Welcome back to Poorly Explained History where I’m slowly losing my mind over college. (I know everyone is it just be like that sometimes). This week I’m in the mood for a little chaos to spice it up for everyone. Let’s talk about Presidents, your favorite people in the United States who are the greatest representation of the American people for themselves and the world. I mean at least they’re supposed to but lets not get into that. ANYWAYS, lets get right into it.

First up on my list of just wacky things presidents were involved with or did is President William Henry Harrison. He’s easily the least problematic president of all time. Mainly because he did have any time to do anything problematic. Yes this is the President that died just 31 days into office. His early death did kind of send the government into a spiral as it was not clear what the Vice President was supposed to do if the President dies but it got figured out and we had John Tyler succeed him. Harrison also decided to have the longest inaugural speech in United States history which took him two hours to read. He did this on a cold and rainy day without a coat or hat and to top it off he rode in on a horse just to prove how macho he was. So while writing this I learned that the funny part of this story is a misconception so just to clear it up with everyone, the pneumonia that he got a couple weeks later was not a result of his unnecessarily long speech and machoman behavior. He actually likely died as a result of the blood letting and other not completely scientific treatment that he received in response to his cold turned pneumonia sickness. All in all though, RIP  President macho man William Henry Harrison.

Next up is William Howard Taft the 27th President of the United States. I like to refer to him as Taft of the Bath. This is because the man loved his baths. He also was what they would call a “chunky boi” weighing in at a mighty 340 pounds. This obviously creates a bit of predicament because how is a man with all that wagon going to fit in a normal bath tub. Well, I’ll tell you, they built him a custom made bath tub that 2000 pounds and seven feet long. As long as he did not lay flat this tub could comfortably fit Mr. Shaquille O’Neal. Now that I’ve mentioned baths and presidents you’re probably remembering that story about how a president got stuck in his bath tub. If you haven’t well you’re actually more informed than you thought because that story is just not true. It was just a rumor passed down by White House staff but in all honesty I don’t doubt it happened once or twice. Mr. Taft may not have the grandest presidency but he for sure had the grandest size and baths to match.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these small tales of presidents it was a lot more fun to write about than my essay about presidential speeches. Have a good one.

-Mau