Everything You Know About William Henry Harrison Is A Lie

I am presuming here that everything you know about William Henry Harrison is that he caught pneumonia after giving a long-ass Inauguration address and died a month later, but it turns out that is probably not true: “In those days the nation’s capital had no sewer system. Until 1850, some sewage simply flowed onto public grounds a short distance from the White House, where it stagnated and formed a marsh; the White House water supply was just seven blocks downstream of a depository for ‘night soil’ hauled there each day at government expense. That field of human excrement would have been a breeding ground for two deadly bacteria, Salmonella typhi and S. paratyphi, the causes of typhoid and paratyphoid fever — also known as enteric fever, for their devastating effect on the gastrointestinal system. Two other antebellum presidents, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor, developed severe gastroenteritis while living in the White House.”