Being President is a Dangerous Job Quiz

Answer: Four weeks

On March 24 1841, three weeks after his inauguration, which took place on March 4, President William Henry Harrison went on his daily walk to a number of local markets. Just as at his inauguration, which was a cold and wet day, Harrison went on his walk without a coat or hat.

Although caught out in a sudden rainstorm, the president did not change his clothes on his return to the White House. Two days later, Harrison began complaining of cold-like symptoms and sent for his doctor. Although the president said he felt better after taking some medication, the doctor, Thomas Miller, returned the following day to find Harrison in bed with a "severe chill".

The doctor applied mustard plaster and prescribed a mild laxative. However, early on March 28, Harrison developed severe pain, and the Miller initiated bloodletting, applied heated cups to improve blood-flow, and induced vomiting, eventually diagnosing pneumonia.

Despite the efforts of a team of physicians, Harrison became steadily weaker, developing severe diarrhoea and becoming delirious in the evening of April 3, and died at around 12.30am on April 4, four weeks after his inauguration.

Although there was a long-standing belief that the conditions at his inauguration contributed to his death, an analysis of Miller's notes done in 2014 showed that the White House's water supply was downstream of public sewage, and that Harrison most likely died as a result of typhoid.

Answer: Independence Day

On July 4 1850, at an Independence Day intended to help raise funds for the construction of the Washington Monument, President Zachary Taylor reportedly consumed a significant amount of both raw fruit (cherries) and iced milk. Over the course of the next few days, the president became extremely ill with an unknown digestive complaint, which was diagnosed by his doctor as "cholera morbus", a catch-all term used in the mid-nineteenth century to describe diverse intestinal conditions such as diarrhoea and dysentery. Taylor subsequently developed a fever, and died at about 10.30pm on July 9, six days after Independence Day.

In later years, rumours persisted that Taylor had in fact been assassinated by the administration of poison. In the 1980s, his body was exhumed and samples taken for analysis, which concluded that there was no evidence of poisoning, and instead Taylor had most likely died due to acute gastroenteritis as a result of his food or drink being contaminated by Washington's open sewers.

Answer: Ulysses S. Grant

On April 14 1865, five days after he had received the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox, effectively ending the Civil War, General Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia were invited by President Lincoln to attend a performance of the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre in Washington DC. News of the attendees reached actor and Confederate sympathiser John Wilkes Booth, who had privately made a number of threats to the life of the president, and who resolved to use his knowledge of the theater and the play to assassinate both Lincoln and Grant that night.

However, Grant and his wife had actually declined to attend, instead leaving for a trip to Philadelphia. Lincoln and his wife were instead accompanied by their friends Henry Rathbone and Clara Harris. Booth's plan was to use the laughter at the play's funniest line to mask the sound of the gunshot.

He was able to gain entry to Lincoln's unguarded box and, at the delivery of the line, shot Lincoln behind his left ear, before using his dagger, with which he originally intended to attack General Grant, to stab Rathbone in the arm.

The wound inflicted on the president caused an immediate coma, and Lincoln eventually died at 7.20am the following morning.

Answer: Baltimore & Potomac

By the beginning of July 1881, James Garfield had settled into the business of governing following the drawn out process of assembling his cabinet and administration. The president had arranged to escape the oppressive summer heat of Washington for a vacation on the coast in New Jersey, for which he would travel by train.

In the mid-morning of July 2 1881, Garfield, accompanied by two of his sons and the Secretary of State, James Blaine, set off by carriage to Washington's Baltimore & Potomac Railway Station, located on the corner of Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue.

As Garfield, who had no security detail, entered the station's waiting room, he was shot in the back by Charles Guiteau, a man who had repeatedly sought a political office in Garfield's administration.

The president was carried to an upstairs room, where several doctors repeatedly probed the wound with unsterilized fingers to try and locate the bullet. He was returned to the White House where physician D. Willard Bliss appointed himself as the president's doctor.

Despite (or, as many historians have concluded, because of) Bliss's ministrations, Garfield's body became ravaged by infection, and he died on September 19, 79 days after the shooting.

Answer: Buffalo

On April 29 1901, a few weeks after his second inauguration, President William McKinley and his wife Ida left Washington DC to undertake a six-week nationwide tour, intended to take in visits through the South and South-West, up the Pacific Coast, and then returning eastwards to conclude with a visit to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York on June 13.

However, while in California, Mrs McKinley fell ill, which led to the president limiting his public events and speeches, including postponing his visit to the Exposition in Buffalo until September.

The president and his wife eventually arrived in Buffalo on September 5 for a series of public events in the region, including trips to Cleveland and Niagara Falls. The president gave a speech at the Exposition and toured the fairgrounds on September 5, while on the following day he travelled with his wife to Niagara Falls before returning to Buffalo for a reception at the Exposition's 'Temple of Music'.

While greeting guests at the reception, McKinley was shot twice in the abdomen by Leon Czolgosz, a former steelworker turned anarchist.

Although McKinley survived the initial shooting, and for a period afterwards appeared to be recovering, by September 13, a week after receiving his wounds, the president's condition deteriorated as a result of infection setting in, and he died at 2.15am on September 14, eight days after being shot.

Answer: University of Washington

Although Warren G. Harding had been elected by a landslide in 1920, he had not managed to fully return the economy to a healthy state following the post-war decline of 1920-21. So, in the summer of 1923, the president planned a major cross-country tour that he dubbed the "Voyage of Understanding"; this was planned both as a way to allow him to speak widely across the country in advance of the 1924 election, but also allow him to rest away from the oppressive summer heat of Washington. During the trip, Harding became the first president to visit Alaska, as well as the first sitting president to go to Canada, when he toured Vancouver.

However, the trip proved physically exhausting for Harding, who had suffered poor health (including a heart condition) for some years. On July 27, the president gave a speech about Alaska at the University of Washington in Seattle; in delivering it, he seemed to rush through it, avoiding pauses for applause.

At the end of that day, Harding, having gone to bed, called for his doctor complaining of a pain in his abdomen.

The planned stop in Portland was cancelled, and his train went straight to San Francisco, arriving on July 29. Following bed rest, his condition seemed to improve so that, by August 2, he was able to sit up. That evening, while listening to his wife reading, he suffered convulsions and died just after 7.30pm. Although no autopsy was carried out, it is believed that he suffered a cardiac arrest.

Answer: Georgia

In November 1944, Franklin D. Roosevelt won an unprecedented fourth term as president. However, the president was well aware that his health was declining; the previous March, he had undergone tests and was found to be suffering from high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease, and congestive heart failure.

This decline led to his personal physician drawing up a programme for his daily routine that included two hours rest. Despite this, even Roosevelt was aware of the possibility that he might not be able to continue in office due to his health, and suggested he may resign once the Second World War was over. Roosevelt return from the Yalta Conference in February 1945 looking increasingly frail, and so on March 29 he departed Washington for his retreat, the "Little White House" in Warm Springs, Georgia with the intention of resting prior to his going to the conference marking the foundation of the United Nations in San Francisco on April 25. During the afternoon of April 12, the president was sitting for a portrait for artist Elizabeth Shoumatoff; while he was being served lunch, he said "I have a terrific headache", and immediately collapsed. Roosevelt's attending physician diagnosed an intracerebral haemorrhage; Roosevelt eventually died at 3.35pm the same day.

Answer: Fort Worth

On September 24 1963, the White House announced that President Kennedy would be making a two-day trip to Texas in November, encompassing visits to all of the state's major cities. The official portion of the trip was programmed for Thursday November 21 and Friday November 22, after which the president and his wife would spend the weekend at the ranch of Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy had two major engagements programmed for November 21 - a dedication speech for the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, followed by a dinner honouring Congressman Albert Thomas at the Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston. Following the second event, the presidential party flew to spend the night in Fort Worth.

The first engagement of the second day of the trip was a breakfast speech to Forth Worth's Chamber of Commerce, before events at lunchtime in Dallas, and in the evening in Austin. Following Kennedy's arrival in Dallas, he proceeded in a motorcade to the next event, a lunchtime speech to assembled local dignitaries at the Dallas Trade Mart, when he was shot in the head while travelling through Dealey Plaza at 12.30pm.

Although efforts were made to save the president at Parkland Hospital, Kennedy was pronounced dead at 1.00pm.

Answer: James Garfield

Although initially doctors suggested that President Garfield's wound was mortal, it had been seen that many veterans of the US Civil War, which had ended just sixteen years previously, had survived with similar wounds to those sustained by the president.

In that context however, patients would have gone to a hospital and received standard and fairly cursory care, allowing the wound to heal naturally. Because the victim in Garfield's case was the president, many doctors sought to be part of the case.

This, alongside the disdain that the American medical establishment had for Joseph Lister's work on antisepsis, led to many individuals probing Garfield's wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments, introducing severe infection into his body. Garfield was able to survive for 79 days before dying as a result of the infections.

Historians believe that, had he been treated differently, he may well have survived the wound. Of the others killed by assassins, McKinley survived his shooting for 8 days, Lincoln for just a few hours, while Kennedy died almost instantly. Of the four that died of natural causes, Harrison survived for 9 days, Taylor and Harding for 6 days, while Roosevelt died within two hours of suffering the intracranial haemorrhage that killed him.

Answer: Harry S. Truman

Harry S Truman had been Vice-President of the United States for less than three months, having been inaugurated on January 20 1945, when President Roosevelt suddenly died. Truman was acting as President of the United States Senate when he was told to go to the White House, where he received the message that the president had died, and where he was sworn in as the 33rd President of the United States at 7.09pm. Truman subsequently served the remainder of Roosevelt's fourth term, during which time his approval ratings with the public steadily dropped, eventually reaching just 36% in the spring of 1948.

This led to many making the case that Truman had no chance of winning re-election that November. Instead, Truman achieved a stunning, unexpected victory over his opponent, Governor Thomas Dewey, which led to a full second term. Truman eventually served a total of 2,840 days as president, and is one of four vice-presidents to have succeeded to the presidency through the death of their predecessor to have also won re-election (the others being Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge and Lyndon B. Johnson).