Today is Harry Truman Day. Some things you should know about the most underrated president in American history:
He didn't have a college degree. He's the only 20th-century president who didn't. He was a Missouri farm boy who fought as an artillery captain in WWI (his men called him "Captain Harry") and never lost a soldier under his command. After the war he opened a haberdashery, went broke in the 1922 recession, and spent the next 15 years paying off every dollar he owed because he refused to declare bankruptcy.
The "S" in Harry S. Truman doesn't stand for anything. His parents couldn't decide between his two grandfathers, Anderson Shipp and Solomon Young, so they compromised on just the letter.
He was Vice President for 82 days. He met privately with FDR exactly twice. Nobody told him the United States was building an atomic bomb. He learned about the Manhattan Project after he was already President.
When he was summoned to the White House on April 12, 1945, Eleanor Roosevelt told him her husband was dead. Truman asked, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
She replied: "Is there anything we can do for YOU? You're the one in trouble now."
Four months later, he authorized the use of nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
In May 1948, against the unanimous opposition of his Secretary of State, his entire State Department, and the Pentagon, he made the United States the first nation on Earth to recognize the State of Israel. Eleven minutes after it declared independence.
Two months later, he desegregated the entire United States armed forces by executive order. Sixteen years before the Civil Rights Act.
That November, every poll, every pundit, and every major newspaper said he would lose to Thomas Dewey. The Chicago Daily Tribune printed "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN" before the votes were counted. Truman won, and the photo of him grinning while holding up that wrong headline became the most famous election photograph ever taken.
In 1950, two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to assassinate him at Blair House. A White House police officer named Leslie Coffelt was shot three times in the chest and still managed to kill one of the attackers before he died. Truman attended his funeral.
Later that same year, a Washington Post critic named Paul Hume gave a mediocre review to his daughter Margaret's singing recital. The sitting President of the United States, commander in chief, holder of the nuclear codes, architect of the Marshall Plan, sat down and personally wrote Hume:
"Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below."
He kept a sign on his desk that read "The buck stops here."
When he left the White House in 1953, he had no Secret Service detail, no presidential pension, and no staff. He and Bess loaded up their own Chrysler and drove themselves back to Independence, Missouri, stopping at roadside diners along the way. Congress was so embarrassed they invented the Former Presidents Act because of him.
He was so broke as an ex-president he had to take out a personal bank loan. He refused every corporate board offer he received because he believed cashing in on the presidency would degrade the office.
He left the White House with a 22% approval rating, the lowest of any president to that point. Today, historians consistently rank him in the top 10.
The buck stopped there.
@DoubtfulHobbes@Breaking911 Because research shows death penalty is not an effective deterrent, and the taxpayer costs of death penalty are millions higher than life incarceration.
@Breaking911 I have young daughters. What this monster did was unfathomably horrific, but the death penalty is a counter-productive form of punishment, and not equivalent to justice.
Aiden Robbins is dominating the SEC conference-only leaderboards. Here's where he ranks in a few categories:
HR: first (10)
SLG: first (.836)
AVG: sixth (.370)
JUST IN: #Texas star quarterback Quinn Ewers has a formal meeting with the Dallas #Cowboys at the #NFL combine, sources exclusively tell @_MLFootball.
Ewers, 21, was 11 and 1 on the road as a starter in conference games. CFP semifinals 2 seasons in a row and 27 & 5 as a starter.
What a horrible thing for a pastor to say to his congregation…we are each beautifully and wonderfully made in God’s image, AND we all have free will. This is disgusting 😔