Ever since William Henry Harrison who only served as president for a handful of weeks what has happened to the winner of every 4th election in the us? Possible extra point for why.

I am very tempted to give a false answer to this question to lead this student essayist completely astray. Something about a kid just typing in an essay question grates at me — and by that I mean word-by-word and not “subject” or even assortment of words designed to lead directly to an answer. The problem there is that I cannot, off the top of my mind, come up with an absurd yet plausible-enough response, in part because the question itself comes across as absurd. I must have missed that History lesson.

Every fourth election? Well, every fifth election brings us the “Curse of the Zeros”, and the supposed death of a president, but the answer of “why?” can only bring the this.

But every fourth election would bring us 1856, 1872, 1888, 1904, 1920, 1936, 1952, 1968, 1984, and 2000. I could sort out the winners of these contests, and I think I have them in my head (Buchanan, Grant, Cleveland, Roosevelt, Harding, Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and … er… Up for Dispute.) It looks arbitrary to me. Good luck with that one! Your teacher is weird.

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