William Henry Harrison,February 9, 1773 – April 4, 1841,was an American military leader, politician, and the ninth president of the United States. Harrison died of septicemia, complicated by pneumonia and jaundice, thirty-one days into his term – the briefest presidency in the history of the office. He was also the first U.S. president to die while in office. His death created a brief constitutional crisis over presidential succession.

Harrison served as the first Governor of the Indiana Territory and later as a U.S. Representative and Senator from Ohio. Harrison first gained national fame for leading U.S. forces against American Indians at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, where he earned the nickname “Tippecanoe” (or “Old Tippecanoe”). As a general in the subsequent War of 1812, his most notable contribution was a victory at the Battle of the Thames, which brought the war in his region to a successful conclusion.

After the war Harrison moved to Ohio, where he was elected to United States Congress and in 1824 to the Senate, where he served a truncated term before being appointed as Minister Plenipotentiary to Colombia in May 1828. In Colombia where he meddled in its internal affairs, and openly opposed Simon Bolivar before a change of administration made him return to his farm in Ohio, where he lived in relative retirement until he was nominated for the presidency in 1836. Defeated, he retired again to his farm before accepting his second presidential nomination in 1840.

When Harrison took office in 1841 at the age of 68, he was the oldest man to become president - a record that stood for 140 years, until Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981 at the age of 69.

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