Acting President of the United States On April 4, 1841, only one month after his inauguration, President William Henry Harrison died. He was the first U.S. president to die in office. Afterward, a constitutional crisis ensued over the Constitution's ambiguous presidential succession provision (). Shortly after Harrison's death, his Cabinet met and decided that Vice President John Tyler would assume the responsibilities of presidency under the title "Vice-President acting President". Instead of accepting the Cabinet's proposed title, however, Tyler asserted that the Constitution gave him full and unqualified powers of the office and had himself sworn in immediately as President, setting a critical precedent for an
32nd Infantry Division (United States) They were to begin an assault on 16 November 1942 on the main Japanese beachheads in eastern New Guinea. The 32nd Division was among the first of all US divisions to engage in a ground assault against the enemy in World War II. General Harding was nearly killed before the attack began. The first day of the assault, Harding was on board a sixty-two foot wooden coastal trawler, the Australian civilian crewed "Minnamurra" that was operating as part of the U.S. Army's Small Ships Section, with his headquarters company when it and its convoy carrying important artillery and supplies was