Unknown Presidents- William McKinley. McKinley was the was the 25th president of the US. Here are a few facts about this little known president.
-Early Life
William McKinley was born January 29, 1843, in Niles, Ohio. As a young man, he briefly attended Allegheny College before taking a post as a country schoolteacher. When the Civil War broke out in 1861, McKinley enlisted in the Union Army; he eventually earned the rank of brevet major of volunteers. Returning to Ohio after the war, McKinley studied law, opened his own practice in Canton, Ohio, and married Ida Saxton, the daughter of a local banker.
- THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS
After the sinking of the U.S. battleship Maine in Havana’s harbor in February 1898 was linked to an external explosion presumed to be a Spanish mine, McKinley asked Congress for the authority to intervene in the conflict; a formal declaration of war came on April 25. From early May to mid-August, U.S. forces defeated Spain near Santiago harbor in Cuba, occupied Puerto Rico and seized Manila in the Philippines.
The Treaty of Paris, signed in December 1898 officially ended the Spanish-American War. In it, Spain ceded Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States and Cuba gained its independence. McKinley’s administration also pursued an influential “Open Door” policy aimed as supporting American commercial interests in China and ensuring a strong U.S. position in world markets.
-Assassination
After his second inauguration in March 1901, McKinley embarked on a tour of western states, where he was greeted by cheering crowds. The tour ended in Buffalo, New York, where he gave a speech on September 5 in front of 50,000 people at the Pan-American Exposition.
The following day, McKinley was standing in a receiving line at the exposition when a unemployed Detroit mill worker named Leon Czolgosz shot him twice in the chest at point-blank range.
From History.com