On this day in 1861, Jefferson Davis (1808-1889) was elected President of the Confederate States of America. Like his Union counterpart, Abraham Lincoln, Davis was a native of Kentucky. After graduating from West Point in 1828, he went on to serve in the Black Hawk War of 1832 as well as the Mexican War. Davis married twice in his life. His first wife, Sarah Knox Taylor, who contracted malaria and died a few months after the wedding, was the daughter of general and future U.S. President Zachary Taylor. He later served as senator of Mississippi and as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce. Davis ran unopposed for president of the Confederacy and expressed great fear in what lay ahead once he was elected. Those fears weren't unfounded: He and Lincoln presided over the bloodiest conflict in American history. The Civil War left over 600,000 Union and Condederate soldiers dead. Davis was imprisoned in 1865 and would remain there for two years. In his later years, Dav...

It has been speculated that the 15th President of the United States, James Buchanan (1791-1868), was the nation's first gay president. Unfortunately, Buchanan is often ranked one of the worst commanders-in-chief in U.S. history, namely because of his inability to act in the face of secession. The fact that he may have been asexual, bisexual, or homosexual is one of the few things people remember him for. Much has been made of his close relationship with William Rufus King (1786-1853), an Alabama senator who would go on to become vice president under President Franklin Pierce. The two lived together in a Washington for 10 years until King departed for France and attended social functions together. Rufus referred to their relationship as a "communion." Andrew Jackson referred to them as "Miss Nancy" and "Aunt Fancy," the former being a euphemism of the time for an effeminate man. After Rufus left to Paris, Buchanan wrote the following: "I ...