On this day in 1784, future President Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) is born in Barboursville, Virginia. Surprisingly, despite Taylor's impressive resume, most Americans know little about him. A distant relative of America's fourth president, James Madison, Taylor served valiantly in the War of 1812, the Blackhawk War (1832), second Seminole War (1835-1837), and Mexican-American War (1846-1848), after which he ran for the presidency. The biggest controversy involving Taylor is the cause of his death, which continues to be debated to this day. On a searing Fourth of July in Washington D.C., he downed a large quantity of iced milk and cherries, followed by a few glasses of water. Some historians believe the water or milk may have been tainted with bacteria, causing him to contract cholera. (Outbreaks of cholera were common in Washington D.C. at time.) Others claim that he died of gastroenteritis, typhoid fever, or food poisoning. No evidence of foul play was ever found. Tay...

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...