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This Day in History: 2 Key Events


Below are two key historic events that took place on March 29 -- 139 years apart:

1790:
Future President John Tyler is born in Charles City County, Virginia. He was the last president to hail from the colonial Virginia planter class that also gave us Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe.

Family connections helped him secure a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates in 1811. He then went on to serve in the army during the War of 1812 and in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1816 to 1821.

Tyler was elected as William Henry Harrison's vice president in 1841 and became acting president when Harrison died one month into his term. Because of this, Tyler was given the derisive moniker "His Accidency."

No commander has had more children than Tyler, a whopping 15 in total. He had eight with his first wife, Letitia (who died early into his presidency) and seven with his second wife, Julia, who was 30 years his junior. He was 70 when his last child was born.

Politically despised by the Whigs and the Democrats, he refused to give his allegiance to any party. He had a habit of overspending and was perpetually in debt.

Tyler died on January 16, 1862 in Richmond, Virginia.

1929:
President Herbert Hoover has a phone installed at his desk in the Oval Office of the White House. Previously, Hoover had used a phone located in the foyer outside the office. Telephones and a telephone switchboard had been in use at the White House since 1878, when President Rutherford B. Hayes had the first one installed. However, it wasn't until Hoover became president that a phone was installed at the president's desk.
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