For several weeks in May 1790, President George Washington is temporarily incapacitated due to a severe case of influenza.  Some accounts of the day described Washington's condition as "near death," and by almost all accounts the first President of the United States isn't up to the job.

Though Washington is laid up, Vice President John Adams would prove even more powerless.  Less than a decade removed from the American Revolution and a scant thirteen months into the first presidential term in the nation's history, any transfer of executive authority would have been seen as a de facto coup d'etat - and as a result, no action is taken.

Washington ultimately recovers from his illness, but a die would be cast that would go unbroken for the better part of the next two centuries:  if an American President falls ill or is seriously injured, the Vice President is just as incapacitated.