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On a warm spring evening in 1982, 37-year-old accountant Margaret Barbera left work in New York City and walked to the parking lot where she kept her BMW. Finding the lock on the driver’s side jammed, she went to the passenger’s side. A man leaned through the open window of a van parked in the next spot, pressed a silenced pistol to the back of Margaret’s head, and fired. She was dead before she hit the pavement. It was a professional hit, meticulously planned - but the killer didn’t expect three employees of the nearby CBS TV studios to stumble onto the scene of the crime.

Faced with the sale of the century-old family summer house on Cape Cod where he had spent 42 summers, George Howe Colt returned for one last stay with his wife and children. This poignant tribute to the 11-bedroom jumble of gables, bays, and dormers that watched over weddings, divorces, deaths, anniversaries, birthdays, breakdowns, and love affairs for five generations interweaves Colt's final visit with memories of a lifetime of summers.

From Harriet Tubman to Assata Shakur, Ida B. Wells to Sandra Bland and Black Lives Matter, black women freedom fighters have braved violence, scorn, despair and isolation in order to lodge their protests. In A Bound Woman Is a Dangerous Thing, DaMaris Hill honours their experiences with at times harrowing, at times hopeful responses to her heroes.

James K. Polk, who believed it was the nation’s “Manifest Destiny” to expand its boundaries and rebuild western lands in its own image, swiftly led America into war with Mexico. Polk claimed that Mexican forces had killed American soldiers on American soil, yet this claim was viewed with skepticism by members of Congress, including Representative Abraham Lincoln.

Grover Cleveland, the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms, stood up to Congress in asserting his constitutional prerogative to remove certain federal appointees without the Senate’s approval, forcing the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act, which had plagued his predecessors.

President Gerald R. Ford, a member of Congress on the verge of retire­ment, was selected by President Nixon to serve as vice president when Spiro T. Agnew abruptly resigned after being charged with accepting bribes. Within months, Ford would become president when Nixon him­self was forced to resign in the wake of the Watergate scandal. An honest, square-jawed, straight-shooting Midwesterner, Ford pardoned Nixon, believing a pardon was the best thing for the country.

President William McKinley initially tried at all costs to avoid war with Spain over a rebellion in Cuba. Refusal by Spain of his offer to arbitrate an end to the conflict triggered US military action, which resulted in a swift American victory.

In testing the scope of the president’s power in the field of foreign affairs under the Constitution, John Adams quickly learned that an aggressive approach to exercising executive power could backfire. He found himself caught in a political tug-of-war between the Federalists and the Jeffer­sonian Republicans over foreign affairs.

President William Henry Harrison died after only thirty-one days in office, the shortest term served by any American president. A celebrated military hero who had defeated Native American tribes at the Battle of Tippecanoe, Harrison delivered an inaugural address that lasted nearly two hours.

Chester A. Arthur, who had profited from a plum patronage position dur­ing the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, found himself thrust into a dif­ficult role when his predecessor, James Garfield, died of a gunshot wound. With Garfield’s death, the controversy over political patronage bubbled to a head.

President William Jefferson Clinton, the first baby boomer to occupy the White House, took office with a group of political foes viewing him as an unworthy president. Clinton was dogged by the Whitewater scandal, the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, and the Monica Lewinsky revelation. His own decision to sign the controversial independent-counsel statute back into law—which led to the appointment of Independent Counsel Kenneth W. Starr—haunted him throughout his time in office.

Zachary Taylor, a professional soldier and sugar planter with no previous political experience, held the office of president for barely sixteen months before dying of acute gastroenteritis. A war hero before moving into the White House, he immediately confronted a rogue effort to seize Cuba and had to address issues involving slavery in the new territories acquired from Mexico.

John Tyler, despite his adroitness in establishing that he had inherited com­plete presidential power when his predecessor died in office, became a weak and maladroit chief executive during his own time in the White House. Yet, Tyler was not afraid to exercise his authority.

President James Monroe recognized that as the United States matured, it had to convey forcefully what the nation’s place in the world would be. In articulating the Monroe Doctrine, the fifth president declared that the new democratic republic would refrain from seeking to exert control over other nations.

James Madison, “Father of the Constitution” and a member of the First Congress, was devoted to the concept of a strong union. Madison is seldom considered an adept or successful president. Yet he viewed compromise and attention to the public good as means of keeping the Union intact, even if it meant a diminution of the president’s power.

James Garfield, a powerful figure in the Reconstruction-era Congress, took office in 1881 with a goal of uniting the Republican Party, which was split between the Stalwarts (who strongly favored political patronage) and the so-called Half-Breeds (who believed patronage bred corruption).

President Franklin Pierce took steps to build new commercial relation­ships abroad, revamp the military, and restructure the federal courts. After an unprecedented landslide in the 1852 presidential election gave him supermajorities in the House and Senate, Pierce seemed poised for a productive presidency.

President Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency suddenly, when Abraham Lincoln was killed by an assassin. Confronted with the prospect of Reconstruction—bringing the Union back together after a prolonged Civil War—Johnson tolerated harsh treatment of former slaves in South­ern states, believing that it was up to the states to determine their status.

President Reagan was a popular and transformative chief executive who chipped away at what he considered a runaway federal bureaucracy to bring a more conservative vision to all three branches of American gov­ernment. While the Iran-Contra affair during Reagan’s second term gal­vanized critics, he still managed to win major victories to curb what he perceived to be overreaching by Congress.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the only president elected to four terms, expanded presidential powers in a fashion unparalleled in American his­tory. He launched the New Deal; fought off constitutional attacks of his bold legislation by proposing to pack the Supreme Court; and greatly expanded the president’s powers in foreign affairs.