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Lehman Brothers declares bankruptcy

Year: 2008

Month Day: September 15

On September 15, 2008, the venerable Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers seeks Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, becoming the largest victim of the subprime mortgage crisis that would devastate financial markets and contribute to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Lehman Brothers History

At the time of its collapse, Lehman Brothers was the country’s fourth-largest investment bank, with some 25,000 employees worldwide—but it began as a humble dry goods store founded by German immigrant Henry Lehman in 1844 in Montgomery, Alabama.

After Henry’s brothers Emanuel and Mayer joined him in 1850, the business became known as Lehman Brothers.

In 1994, American Express—which had acquired the firm a decade earlier—spun Lehman Brothers off in an initial public offering (IPO). Under the leadership of CEO Richard Fuld, the investment firm began to expand its offerings in the aftermath of the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, which had barred affiliations between commercial banks and investment banks and their activities.

In this newly deregulated financial industry, Lehman Brothers increased its involvement in proprietary trading (or trading with the firm’s own money to make a profit for itself), securitization, derivatives, asset management and real estate.

Subprime Mortgages

The housing boom of the early to mid-2000s saw Lehman and other Wall Street firms become heavily involved in collateral debt obligations (CDOs) and mortgage-backed securities (MBSs).

Lehman also expanded into loan origination, acquiring five mortgage lenders between 2003 and 2004, including some specializing in subprime mortgages, which were given to borrowers with weaker credit who ordinarily wouldn’t have been able to obtain a mortgage.

As housing prices began to fall rapidly in mid-2006, many subprime borrowers began to default on their payments, revealing the risky nature of these debts.

Despite these warning signs, Lehman Brothers continued to originate subprime mortgages and increase its real estate holdings after housing prices went into decline, and by the end of fiscal year 2007 the firm held some $111 billion in commercial or residential real-estate-related assets and securities (more than double what it had held at the end of the previous year).

Signs of Trouble

Due to the weakening real estate market, as investors and ratings agencies expressed serious doubts about these types of assets, due to their lack of liquidity in the market, they began to lose confidence in Lehman and its investment banking peers.

Bear Stearns, one of Lehman’s closest competitors, was the first to go under, narrowly avoiding bankruptcy with a sale to J.P. Morgan Chase (backed by the federal government) on March 16, 2008. In the aftermath of Bear’s sudden collapse, rumors circulated that Lehman Brothers would be the next to fall.

Like Bear and other investment banks, Lehman’s reliance on short-term funding deals known as repurchase agreements, or “repos,” to raise the billions of dollars it needed to run business operations each day made it especially vulnerable to any crisis in investor and market confidence.

Lehman sought to reassure its investors, raising $6 billion in equity in June 2008, despite reporting its first loss since going public in 1994.

Then on September 10, the firm announced that it expected $5.6 billion in write-downs (reductions in the estimated or nominal value of an asset) for its “toxic” assets and a $3.93 billion loss for the third quarter. In addition, Lehman said it planned to spin off $50 billion of toxic assets into a separate publicly held corporation.

Largest Bankruptcy in U.S. history

In response to this announcement, the major ratings agency Moody’s threatened to downgrade Lehman’s debt ratings, and on September 12, Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and others met at the Fed in New York to discuss the firm’s fate.

Despite concerns about the consequences a Lehman Brothers collapse would bring, the federal government and representatives of the administration of President George W. Bush ultimately refused to bail out another investment bank.

Hopes of a sale to another bank fell short as well: One prospective buyer, Bank of America, decided to buy Merrill Lynch instead, while British regulators blocked a last-ditch deal to sell Lehman to Barclays of London.

Out of options, Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy early on the morning of September 15. The firm declared $639 billion in assets and $613 billion in debts, making it the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history.

That day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged more than 500 points, its steepest decline since reopening after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Lehman’s collapse sent financial markets into turmoil for weeks, leading many to question the federal government’s decision to let the bank fail.

After Lehman’s bankruptcy filing, Barclays agreed to purchase the firm’s North American investment banking and capital markets businesses, saving some 10,000 jobs.

As James Peck, the judge who approved the deal, put it in court: “I have to approve this transaction because it is the only available transaction. Lehman Brothers became a victim, in effect the only true icon to fall in a tsunami that has befallen the credit markets. This is the most momentous bankruptcy hearing I’ve ever sat through. It can never be deemed precedent for future cases. It’s hard for me to imagine a similar emergency.”

Sources

Lehman Brothers Bankruptcy, Yale School of Management.
A Brief History of Lehman Brothers, Reuters.
William D. Cohan, House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street (New York: Doubleday, 2009).
“Judge approves Lehman, Barclays pact,” Reuters, September 19, 2008.
“4 Reasons Why Lehman Failed,” The Atlantic, September 7, 2010.

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The Four Seasons earn their first #1 hit with “Sherry”

Year: 1962

Month Day: September 15

Frankie Valli (born Francis Casteluccio) had been hard at work trying to become a star for the better part of a decade before the Four Seasons achieved their breakthrough. They had come together as a group in several stages over the previous four years, changing their name in 1961 from the Four Lovers after failing an audition at a New Jersey bowling alley called The Four Seasons. It was keyboard player Bob Gaudio who wrote the song that would launch the group’s career. He later told Billboard magazine that he banged out “Sherry” in 15 minutes before a scheduled rehearsal. Without a tape recorder, Gaudio explained, “I drove down to rehearsal humming it, trying to keep it in my mind. I had no intention of keeping the lyrics, [but] to my surprise, everybody liked them, so we didn’t change anything.”

“Sherry” was released as a single in August 1962 and made it all the way to the top of the pop charts just four weeks later, on September 15. In the next six months, the Four Seasons would earn two more #1 hits with “Big Girls Don’t Cry” and “Walk Like A Man,” making them the only American group ever to earn three consecutive #1 hits. “Rag Doll” gave the group its fourth #1 in the summer of 1964, and many other Top 40 hits followed in the subsequent 12 years before the Four Seasons made a triumphant return to the top of the pop charts with their fifth #1 hit “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)” in March 1976.

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Tide turns in the Battle of Britain

Year: 1940

Month Day: September 15

The Battle of Britain reaches its climax when the Royal Air Force (RAF) downs 56 invading German aircraft in two dogfights lasting less than an hour. The costly raid convinced the German high command that the Luftwaffe could not achieve air supremacy over Britain, and the next day daylight attacks were replaced with nighttime sorties as a concession of defeat. On September 19, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler postponed indefinitely “Operation Sea Lion”—the amphibious invasion of Britain. Although heavy German aid raids on London and other British cities would continue through spring 1941, the Battle of Britain was effectively won.

In May and June 1940, Holland, Belgium, Norway and France fell one by one to the German Wehrmacht, leaving Great Britain alone in its resistance against Hitler’s plans for Nazi world domination. The British Expeditionary Force escaped the continent with an impromptu evacuation from Dunkirk, but they left behind the tanks and artillery needed to defend their homeland against invasion. With British air and land forces outnumbered by their German counterparts, and U.S. aid not yet begun, it seemed certain that Britain would soon follow the fate of France. However, Winston Churchill, the new British prime minister, promised his nation and the world that Britain would “never surrender,” and the British people mobilized behind their defiant leader.

On June 5, the Luftwaffe began attacks on English Channel ports and convoys, and on June 30 Germany seized control of the undefended Channel Islands. On July 10—the first day of the Battle of Britain according to the RAF—the Luftwaffe intensified its bombing of British ports. Six days later, Hitler ordered the German army and navy to prepare for Operation Sea Lion. On July 19, the German leader made a speech in Berlin in which he offered a conditional peace to the British government: Britain would keep its empire and be spared from invasion if its leaders accepted the German domination of the European continent. A simple radio message from Lord Halifax swept the proposal away.

Germany needed to master the skies over Britain if it was to safely transport its superior land forces across the 21-mile English Channel. On August 8, the Luftwaffe intensified its raids against the ports in an attempt to draw the British air fleet out into the open. Simultaneously, the Germans began bombing Britain’s sophisticated radar defense system and RAF fighter airfields. During August, as many as 1,500 German aircraft crossed the Channel daily, often blotting out the sun as they flew against their British targets. Despite the odds against them, the outnumbered RAF flyers successfully resisted the massive German air invasion, relying on radar technology, more maneuverable aircraft, and exceptional bravery. For every British plane shot down, two Luftwaffe warplanes were destroyed.

At the end of August, the RAF launched a retaliatory air raid against Berlin. Hitler was enraged and ordered the Luftwaffe to shift its attacks from RAF installations to London and other British cities. On September 7, the Blitz against London began, and after a week of almost ceaseless attacks several areas of London were in flames and the royal palace, churches, and hospitals had all been hit. However, the concentration on London allowed the RAF to recuperate elsewhere, and on September 15 the RAF launched a vigorous counterattack.

Prime Minister Churchill was at the underground headquarters of the RAF at Uxbridge that day and watched as the English radar picked up swarms of German aircraft crossing over British soil. The British Spitfires and Hurricanes were sent up to intercept the German warplanes and met them in a crescendo of daring and death. When it appeared that the RAF’s resources were exhausted, Churchill turned to Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park and asked, “What other reserves have we?” Park replied, “There are none,” but then, fortunately, the German planes turned and went home.

Fifty-six German planes were shot down that day, though the number was inflated to 185 in British newspapers. Britain had lost 40 planes but denied the Luftwaffe air supremacy. There would be no German invasion of Britain. The Battle of Britain, however, continued. In October, Hitler ordered a massive bombing campaign against London and other cities to crush British morale and force an armistice. Despite significant loss of life and tremendous material damage to Britain’s cities, the country’s resolve remained unbroken. In May 1941, the air raids essentially ceased as German forces massed near the border of the USSR.

By denying the Germans a quick victory, depriving them of forces to be used in their invasion of the USSR, and proving to America that increased arms support for Britain was not in vain, the outcome of the Battle of Britain greatly changed the course of World War II. As Churchill said of the RAF fliers during the Battle of Britain, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”

SEE MORE: The Pictures that Defined World War II

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Tanks introduced into warfare at the Somme

Year: 1916

Month Day: September 15

During the Battle of the Somme, the British launch a major offensive against the Germans, employing tanks for the first time in history. At Flers Courcelette, some of the 40 or so primitive tanks advanced over a mile into enemy lines but were too slow to hold their positions during the German counterattack and subject to mechanical breakdown. However, General Douglas Haig, commander of Allied forces at the Somme, saw the promise of this new instrument of war and ordered the war department to produce hundreds more.

On July 1, the British launched a massive offensive against German forces in the Somme River region of France. During the preceding week, 250,000 Allied shells had pounded German positions near the Somme, and 100,000 British soldiers poured out of their trenches and into no-man’s-land on July 1, expecting to find the way cleared for them. However, scores of heavy German machine guns had survived the artillery onslaught, and the infantry were massacred. By the end of the day, 20,000 British soldiers were dead and 40,000 wounded. It was the single heaviest day of casualties in British military history.

After the initial disaster, Haig resigned himself to smaller but equally ineffectual advances, and more than 1,000 Allied lives were extinguished for every 100 yards gained on the Germans. Even Britain’s September 15 introduction of tanks into warfare for the first time in history failed to break the deadlock in the Battle of the Somme. In October, heavy rains turned the battlefield into a sea of mud, and on November 18 Haig called off the Somme offensive after more than four months of mass slaughter.

Except for its effect of diverting German troops from the Battle of Verdun, the offensive was a miserable disaster. It amounted to a total advance of just five miles for the Allies, with more than 600,000 British and French soldiers killed, wounded, or missing in action. German casualties were more than 650,000. Although Haig was severely criticized for the costly battle, his willingness to commit massive amounts of men and resources to the stalemate along the western front did eventually contribute to the collapse of an exhausted Germany in 1918.

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U.S. forces land at Inchon

Year: 1950

Month Day: September 15

During the Korean War, U.S. Marines land at Inchon on the west coast of Korea, 100 miles south of the 38th parallel and just 25 miles from Seoul. The location had been criticized as too risky, but U.N. Supreme Commander Douglas MacArthur insisted on carrying out the landing. By the early evening, the Marines had overcome moderate resistance and secured Inchon. The brilliant landing cut the North Korean forces in two, and the U.S.-led U.N. force pushed inland to recapture Seoul, the South Korean capital that had fallen to the communists in June. Allied forces then converged from the north and the south, devastating the North Korean army and taking 125,000 enemy troops prisoner.

The Korean War began on June 25, 1950, when 90,000 North Korean troops stormed across the 38th parallel, catching the Republic of Korea’s forces completely off guard and throwing them into a hasty southern retreat. Two days later, U.S. President Harry Truman announced that the United States would intervene in the conflict, and on June 28 the United Nations approved the use of force against communist North Korea. On June 30, Truman agreed to send U.S. ground forces to Korea, and on July 7 the Security Council recommended that all U.N. forces sent to Korea be put under U.S. command. The next day, General Douglas MacArthur was named commander of all U.N. forces in Korea.

In the opening months of the war, the U.S.-led U.N. forces rapidly advanced against the North Koreans, but Chinese communist troops entered the fray in October, throwing the Allies into a hasty retreat. In April 1951, Truman relieved MacArthur of his command after he publicly threatened to bomb China in defiance of Truman’s stated war policy. Truman feared that an escalation of fighting with China would draw the Soviet Union into the Korean War.

By May 1951, the communists were pushed back to the 38th parallel, and the battle line remained in that vicinity for the remainder of the war. On July 27, 1953, after two years of negotiation, an armistice was signed, ending the war and reestablishing the 1945 division of Korea that still exists today. Approximately 150,000 troops from South Korea, the United States, and participating U.N. nations were killed in the Korean War, and as many as one million South Korean civilians perished. An estimated 800,000 communist soldiers were killed, and more than 200,000 North Korean civilians died.

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Four Black schoolgirls killed in Birmingham church bombing

Year: 1963

Month Day: September 15

On September 15, 1963, a bomb explodes during Sunday morning services in the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls: Addie Mae Collins (14), Cynthia Wesley (14), Carole Robertson (14) and Carol Denise McNair (11).

With its large African American congregation, the 16th Street Baptist Church served as a meeting place for civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., who once called Birmingham a “symbol of hardcore resistance to integration.” Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, made preserving racial segregation one of the central goals of his administration, and Birmingham had one of the most violent and lawless chapters of the Ku Klux Klan.

The church bombing was the third in Birmingham in 11 days after a federal order came down to integrate Alabama’s school system. Fifteen sticks of dynamite were planted in the church basement, underneath what turned out to be the girls’ restroom. The bomb detonated at 10:19 a.m., killing Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie Mae Collins—all 14 years old—and 11-year-old Denise McNair. Immediately after the blast, church members wandered dazed and bloodied, covered with white powder and broken stained glass, before starting to dig in the rubble to search for survivors. More than 20 other members of the congregation were injured in the blast.

When thousands of Black protesters assembled at the crime scene, Wallace sent hundreds of police and state troopers to the area to break up the crowd. Two young Black men were killed that night, one by police and another by racist thugs. Meanwhile, public outrage over the bombing continued to grow, drawing international attention to Birmingham. At a funeral for three of the girls (one’s family preferred a separate, private service), King addressed more than 8,000 mourners.

A well-known Klan member, Robert Chambliss, was charged with murder and with buying 122 sticks of dynamite. In October 1963, Chambliss was cleared of the murder charge and received a six-month jail sentence and a $100 fine for the dynamite. Although a subsequent FBI investigation identified three other men—Bobby Frank Cherry, Herman Cash and Thomas E. Blanton, Jr.—as having helped Chambliss commit the crime, it was later revealed that FBI chairman J. Edgar Hoover blocked their prosecution and shut down the investigation without filing charges in 1968. After Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley reopened the case, Chambliss was convicted in 1977 and sentenced to life in prison.

Efforts to prosecute the other three men believed responsible for the bombing continued for decades. Though Cash died in 1994, Cherry and Blanton were arrested and charged with four counts of murder in 2000. Blanton was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Cherry’s trial was delayed after judges ruled he was mentally incompetent to stand trial. This decision was later reversed. On May 22, 2002, Cherry was convicted and sentenced to life, bringing a long-awaited victory to the friends and families of the four young victims.

READ MORE: Birmingham Church Bombing

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Muhammad Ali wins world heavyweight championship

Year: 1978

Month Day: September 15

On September 15, 1978, boxer Muhammad Ali defeats Leon Spinks at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans to win the world heavyweight boxing title for the third time in his career, the first fighter ever to do so. Following his victory, Ali retired from boxing, only to make a brief comeback two years later. Ali, who once claimed he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” left the sport permanently in 1981.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. in Louisville, Kentucky, on January 14, 1942, the future world champ changed his name to Muhammad Ali in 1964 after converting to Islam. He earned a gold medal at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome and made his professional boxing debut against Tunney Husaker in October 1960, winning the bout in six rounds. On February 25, 1964, Ali defeated the heavily favored Sonny Liston in six rounds to become heavyweight champ, after which he famously declared, “I am the greatest!”

During the Vietnam War, Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. armed forces and in 1967 was convicted of draft evasion and banned from boxing for three years. He stayed out of prison as his case was appealed and returned to the ring in October 1970, knocking out Jerry Quarry in Atlanta in the third round. On March 8, 1971, Ali fought Joe Frazier in the “Fight of the Century” and lost after 15 rounds, the first loss of his professional boxing career. In June 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Ali’s conviction for evading the draft.

At a January 1974 rematch at New York City’s Madison Square Garden, Ali defeated Frazier in 12 rounds. In October of that same year, an underdog Ali bested George Foreman and reclaimed his heavyweight champion belt at the heavily hyped “Rumble in the Jungle” in Kinshasa, Zaire, with a knockout in the eighth round. On February 15, 1978, in Las Vegas, an aging Ali lost the title to Leon Spinks in a 15-round split decision. For Spinks, who was born in 1953 and won a gold medal in boxing at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, the fight was just the eighth of his professional career. However, seven months later, on September 15, Ali won the title back, in a unanimous 15-round decision.

In June 1979, Ali announced he was retiring from boxing. On October 2, 1980, he returned to the ring and fought heavyweight champ Larry Holmes, who knocked him out in the 11th round. After losing to Trevor Berbick on December 11, 1981, Ali left the ring for the last time, with a record of 56 wins, five losses and 37 knockouts. In 1984, he was revealed to have Parkinson’s disease. Ali died on June 3, 2016. Spinks retired from boxing in 1995 with a record of 26 wins, 17 losses and 14 knockouts.

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First trenches are dug on the Western Front

Year: 1914

Month Day: September 15

In the wake of the Battle of the Marne—during which Allied troops halted the steady German push through Belgium and France that had proceeded over the first month of World War I—a conflict both sides had expected to be short and decisive turns longer and bloodier, as Allied and German forces begin digging the first trenches on the Western Front on September 15, 1914.

The trench system on the Western Front in World War I—fixed from the winter of 1914 to the spring of 1918—eventually stretched from the North Sea coast of Belgium southward through France, with a bulge outwards to contain the much-contested Ypres salient. Running in front of such French towns as Soissons, Reims, Verdun, St. Mihiel and Nancy, the system finally reached its southernmost point in Alsace, at the Swiss border. In total the trenches built during World War I, laid end-to-end, would stretch some 35,000 miles—12,000 of those miles occupied by the Allies, and the rest by the Central Powers.

As historian Paul Fussell describes it, there were usually three lines of trenches: a front-line trench located 50 yards to a mile from its enemy counterpart, guarded by tangled lines of barbed wire; a support trench line several hundred yards back; and a reserve line several hundred yards behind that. A well-built trench did not run straight for any distance, as that would invite the danger of enfilade, or sweeping fire, along a long stretch of the line; instead it zigzagged every few yards. There were three different types of trenches: firing trenches, lined on the side facing the enemy by steps where defending soldiers would stand to fire machine guns and throw grenades at the advancing offense; communication trenches; and “saps,” shallower positions that extended into no-man’s-land and afforded spots for observation posts, grenade-throwing and machine gun-firing.

While war in the trenches during World War I is described in horrific, apocalyptic terms—the mud, the stench of rotting bodies, the enormous rats—the reality was that the trench system protected the soldiers to a large extent from the worst effects of modern firepower, used for the first time during that conflict. The greatest danger came during the periods when the war became more mobile, when the soldiers on either side left the trenches to go on the offensive. German losses per month peaked when they went on the attack: in 1914 in Belgium and France, 1915 on the Eastern Front, and 1918 again in the west; for the French, casualties peaked in September 1914, when they risked everything to halt the German advance at the Marne. Trench warfare redefined battle in the modern age, making artillery into the key weapon. Thus the fundamental challenge on both sides of the line became how to produce enough munitions, keep the troops supplied with these munitions and expend enough of them during an offensive to sufficiently damage the enemy lines before beginning an infantry advance.

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South Vietnamese forces retake Quang Tri City

Year: 1972

Month Day: September 15

ARVN forces recapture Quang Tri City after four days of heavy fighting, with the claim that over 8,135 NVA had been killed in the battle.

The North Vietnamese forces had launched a massive offensive, called the Nguyen Hue or “Easter Offensive,” on March 31, with three main attacks aimed at Quang Tri south of the Demilitarized Zone, Kontum in the Central Highlands, and An Loc just 60 miles north of Saigon. This invasion included 14 divisions and 26 separate regiments, a total force numbering over 120,000 troops, and was designed to knock South Vietnam out of the war and inflict a defeat on the remaining U.S. forces (which numbered less than 70,000 by this date due to President Nixon’s Vietnamization policy and the American troop withdrawal schedule). The North Vietnamese attack was characterized by conventional combined arms attacks by tank and infantry forces supported by massive artillery barrages, resulting in some of the heaviest fighting of the war.

The South Vietnamese forces and their American advisors supported by U.S. tactical airpower and B-52 bombers were able to hold at An Loc and Kontum despite being vastly outnumbered, but the South Vietnamese forces at Quang Tri faltered under the communist assault and were quickly overwhelmed. It was only after President Thieu fired the I Corps commander and replaced him with Major General Ngo Quang Truong, arguably one of the best officers in the South Vietnamese army, that the ARVN were able to stop the North Vietnamese. Truong took measures to stabilize the situation and the South Vietnamese began to fight back. After a tremendously bloody four-and-a-half-month battle in which 977 South Vietnamese soldiers perished, Truong and his troops retook Quang Tri from the North Vietnamese, winning a major victory. President Nixon used this as proof positive that his Vietnamization policy had worked and that the South Vietnamese were prepared to take over responsibility for the war.

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Future President William Taft born

Year: 1857

Month Day: September 15

William Howard Taft is born in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 15, 1857.

Taft was born into a politically active family; his father had served as President Ulysses S. Grant’s secretary of war. He attended college at Yale University, graduating second in his class. He then attended Cincinnati Law School earning his law degree in 1880. After serving in private practice and as solicitor general to President Benjamin Harrison (1890 – 1896), Taft joined the faculty at Yale University, where he taught law until 1900.

In 1900, Taft was appointed governor of the Philippines by President William McKinley. He then served as secretary of war under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1904 to 1908. A Progressive Republican, Taft was a pacifist compared to many of his imperialist contemporaries; he advocated multilateral, international efforts to solve conflicts between nations. Taft did wage war against domestic economic monopolies, however. From the time he was elected the nation’s 27th president in 1909, Taft quietly continued Theodore Roosevelt’s policy of busting monopolies in the steel and railroad industries and created the first federal Department of Labor to promote the welfare of America’s workers.

After retiring from the presidency, Taft became the first and only former president to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held for nine years after being appointed by President Warren Harding in 1921. As chief justice, Taft gave the oath of office to Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover at their inaugurations in 1923 and 1929, respectively.

Health complications led to Taft’s resignation as chief justice in February 1930; he died a month later, on March 3, from heart failure. Taft was the first former president to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

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