Absent President

When President James K. Polk’s term expired at noon on Sunday, March 4, 1849, his successor, Zachary Taylor, refused to be sworn in because he was a religious man and insisted on waiting until Monday. So for 24 hours, Senate President Pro Tem David Rice Atchison (pictured) was the nation’s leader. Atchison later reported that he spent most of his one-day term in bed, recuperating from the previous two or three nights spent finishing up work for the Senate.