Five shortest serving US Presidents

William Henry Harrison

William Henry Harrison was the shortest-serving President of the United States of America. He died after just 31 days of joining the office. Harrison was 68 at the time of his inauguration, He became the oldest person to assume the U.S. presidency, a distinction he held until 1981. Harrison was in the military before he joined politics. He started his political career in 1798 after being appointed as the Secretary of the Northwest Territory.

During the 1836 elections, Harrison was nominated as the Whig Party candidate for President. However, he was defeated by Democratic vice president Martin Van Buren. Four years later, he was nominated again with John Tyler as his running mate. His election campaign was backed by his military career and the weak US economy at the time.

They together defeated Van Buren in the 1840 United States presidential election, making Harrison the first Whig to become the President of America. His achievements as a president include forming the first Whig cabinet in the US. Harrison died of a cold that developed into pneumonia. On April 4, 1841, he died, becoming the first President to die in office and with him died the Whig Party.

James A Garfield

James Garfield was the 20th President of the United States, elected in 1881. He became the US President after nine terms in the U.S. House of Representatives. His Presidency was strong, but after 200 days of joining the office, he was assassinated.

Garfield was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1859 as a Republican. During the secession crisis, he advocated to pressurize the seceding states back into the Union. He served as a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War and went on to fight in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga.

He was first elected to Congress in 1862 to represent Ohio’s 19th district. Further on, Garfield went on to be elected for 18 years and became the leading republican of the House. In the 1880 presidential elections, he defeated Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock. Garfield was an advocate of agricultural technology, an educated electorate, and civil rights for African Americans. He was shot on July 2, 1881, by Charles J. Guiteau, an embittered office seeker.

 Zachary Taylor

Zachary Taylor was the 12th president of the United States, who presided from 1849 until his death in 1850. His term lasted for 492 days.

He was an American military leader who later on turned to politics. Taylor was earlier a career officer in the Army of the United States. After he led to victory in the Mexican–American War, over the years, he rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero of America.

The 1848 United States presidential was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1848. After the conclusion of the Mexican–American War, General Zachary Taylor of the Whig Party defeated Senator Lewis Cass of the Democratic Party.

As a president, Taylor kept his distance from Congress and his cabinet. It is said that 40 years in the Army made Taylor a strong nationalist; hence, he did not defend slavery or southern sectionalism. Taylor died unexpectedly of a stomach disease on July 9, 1850.

Warren G Harding

Warren G Harding was the 29th President of the United States. He served from 1921 until his death in 1923. His term lasted for 881 days. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most renowned U.S. presidents till that time.

He ran for the post of President as a Republican in 1920 and was considered a long shot. Before his nomination, Harding said, “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality….”

He won a cakewalk victory against Democrat James M. Cox and Socialist Party candidate Eugene Debs and became the first sitting senator elected President.

Harding’s term in office was filled with scandals, including Teapot Dome.  Harding was an advocate of technology and was sensitive to the state of minorities and women. In August of 1923, he died in San Francisco of a heart attack.

Gerald Ford

Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr presided as the 38th President of the United States from 1974 to 1977. He was a member of the Republican Party. Ford had also served previously as the 40th Vice President of the United States from 1973 to 1974. His was a partial complete term of 2 years, 5 months, and 11 days.

Even today in the history of America, Ford is the only person to have served as both Vice President and President without being elected to either office by the Electoral College.

After the resignation of President Richard Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal, Ford became the first person appointed as the Vice President under the terms of the 25th Amendment. When Gerald R. Ford took the oath of office on August 9, 1974, as the 38th President, he said, “I assume the Presidency under extraordinary circumstances…This is an hour of history that troubles our minds and hurts our hearts.”

President Ford won the Republican nomination for the Presidential elections in 1976 but narrowly lost the election to his Democratic rival, former governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter.