In the 2008 presidential elections, Sarah Palin, the vice-presidential half of the Republican ticket, was criticized as being too inexperienced to hold the highest office in the land. That Palin was only running as Vice President crystallized a longstanding opinion among the influential political circles in the land: the Vice President has to be able to take over for the president at any time. Such a case is not idle speculation, but a real event that happened in the early 20th centiry.

On this day, August 2, in the evening hours President Warren Harding died unexpectedly as a result of a stroke. To complicate matters, Calvin Coolidge at the time was visiting his family in Vermont. By the time word got to him, several hours passed, and without wanting to waste anymore time, he took the Oath of Office by light of a kerosene lamp, with his hand on the family bible.

Coolidge was in many ways the opposite of his gregarious predecessor: all business, few words. He project conservative Puritan values, just the reprieve the people were looking for after a corruption-scandal plagued Harding administration. His belief in laissez-faire economics led to his most quoted phrase — “the business of America is business”, meaning the government should interfere as little as possible in business.