Close Calls: How Eleven US Presidents Escaped from the Brink of Death

Summary

Historians tell the stories of tragic and untimely presidential deaths, but often forgotten are the near misses. JFK and his fellow servicemen spent six days on a desert island with only coconuts to eat after a deadly attack during WWII. Abraham Lincoln was forced to take a train trip in disguise while America’s first female detective worked to foil an early assassination attempt. And when Andrew Jackson was attacked by an upset citizen who had been stalking him for months, frontiersman Davey Crockett stepped in to save him. With fast-paced, immediate writing and including supplemental archival photographs and archival materials, this book chronicles thirteen thrilling undertold stories of U.S. presidents’ moments of bravery.