Surprises in History   

   Secretary of State William Seward broke his jaw in a carriage accident nine days before Lincoln's assassination. He was helpless in bed when an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth came to murder him. 

   Doctors had arranged metal plates that covered his throat and set his jaw in place. The assailant knifed him at least four times in the throat, but kept hitting the plates. If Seward had died, America would not have acquired Alaska from Russia in 1867. And in 1962 the Soviets would have had missiles in Juneau as well as Cuba. 

   While negotiating for Alaska, for which he was mocked, Seward filed papers to give America title to Midway Atoll, which no other nation claimed. The Battle of Midway in 1942 was the turning point in our war with Japan. 

   Theodore Roosevelt survived the Battle of San Juan Hill in 1898, against the odds. He escaped assassination in 1912 when a folded-up speech and an eyeglasses case slowed down a bullet aimed at his heart. He delivered a speech for an hour with the bullet in him. 

   Franklin Roosevelt didn't know his VP, Henry Wallace, was deeply involved with the Communist Party and with an Eastern cult. At the 1944 Democratic convention, Harry Truman unexpectedly replaced Wallace on the ticket. Otherwise, we would have had a New Age communist president when FDR died in spring 1945. Wallace years later admitted he was wrong about Joseph Stalin. 

                        Excerpts by Michael Medved, talk show host.

        Jimmy