John Tyler (1790–1862) was the tenth President of the United States (1841–45). He served as a Virginia state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and senator before his election as vice president in 1840 on the Whig Party ticket led by William Henry Harrison. He became the first vice president to succeed to the presidency without being elected to the office after his running mate's death in April 1841. Taking the oath of office, he immediately moved into the White House and assumed full presidential powers, a precedent that would govern future successions and eventually become codified in the Twenty-fifth Amendment. He found much of the Whig program unconstitutional, and vetoed several of his party's bills. The Whigs, led by Kentucky Senator Henry Clay, dubbed him "His Accidency", and expelled him from the party. Stalemated on domestic policy, Tyler had several foreign-policy achievements, including the Webster–Ashburton Treaty with Britain and the Treaty of Wanghia with Qing China. He dedicated his last two years in office to the annexation of Texas, then retired to his Virginia plantation. When the Civil War began in 1861, Tyler won election to the Confederate House of Representatives shortly before his death.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tyler
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1807:
German astronomer Heinrich Wilhelm Matthias Olbers discovered 4 Vesta, the brightest asteroid and the second-most massive body in the asteroid belt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta
1865:
American Civil War: The Appomattox Campaign opened with the Battle of Lewis's Farm, in which the Confederate States Army was forced into a series of retreats that would culminate in their surrender. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appomattox_Campaign
1871:
The Royal Albert Hall in Albertopolis, London, was officially opened by Queen Victoria. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Albert_Hall
1945:
World War II: The German 4th Army was almost completely destroyed by the Soviet Red Army at the Heiligenbeil Pocket in East Prussia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heiligenbeil_Pocket
1982:
Queen Elizabeth II gave Royal Assent to the Canada Act 1982, which ended all remaining dependence of Canada on the United Kingdom by a process known as "patriation". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_Act_1982
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
otorhinolaryngology: (medicine) The study of diseases of the ear, nose and throat. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/otorhinolaryngology
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
A poet must be able to claim … freedom to follow the vision of poetry, the imaginative vision of poetry … And in any case, poetry is religion, religion is poetry. The message of the New Testament is poetry. Christ was a poet, the New Testament is metaphor, the Resurrection is a metaphor; and I feel perfectly within my rights in approaching my whole vocation as priest and preacher as one who is to present poetry; and when I preach poetry I am preaching Christianity, and when one discusses Christianity one is discussing poetry in its imaginative aspects. … My work as a poet has to deal with the presentation of imaginative truth. --R. S. Thomas https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/R._S._Thomas