For this installment of HISTORY DETECTIVE, students will examine primary and secondary source documents and use evidence from those documents to justify their claim concerning a 170-year-old mystery: Who Killed President Zachary Taylor?
Background:
On July 4, 1850- after only 16 months in office- President Zachary Taylor was in the middle of a heated battle over slavery in the new territories. The "Compromise of 1850" and its controversial Fugitive Slave Act was tearing the nation apart. He