*This and some of the other info in this post (no, not the Sam the Eagle speculation) was found at: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/68584/7-things-you-might-not-know-about-william-mckinley
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