Queen Elizabeth recently celebrated another milestone (her 90th birthday). It had been surprising to me that there was a lot of hoopla for more than a year leading up to her previous milestone, when on Sept. 9, 2015, she surpassed Queen Victoria’s 63-and-a-half year mark for the longest reigning British monarch.
I figured superstition might have dictated that such publicity should be avoided in case she did not survive to that date.
Perhaps such superstition accounts for the fact that in our own country, there has been no mention of a milestone that came Oct. 27, 2015: the longest time our country has gone without the death of a president in office.
The previous record spanned from when George Washington was inaugurated on April 30, 1789, until William Henry Harrison died on April 4, 1841— which is 26 days short of 52 years.
Three more illnesses and four assassinations took seven sitting presidents over shorter spans after that, culminating with the death of John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963. If we count from that date to 26 days short of 52 years later, we arrive at the date last fall.
Thus, Oct. 27 surpassed the previous record, and we are still counting (hopefully with no end in sight).
Paul E. Peelle
Amherst