No, we didn't miss a comma in the title, history actually has a man named Doctor Doctor. In today’s episode “Doctor Doctor Give Me The News” Becca guesses the topic is snake oil salesmen and is once again woefully misinformed about American history. Today’s topic instead focuses on the death of Mikaela’s first crush, former President James A Garfield. Before focusing on the short lived tenure of America’s “most promising president of the era,” Mikaela gives a brief look into Garfield pre-presidency focusing on his abolitionist views and dedication to equal rights for all citizens. In 1880, Garfield attended the Republican convention with no intention to run but was given the ticket as a sort of middle ground for the party and won by a narrow victory to the Democratic nominee Hancock.
Once in the office, Garfield tried to put an end to political favors but his life was ended on July 2, 1881 when Charles Guiteau felt poltical slights so awful he took to murder. Guiteau wrote a failed, never publicly circulated pamphlet called “Grant Versus Hancock” that Guiteau believed was the key to Garfield’s presidential success. Hoping for the consulship to Vienna, Guiteau loitered around the Republican Headquarters in New York before following Garfield to Washington, D.C. and bouncing between the State Department and White House in hopes of gaining some form of political compensation. After many failed attempts at gaining a foreign position, Guiteau believed it was his god given destiny to kill the President and spent the next month stalking President Garfield in an attempt to pull off the perfect assassination. Spending June following Garfield around Washington, learning to shoot a gun, and sending off letters asking for later political favors, Guiteau put his plan into action on July 2nd and put the then President into a state of mortal peril for the next 79 days awaiting death as he was attended by the (not so esteemed) Doctor Doctor Willard Bliss.
While many articles were helpful with writing this episode, we found Evan Andrews’ “The Assassination of President James A. Garfield” and Kenneth D. Ackerman’s “The Garfield Assassination Altered American History, But Is Woefully Forgotten Today”
https://www.history.com/news/the-assassination-of-president-james-a-garfield
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/garfield-assassination-altered-american-history-woefully-forgotten-today-180968319/
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