Washington Monument

12th President of the United States Zachary Taylor attended the Independence Day ceremonies, here at the Washington Monument, on July 4, 1850. He died a few days later.

One theory is that he was assacinated by cherries tainted with typhoid or by arsenic poisoning.

The official version was gastroenteritis or gastric flu. On June 17, 1991, Taylor's remains were exhumed and transported to the Office of the Kentucky Chief Medical Examiner, where radiological studies were conducted and samples of hair, fingernail and other tissues were removed. They couldn't find any relicts of arsenic.

Despite these findings, assassination theories have not been entirely put to rest. Michael Parenti devoted a chapter in his controversial 1999 book History as Mystery to "The Strange Death of Zachary Taylor", speculating that Taylor was assassinated and that his autopsy was botched.

Dromos