While today such an event would generate round-the-clock reporting on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and other outlets, spurring talking heads to drone on endlessly about the need for greater protection of Presidents, military weapons systems security and who knows what all else, the disaster aboard the USS Princeton on February 28, 1844 today is a little remembered event in our nation's history which could have had enormous consequences if not for simple fate.

On that day, President John Tyler, Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas Gilmer and hundreds of others were touring the ship and what at the time was the largest single cannon in American history - the "Peacemaker" - in Alexandria, Virginia.  Princeton captain Robert Stockton, wanting to demonstrate the capabilities of the eight-month old ship and her big bad gun.  The only problem was that the "Peacemaker" had been rushed into service without full testing - and during the demonstration, it exploded.

Tyler, who had no Vice President (himself having succeeded William Henry Harrison just under three years earlier), was below the deck at the time of the blast, spared what likely would have been a certain death.  As it was, Upshur, Gilmer, and four others were killed while another twenty were injured.

Had Tyler been on the deck, it's likely that the immortal Willie Person Mangum would have finished out Tyler's (or, in fact, Harrison's) term.