If character assassination counts, heck, we see that every other day.

Would the crazy medical malpractice that killed Garfield have happened had he not been shot? No. He was assassinated.

I assumed this was a joke, until I looked it up and it turns out the modern Oneida corporation actually is descended from the cult. The more you know.

It seems like he'd be pretty amusing as the host of a 2016 presidential debate.

Garfield was supposed to have had a genius-level IQ as well, being one of the smartest presidents we've had. He had a cool party trick related to his intelligence, too: he was supposedly able to simultaneously write Greek in one hand and Latin in the other.

That's probably right. Whoever chose the running mate, though, these "compromise tickets" kept going so badly so often that you'd think people would eventually get wary of them.

I'm failing to see the downside to that.

Hayes—I dunno. Things might have gone the exact same way if Tilden had won; then, the Democrats would be in power anyway, and the main thing they wanted to do was end Reconstruction, so.

Not really (except in the case of Garfield, where it really kinda did), so much as that you should never choose someone as VP that you're unwilling to accept possibly becoming President. It always seems to find some way to go horribly wrong, and in 1880, it'd happened a lot in recent memory. (Apprehension of this is,…

Sadly, Reconstruction was over and done with at this point, thanks to Hayes' bungling of the whole matter. Basically, he won his election George W. Bush style, losing the popular vote but managing to scratch out a victory in the Electoral College thanks to an Electoral Commission which had been set up to figure out…

He murdered someone because he was in favor of the spoils system, though, which just breaks my brain.

Indeed. It's almost as if they were going, "Well, the Civil War and Reconstruction are over and settled. Now what are we supposed to get all bent out of shape over?!"

But he apparently told people after the fact that the reason McKinley's ghost told him to go all Hamlet was because TR was a "third-termer." Although looking up on on Wiki, it does mention a supposed McKinley revenge plot as well. Anyway, it's clear that this guy was pretty damn cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

Yeah, I specifically avoided saying Presidential assassin just so I could stick Burr in there. Why? Because I felt like it!

Guiteau has to be the USA's most pointless assassin. I mean:

"The experiment is reaching its conclusion. The Enrichment Center is required to inform you that you will be baked, and then there will be cake."

Just curious: is this still on the list? Because I still think it'd make a pretty cool Wiki Wormhole entry.

No, that's the Encyclopædia Britannica. We're talking about the Brittanica here.

I've never heard of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica. Is that some weird knock-off version of the Britannica?

Always nice to stick up for the underdog. Or undercat, as the case may be.