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>