Unexpected Successor: Difference between revisions
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* [[Gerald Ford]], the only ''truly'' unelected President Of The United States. All arguments about contested elections aside (and there are plenty), Ford was never elected to the vice presidency (he was appointed after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned), then became president after [[Richard Nixon]] resigned. Then he lost his first election. All Gerald wanted to do was be Speaker of the House.
** [[Theodore Roosevelt]] was made Vice President to force him and the reforms he supported to disappear from the spotlight, since the Vice President rarely did anything in those days. When [[William McKinley]] died to an assassin and his doctor's [[It Will Never Catch On|inability to use technology right in front of them]], those that made him VP were ''fuming''.
** [[Calvin Coolidge]] never really expected to be run as candidate for Vice President and wasn't even at the 1920 Republican convention, but party favorite for the position committed major faux pas at the convention and Coolidge was, without his knowledge, advanced as an alternative. Coolidge was visiting his father when [[Warren Harding]] died, and was awoken at night to the news. After praying for God to bless the American people and give him strength to serve them, he was given the oath of office by his father (a retired Justice of the Peace and notary) and immediately returned to Washington.
** [[Harry Truman]] is an aversion, as he was was selected to replace Henry A. Wallace precisely because it was clear Roosevelt would die soon and Wallace, with his open support for communists, would be a disaster.
* Henry VII would not have been expected to be King. He was the half-nephew of the King at the time of his birth, Henry VI, but his claim actually came through his mother's side and was fairly weak. (She came from the line of a legitimized bastard.) Still, he was next in line after Henry VI's son Edward. Then Edward IV took over, and he had two sons of his own, not to mention two brothers. No one thought Henry Tudor could beat those odds. Possibly not a straight example since Henry himself forced his succession via a battle, but he was still an unlikely pretender.
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