Oh What A Time... - #150 Short lived Presidents (Part 1)

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

This week we’re discussing US Presidents who, through various interventions of fate, weren’t actually President for any great length of time. We’ve got poor old Zachary Taylor (1784-1850), unlucky James Garfield (1831-1881) and let’s not forget Warren G. Harding (1865-1923).Plus, what on earth did we do before the advent of eBay? Did you basically have to just be very fortunate if you wanted something obscure and niche? If you remember these grand old days, you know what to do: [e-mail] send us any entrepreneurial ideas you had when you were ten!And in huge news, Oh What A Time is now on Patreon! From content you’ve never heard before to the incredible Oh What A Time chat group, there’s so much more OWAT to be enjoyed!On our Patreon you’ll now find:•The full archive of bonus episodes•Brand new bonus episodes each month•OWAT subscriber group chats•Loads of extra perks for supporters of the show•PLUS ad-free episodes earlier than everyone elseJoin us at 👉 patreon.com/ohwhatatimeAnd as a special thank you for joining, use the code CUSTARD for 25% off your first month.You can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom x Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

O Watertime is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, ad free, plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets and access to the O Watertime Group chat. Plus if you become an O Watertime All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis, will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have popped up.

For all your options, you can go to patreon.com forward slash O-Watertime. Hello and welcome to Oh, what a time, the history podcast that asks, If you're into vintage stuff, niche stuff, obscure stuff, unique stuff, how on earth did anyone get by before the vintage and eBay age? I'm going to give you an example, right? I, when I was a teenager, really, really coveted the 1984 to 87 Wales home kit by Adidas

and the 87 to 1990 Wales home kit by Hummel and once in a charity shop in Cardiff I saw an old Northern Ireland kit from 1980 and I thought, well maybe they get loads of vintage football kits they didn't, it was a Bernardo's. That didn't stop me from every week going in and saying, have you got a vintage Adidas Wales

home kit between 1984-1987 and a vintage Wales Hummel kit between 87 and 1990 in a sort of small men's please? And they'd always go, no, because the chances of that happening were vanishingly rare because they only sold about nine of them

in the first place because Welsh football kids won a big sell in the 1980s. So I just used to sort of walk around and hope that I would see one. which is the maddest way of trying to get something rare, imaginable. And did you ever manage to find a football shirt of any worth or nostalgic value in a charity shop? Have you ever bought a... Well, the Northern Ireland one.

So I did buy the Northern Ireland one, because I was so amazed that it was there, and it was like a tenor or something. I bought that one. I ended up giving it to Colin Murray, actually. And then I discovered eBay, and all this stuff was there. And the reason I say this is my son is by... and TY-Y-Boos Unvinted as we speak. And it's just an amazing repository for other people's shit. I know.

Can I give the counter-argument? Oh, yeah. Is there not something quite romantic about the on-foot search of these sort of things? The hope you might stumble across them. The example, I found that I bought when I was about 14 or 15 a Sampdoria shirt in a secondhand shop. And I still remember that feeling of going through the rail. I remember the sumptorius shirt. Yeah, I've seen it.

Yes, of just nothing. And then like, oh my goodness, it's the samtori shirt that David Platt wears. And I still remember that as a really important moment in my teenage years. I agree. But for something that obscure, you'll just never get it. So there was a record fair in Carmarthen in St. Peter's Hall. And I did used to get some pretty obscure stuff there. But because there were 15 stalls.

So I remember getting Rank, the Smith's live album. released in 1986 for a fiver and being delighted because it had been deleted. But if you're going to a big record fair, it's quite likely you'll end up with something you want. If you're walking into Oxfam on a Saturday and saying, have you got this incredibly obscure football shirt? The chances of it happening are so tiny. Yeah. Well, Elle, I want to pitch to you an idea I had when I was 10 years old. I've never shared this on the podcast before.

When I was at primary school, we did a, the project was you had to come up with an entrepreneurial idea, and you had to write down what it was going to be. This was my idea. I think you would have liked it. The idea was... It's Google. No. It's a shop. This is pre-internet, remember? This would have been like 92, 93. It's a shop. You'd have a man behind the counter. You'd walk in and you'd go, hello, I want a 1997 Wales shirt. And he'd go, all right, come back in a week. And that guy would go find it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, I invented Amazon. The only thing Missing was the technology The idea was there

I've got a few questions So is it literally just one guy Having to feel all these requests What an exhausting job I had to draw an illustration Of what the idea was And it was a single man, yes It was like Argos

There was a wall behind him Where the magic's really happening Yeah He might have it in stock Obscua Argos He definitely had a phone Argos is a mad cell By the way

As a thing that was initially pitched As an idea for a shop You don't go and pick the stuff up. No, you stand in a room and you tell other people what you want and they find a few. And they pick it up. The whole business is based on small pencils.

And a catalogue, there's a, believe it or not, a thousand pages long. You could kill a man with. Man, I used to love that Argos catalog as a kid as a birthday, just circling for Christmas. The Argos near me, where I grew up,

if you stood on the side of the counter at a certain angle, you saw backstage, you saw all the shells and shells and shells. Like those people you see sort of the side of the pyramid stage. Yeah, yeah, the wings, in the wings at Argos. You could peek through at a huge warehouse where all the magic was happening. I remember, though, I was desperate for those two football shirts. And, you know, the way I was going about it, there was no way I was ever going to find them that way.

And then I remember going to visit London with my mum and dad, because they had friends who lived in South London. I went to watch West Ham play at Upton Parker. I went to watch West Ham play Blackburn when they were still the champions and they lost on West Ham 1-2-1. Oh, I saw that game as well. What I remember is seeing an advert in the tube

that said something like, if you can't get it in Hong Kong, you can't get it. I remember thinking, what, a Wales 984-2-87? Addidas home shit. I need to go to bloody Hong Kong. Oh, God. Fine, I'll do it, but I won't be happy about it. I just remember thinking,

What a place. They've got everything. It's the world's Argos, Hong Kong. Do you want to hear a heartbreaking football shirt story? My brother Noel went to see River Plate versus Bocca Juniors at Bocca Juniors. This would have been early 90s. He bought me the home Bocca Juniors shirt, the one that Maradona wore. The blue and yellow one.

Yes, with the yellow stripes. Brought it back. My mum didn't know what it was and then cut it into dishcloths. And I came home and I found it. and I found it in like 17 pieces underneath the sink. That shirt will be worth so much money now. It's an original Bocca Jr.'s shirt from the early 90s. You know, painful.

That's a fun email to send in. Have you ever held anything of historical relevance that is deeply sacred to yourself that has been destroyed in your own arms? Could be for dishcloths. Could be for whatever purpose. Oh, my God. Who has done that? It's a very good question.

Talking of that, Skull, talking of sort of questions we ask our listeners, before we get in today's episode, should we crack into a bit of correspondence? Should we do that? Yeah. Oh, yes. Okay, of course. Your emails are always fantastic, but today is no difference. So, you sent us some correspondence, have you?

Well, let's take a look at you then. Gabby Frederick's great name was emailed to say Greetings guys my in-laws will be turning This is amazing this, 96 and 100 in December Oh my gosh Isn't that cool? Yeah That's awesome

Still living independently And my father-in-law still has his own driver's license Which is amazing That I think should be looked into If there are any police officers listening It's a lovely idea But let's check up on that The independent living stuff

Great The driving licence stuff I'd have a look personally A friend of mine's epileptic And he hadn't I saw him the other day And he hadn't driven Since about 2001

But you've got to go five years Without a fit And then the DFLA will give you your licence back So he's had five years without a fit And he can drive again He doesn't have to do another test The only issue is

he's forgotten how to drive. There's nothing legally stopping him from getting behind the wheel. It's just he doesn't know how to do it. He just doesn't. And cars have changed. He was like, it feels wrong. But in the eyes of the law, it isn't wrong. Legally, they can't touch me.

So, yeah, I think he's going to have a couple of lessons. So the email continues, my mother-in-law has her gin and tonic and siggy or two every evening, so I can't see anything wrong with a whiskey in a pipe each night. I, however, have my own theory to their longevity. My mother-in-law prepares all her meals out of a packet and has done for decades, as far as I'm aware. She once told me she roasted potatoes from a tin.

My theory is that the in-laws are preserved in perpetuity. Forget organic food, consume all the preservatives you can for a long and mentally stable life. Cheers, Gabby Fredericks. So Gabby's point of view is that this overly present, served, packeted food is what kept her mother-in-law and father-in-law going for so many years. It's all the preserges. In the way that I suppose you might put chemicals on a field to make sure the crops last forever,

that's what happened to the grandparents. Well, it's like occasionally they will leave a McDonald's burger. Yeah. Just out for nine months. After nine months, it looks exactly the same as the date was made. And you think that can't, everything about this tells me that it's wrong. They're human Big Macs, that's what you're saying. That's what these people are.

I wonder to what end you could see how far that stretches? Could you neck a load of formaldehyde every day and just see if that pickles you enough that you live forever? Yeah. I wonder how stressed they are and how stress they've been. Because it's always that. It's always... This is John from Morriston in Swansea.

John's 114 years of age and yesterday became the oldest living man on earth. We went over to Morriston to find out a secret. and there's always, I have a glass of whiskey every night before going to bed and a couple of pints. And I stopped smoking on my 100th birthday and I'd smoke from the age of 6 to 100. So I had a good 94 years of on the fags.

Chewing tobacco on the go as well during the interview. Yeah. So now it's just 40 or 50 patches. And then what I do in the morning, then I have a lager with my porridge. And I think that does me then. And you're like, Who is lying to me?

Because I won't make it to a hundred. I'd argue that some people are just built to live for a long time and others aren't. And you can only do so much in the middle. They're like Saabs. They will just keep going. Yeah, absolutely. Well, well done to the 96 year old and the 100 year old father and or mother-in-law. Thank you for telling us about that.

Gabby. If anyone else has any historical relatives, they want to email in about, they can. Well, they are historical relatives. Exactly. They're 100 years of age. So, born in 1925. So that is pre the Wall Street crash. Yeah.

Wow. Yeah. That's way before World War II. My wife's granddad, his password on his iPad was 1920 because that was the year he was born. And he made it to 102. Yeah. That is remarkable. And every time I had to open his iPad, type in 1920.

You're like, this is mad. 1920. The drop-down menus must have been annoying for his... He had to put his date and birth down. You know, he's sort of like signing up to something. He's scrolling up for about seven minutes. Joan, the next time I see one of those drop-downs, I'm going to go see what the earliest age...

Sure, if they were going to let you put in 18-90... I wonder what the earliest option they give you is. You know you've made it to an old age when they don't give you an option for your year of birth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the dream. I want to be post-drop-down. And are they changing that in accordance with the oldest person of the world?

Obviously, there is at all times the earliest date that the current living person was born. So as that person pops their clogs, are they then changing that on the drop-down menu? Or can you go back to like 1842? How do they work? I've never gone back. The oldest person alive is a British woman called Ethel Caterham. Oh, wow. And she was born in August, 1909.

So she celebrated 116th birthday in August. She has 50 fags a day. Oh, yeah, yeah. She just eats kits cats Kits cats. Kits cats. She just eats cats. She just eats her Kitskats. Isn't it weird that makes me feel sort of slightly proud that it's a Brit? Yeah, I know. You said that, I was like, oh, there we go.

Yeah, when I was a kid, the oldest man in the world was a guy from Swansea. A guy called John, and I remember being really proud to that for some reason. And to say, they think it's all this, you know, this olive oil Mediterranean diet is not. It's a Sunday roast once a week. No, she lives in Surrey. Yeah, it's a friar. It's hovis. So if you want to get in contact with the show, as I say, there's many ways, and here's how.

All right, you horrible luck. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show. You can email us at hello at oldwatertime.com. And you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh, What a time, Pod. Now, clear off. All right. It's time to sound the very exciting news, claxon.

Because, huge announcement. Thursday the 15th of January, 2026, at the Underbelly Boulevard in Soho. What is happening that night? I'll tell you what's happening that night. The greatest moment in comedy history podcasting history. Oh, what a time live. Are we excited? We've finally done it.

We've finally done it. So he's taken nine years? Yeah. Although, Elle, I'd argue, there's now more history for us to cover because we've taken so long. Very, very good point. We've got an additional year and a half. That was always the argument the band Embrace would make about

which was the best week for music. They'd always say every week because it's more stuff coming out. Yeah. We were actually waiting to do this live show until there was just the right amount of history to discuss. Yeah. And we've finally tipped over. So, underbelly,

Boulevard in Soho, Thursday the 15th of January, 2026. Oh, What a Time live. Now, how can you get tickets? There are two ways. If you are an Oh, What a Time full timer or subscribe to our Patreon, you get access to the presale right now. But if you want to risk it and you want to wait, general sale is Thursday the 27th of November, but tickets are expected to sell out. So do get in there quickly. I'll make sure the link is on ohwatertime.com. Very exciting. There are actually three ways. The third ways that you go to Bernardo's in Cardiff and just ask. Have you got any tickets for a while?

No, this isn't the place. Okay. No one's handed any. No, but we have got this Wales 94 shirt. Is that enough, sir? But yes, I think it's going to be really fun. I'm really looking forward to what you. At last, we've organised our first live show.

I think it's going to be great. So if you want to get tickets, come out. Oh, what a time, four-timer. And you'll have first dibs and you'll be there. and you can heckel or say nice things to your heart. Actually, don't heckle. I retract that immediately. I hate heckling.

It's why I stop doing stand-up. Okay. So there we go. 2026 will start with a bang. It is guaranteed. But one of the other benefits of becoming an oh-watt-time, full-timer, or an all-timer subscribing to our patron is that if you go into the top tier, the all-timer tier, we will posit where in history your name may have been before.

And we have another name for you this week. And that name, are you ready, boys, is Lucy Sheridan Whiteman. I think that's someone who had an affair with someone in the royal family in the early 80s. Bit of a scandal. The name knocks around occasionally. Yeah. Met at the polo, as they often did back then. Yeah, every five or six years, the Daily Mail does a Where Is She Now article? And it'll be a picture of Lucy coming out of Starbucks. You'll never guess what happened to this person was involved in a Royal

scandal in 1982. She got a bronze and the equestrians event in the Olympics as well. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She represented Britain in the dressage at the 1984 Olympics and was booed when she took a podium place. The Sheridan Whiteman family, of course,

big famous naval family, stretching back 300 years. Oh, that's nice. Yeah, yeah. That's an important note. Kind of person that the Queen would, according to a daily male royal insider, the Queen would spit her name and refer to her as that woman

That's that covered Great, next name The Queen would spit her name We've completely besmirch the name Someone, let's move on the next one Thank you Lucy for becoming A What a Time All-Timer Yeah, thank you Lucy

Cheers Lucy But you've clearly got the money Lucy Let's be honest The names to go by And if you want to join the club Become a Patreon O-Watertime All-Timer Let us figure out where in history Your Name may have been

Well here's how you can do that Hello again you horrible lot enjoying the show, well, why not show the love by becoming a Patreon supporter today? For a mere handful of farthings, you can get ad-free shows, two bonus subscriber episodes each month, access to all the past bonus eps, first dibs on live tickets, and even help decide what subjects the boys cover next. Your support makes everything possible, so sign up. today at patreon.com slash oh what's a time or oh what's the time.com. What are you waiting for? Stop dawdling.

So this week on the show we are discussing short-lived presidencies. I'll be telling you all about Mr James Abram Garfield. And at the end of the show I'm going to be telling you about Warren G. Harding. and his short-lived time in the White House. I will be talking about Zachary Taylor, who was present between 1784 and 18... No.

Who was president in the 1840s? No, no, he wasn't. It was 1850, sorry. And I'll be talking about... Sorry, sorry, okay, Elle. I'll start again. I almost want to keep that in, Elle, because I think that is the most confused

anyone has ever got in the introduction. It was his age. Richard, you named. literally every date is possible. Because it was his age. And I thought, hang on, it says here that he was president for 65 years. That can't be right, right. Little peek behind the curtain, what Elle does is he names every date for 300 years around a window.

And then Jody, our editor, finds the right one. And then we edit around it, yeah. And I'll be talking about Zachary Taylor. You're not even going to name the date after all that? No, no, I'm not confident with the date anymore. It's not confident anymore. This is literally a history podcast. we'll get to the bloody date

you served from 1849 until there's death in 1850 okay so now I'm going to tell you all about James Garfield now if you boys ever get a one-day time machine and decide to go back and run for president I've got one piece of advice for you don't be from Ohio

especially in the mid-1800s and early 1900s because in that period between the mid-1800s and the early 1900s Six U.S. presidents came from the Buckeye state. But of those six, only two left the White House alive. Did you know this? This is a story of that.

That's a fantastic opening passage for a book, by the way. The way you did that was lovely. Thank you very much. Dot, dot, dot. Six presidents from Ohio to leave the White House alive. William Henry Harrison died after a month. McKinley, assassinated. Harding died.

office and Garfield, well, let me tell you. Dot, dot, dot, dot. Yeah? He was a cat who ate too much pizza. Okay, let me... The craziest president. Garfield was massive. Garfield would do a good job as president, didn't he? God, I'd love that. James Abraham Garfield was born in 1831, just outside Cleveland, and he was the youngest of five children. He's got an incredible story, actually. His father died when he was two. leaving his mother, Eliza Ballou Garfield, to raise the family in abject poverty. But she told her son's stories about their Welsh and English ancestors,

including, supposedly, a knight from Carefilly Castle. Oh, well, suddenly I've taken a bit of an interest. I've piqued my interest. But the reality was far less romantic. James Garfield himself worked as a canal boy. This is a job from history I've never thought about. A canal boy... I don't even know what that is.

What is there? You guide mules that pull heavy barges along waterways. So he was doing that in Ohio. I think it's hard to fuck up, though. You could drop a mule in the canal. I think what you need there is a fleet of swans, don't you? Pulling your boat along. You don't need a land mammal.

You need something to go in front of your boat and pull it along. On your first day of swapping mules for swans, I feel they would turn against you. The swans are my fellow employee? Everyone. The swans and then the employees. Fair enough But Garfield's got a really good story because he was really determined

He studied a lot He had a really deep Methodist faith And he clawed his way out of poverty So at the age of 26 He became principal of Hiram College After being a teacher Just before that for a few years And then by the time he was principal of the college

He started studying law in his spare time And that's when he started dabbling in politics So by 1859 Garfield was elected to the Ohio State Senate as a Republican. And when the Civil War broke out two years later, he joined the Union Army. Interesting about Garfield, I think history will be and is very kind to Garfield because he was committed abolitionist.

He described the war as a holy crusade against slavery. Very much, I feel, ahead of his time. By the war's end, he had risen to the rank of Major General and to political prominence. In 1862, so bearing in mind, you know, it was only a few years earlier at the age of 26 that he was a principal in Hiram College. By 1862, he's elected to Congress. This is the interesting thing about him. He didn't want to go. He didn't want to go to Congress. Abraham Lincoln himself persuaded him, saying the country needed men like Garfield in Washington more than he was needed on the battlefield. That's got to do something for the old ego, isn't it? I know. Yeah.

When Abraham Lincoln comes knocking. Yeah. Yeah. We need you. Oh, come on. And you say to him, you say, all right then, on the condition that you shave your weird beard. You either commit to a normal beard or you shave all of it. But the sort of shaved top lip is such a mad look. Yeah. Because you're aware they're bringing in photographs during this period as we'll be documented. It's not like the past where you could get away with it. Abraham Lincoln persuades Garfield to stay in Congress.

Garfield stayed in the House of Representatives for nearly two decades. At first, he was a radical Republican, basically impatient with Lincoln's caution, even calling it a strange phenomenon in history that a second-rate Illinois lawyer should utter words that will echo through the ages. But as time passed, Garfield mellowed. But he was still fiercely anti-slavery and very much outspoken against the Klu Klux Klan. He called them domestic terrorists. But he came to believe in reconciliation through education and civil rights not revenge. Very forward thinking, very, you know, very modern. Yeah. Yeah. I'd like to know what his

sort of philosophical and political influences were to be such a sort of modern thinker. That's very interesting. I find it interesting when you dig deep in history and find people like this with such modern take. By 1880, President Rutherford B. Hayes had promised to serve only one term. This left to the Republican nomination wide open. The party convention that year was utter chaos, the longest in its history, with rival factions deadlocked. It's funny when you think about like a Republican convention. These days you think about big LED screens and, you know, flags and sometimes even Hulk Hogan.

It's strange to think in 1880, just like a convention. Loads of blokes and top hats having a good old row. Yeah, a lot of pamphlets. Yeah, waving in the air. No one miced up. A lot of show. So, yeah, the 1880 Republican Convention was total chaos. It was the longest in its history. And rival factions for the nomination to take over from President Hayes were all deadlocked. Now, Garfield wasn't even a candidate. He was there to nominate someone else. But after, get this, 35 rounds of voting, right?

The delegates were like, we can't decide. We need a new man to enter someone who is a compromised choice. Are you kidding? They all turned to Garfield. So Garfield, bearing in mind a bit early. This is like a dream I have when I'm at Wembley. Garris Southgate hasn't got the right substitutes. He turns around and I'm just behind him.

He points. It goes, you. Get stripped. You're going to win England the World Cup. And then I do. Yeah. So 35 rounds of voting, they turn to Garfield. How many substitutions would Garrette's Southgate's England need to make

before they brought on Tom Cray? Surely in the thousands. Yeah, so this is the astonishing thing about Garfield is that he didn't seek the presidency. It basically landed on his lap. That's amazing. His democratic opponent was Winfield Scott Hancock. Feels like very much an NPC automatically generated democratic opponent.

You read his name, you're like, this guy's going to lose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. However, Winfield Scott Hancock was a civil war hero who'd commanded troops at Gettysburg and oversaw the execution of Lincoln. assassins. Now, this is astonishing. The election in which Garford got elected was one of the closest in US history. Nationwide, Garfield won by fewer than 2,000 votes. Wow. That's incredible. But he carried enough Northern States to win the Electoral College 214 to 155. And so it was

that on the 4th of March 1881, Garfield is inaugurated, promising a modern reforming presidency one focused on civil rights and education. He actually appointed black leaders like Frederick Douglas to senior posts, signaling that equality would be central to his administration. He's a great guy. He's a great, great guy. This is the other thing he wanted to do. He wanted to expand public schooling

and tackle corruption within government hiring. So in many ways, Garfield's presidency looked like the progressive turn America had been waiting for after years of post-Civil War compromise. It's set out, a bit like JFK. Okay, I know America. What went wrong, Chris? Yeah. So there we go.

It's looking fantastic. 1881. What a year this promises to be. Four months after taking office, it's the 2nd of July, 1881. And Garfield is walking onto the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. And as he crosses the waiting room, a man steps out from the crowd and shoots him. twice. Oh, oh no. The gunman was Charles Guteau, a delusional

drifter who believed he deserved a diplomatic post for campaigning for Garfield. So he actually campaigned for Garfield in the Civil War. And then killed him. Yeah, but when Gatot didn't get the diplomatic post, he decided the president must die. Oh, God. Wow. Now, this sounds pretty bad. It is about to get worse. So Garfield actually survives the shooting

but I'm still still imagining the cat by the way I'll be perfectly on this all of this I'm thinking of an orange cat has been shot yeah yeah yeah so Garfield survived that

I'm imagining a Garfield his little dog friend is holding him saying it's going to be all right I'm imagining a Garfield Abraham Lincoln like crossbreed he survives but the medical care is shocking

the doctors go to try and find the bullets and probe his wounds with unsterilised fingers and instruments. And in doing so, they introduce fatal infections. Oh, no. Worse for Garfield, not only has been shot, now he's been like his wounds, like search with unstyralised fingers,

had these fatal infections introduce him. It's not quick. He lingers in agony for 79 days. And eventually the sepsis kills him on the 19th of September 8th. 1881, 79 days of agony. Gatot, whose own father believed he was possessed by the devil, was executed the following year, shouting on the scaffold that God would vindicate him.

Garfield, in the end, just served six and a half months, too short to leave any kind of legacy, be that legislative or otherwise, but long enough to remind Americans of what could have been with his presidency. In many ways, he kind of embodies, that enduring American myth that a poor farm boy could rise through talent, determination, grit and will to the highest office in the land. And many historians think that had he lived, Garfield might have led a genuine civil rights revival in the post-reconstruction era

instead of what we had. And I guess really his story is another American what if and another entry in Ohio's cursed list of fallen presidents. Oh, man. Wow, that's amazing. Good story, isn't it? So it was four months was it? He was in office or six months was it? Six and a half months.

Wow. What a story? That's amazing. For 79 days of that six and a half months, he's effectively dying. I don't really like parallel history novels, but that would be a very interesting one, wouldn't it? If Garfield had lived, you know, served a full term. I read, do you want another fascinating what if that predates this one by 66 million years? I was reading an article last night

that if the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs had hit something like an hour later, it would have hit the Pacific Ocean and it wouldn't have thrown as much dust and dirt up into the atmosphere and the dinosaurs wouldn't have died out and therefore mammals wouldn't have filled those ecological niches and humanity would never have risen.

Wow. That's a good what in. No eBay. No eBay. Wow. So can I be the first to say, I'm glad the dinosaurs were wiped out? I know that's selfish,

but this podcast wouldn't exist. And I'd rather have this than a triceroy. Well, that's the end of part one. I hope you enjoyed that. We've got more short-lived presidents for you tomorrow. But if you cannot wait, you know what you can do. You can head to patreon.com forward slash, oh, what a time. become a subscriber, loads of benefits, including, crucially, that pre-sale link to our first live show

and our only live show so far planned for 2026. If you want to enjoy those benefits, you can head to patreon.com forward slash oh, what the time. Otherwise, we'll see it tomorrow. Late. Bye. Oh, what a time is now on Patreon. You can get main feed episodes before everyone else, ad free, plus access to our full archive of bonus content, two bonus episodes every month, early access to live show tickets, and access to the Oh, What a Time group chat.

Plus, if you become an Oh, Water Time, All-Timer, myself, Tom and Ellis will riff on your name to postulate where else in history you might have been. popped up for all your options you can go to patreon.com forward slash oh what a time