I'm Afraid You're Dead, Mr. President Quiz

Answer: Assassinated

Abraham Lincoln was the 16th president of the U.S. and took office in 1861, serving until his assassination on 14th April 1865. As is generally well known, he was shot dead at Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. by the actor John Wilkes Booth while watching the play "Our American Cousin". Booth escaped but was shot dead two weeks later after being captured with a co-conspirator in Port Conway, Virginia. Lincoln survived in a coma for several hours but died the following day.

Answer: Assassinated

The 20th U.S. president, James A. Garfield, had been in office for just four months when, on July 2, 1881, he was at a Washington D.C. railway station on his way to give a speech. Here, a deranged political campaigner named Charles J. Guiteau fired two shots at him, one of which became lodged in his back. Garfield did not die immediately, but doctors were unable to remove the bullet and the president died of his injuries two months later, on September 19. Guiteau was tried for his murder and hanged.

By a morbid coincidence, Garfield had been accompanied to the station by his Secretary of War, Robert Todd Lincoln, son of Abraham, the last president to be assassinated.

Answer: Assassinated

The 25th president of the United States was William McKinley, who was born in 1843 and became president in March 1897. He was successfully re-elected at the 1900 election but was only around six months into his second term when he was shot by an anarchist named Leon Czolgosz while attending the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York.

The shooting took place on September 6th, and McKinley at first seemed likely to survive. But gangrene developed which could not be treated and he died on September 14th. Czolgosz was quickly put on trial for murder, found guilty, and executed on October 29th, 1901, by electric chair.

Answer: Assassinated

John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th U.S. president on January 20th, 1961, at the age of 43. On November 22nd, 1963, he was shot dead by Lee Harvey Oswald while travelling in an open-topped limousine in Dallas, Texas. Kennedy died on the spot and Oswald was arrested later in the day after also shooting and killing a police officer named J. D. Tippit.

Oswald was charged with the two murders but was himself shot dead by a nightclub owner named Jack Ruby on November 24th, while in police custody. Numerous conspiracy theories have grown up around the assassination, most of which can be found on the internet for those who are interested.

Answer: Died of Natural Causes

William Henry Harrison was the ninth U.S. president, and the first to die in office, a mere 31 days into his term. Harrison was keen to be seen as a strong, fit president, and often went out without a coat or hat, which proved to be his undoing. On March 24th, 1841, just three weeks after taking his oath of office, he was caught in a severe rainstorm, without appropriate clothing, and then went back to work without changing out of his wet clothes. Two days later he became ill and was diagnosed with pneumonia, which weakened him seriously. He died early on the morning of April 4th.

Interestingly, modern analysis of medical notes taken at the time has led to suggestions that he may in fact have died of typhoid fever, caused by sewage in the White House water supply.

Answer: Died of Natural Causes

The 12th president, Zachary Taylor, served for just over year, from March 1849 to July 1850. He died of an illness resembling gastroenteritis, possibly as a result of something he ate at a July 4th fundraising event, although the exact cause was never determined. There were various rumours at the time that he was poisoned, but these were never substantiated.

Answer: Died of Natural Causes

The 29th president of the United States was Warren G. Harding, who took office in 1921 after winning the 1920 presidential election. He appeared to be in good health, but died unexpectedly of a heart attack on August 2nd, 1923, aged 57, and was succeeded by his vice-president, Calvin Coolidge.

Although the cause of death was accepted at the time, various rumours arose in later years, when it came to light that he had fathered a child with his mistress, Nan Britton, while serving as a senator, and that the affair continued after he became president. Suggestions that his wife might have poisoned him when she found about this affair were later fuelled by a scurrilous book named "The Strange Death of President Harding", written by Gaston Mears and published in 1930.

Answer: Died of Natural Causes

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the 32nd U.S. president, and served for an unprecedented 12 years, winning four elections in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. At the first of these he defeated the sitting president Herbert Hoover and took his country through to the end of the Great Depression and into the Second World War, dying only a few months before its end.

He was already in ill health during the 1944 campaign and died of an intracerebral haemorrhage on April 12th, 1945, at the age of 63. His vice-president, Harry S. Truman, succeeded him and saw the country through to the end of the war.

Answer: Survived Term of Office

Thomas Jefferson was the third U.S. president, following George Washington and John Adams. He served for two full terms, between 1801 and 1809, retiring at the age of 66. He then continued to be politically active and died at the age of 83 on July 4th 1826: 50 years to the day since the Declaration of Independence was formally adopted.

As an additional co-incidence, the second president, John Adams, died on the very same day, a few hours after Jefferson.

Answer: Survived Term of Office

John Tyler was the tenth U.S. president, and took up the office when his predecessor, William Henry Harrison, died after only a month in office (as described elsewhere in this quiz). He therefore served for almost a full four years, from April 1841 to March 1845. When Harrison died, some politicians argued that Tyler should continue as "vice-president" but fulfil the president's duties. Tyler, however, insisted that he should take on the full office of president, and this set the precedent for every other instance when a president dies in office.

While not generally well regarded as a president by historians, Tyler deserves to be remembered by trivia fans for one very good reason. Despite being born in 1790, he had a grandson (Harrison Ruffin Tyler) who died as recently as 2025.

Answer: Survived Term of Office

Herbert Hoover, the 31st president, served for a single term from 1929 to 1933, having previously been Secretary of Commerce under both Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge. During his first year in office the 1929 Wall Street Crash occurred, which led to the Great Depression, and this naturally dominated the rest of his term.

He was generally regarded as failing to get to grips with the issues, leading to a resounding defeat in the 1932 presidential election to Franklin D. Roosevelt. Hoover lived on for another 31 years, continuing to be politically active, dying in 1964 at the age of 90.

Answer: Survived Term of Office

Ronald Reagan, the 40th president of the United States, served for two full terms between 1981 and 1989. He died in 2004 at the age of 93. In March 1981, he survived an assassination attempt after being shot by John Hinckley Jr. outside a hotel in Washington D.C.

The bullet broke a rib and punctured a lung, and Reagan underwent emergency surgery in a local hospital. He was fortunate enough to make a full recovery. Hinckley was tried and found not guilty by reason of insanity, after it was revealed that he was obsessed with the actress Jodie Foster and claimed to have shot Reagan in an attempt to impress her.