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Today is Pedro Lascuráin Day! It was on this day in 1913 that Pedro José Domingo de la Calzada Manuel María Lascuráin Paredes became the 34th President of Mexico. Viva! Long live President Lascuráin!
Actually, he did and didn't -- live long as President. For on this day, he was inaugurated, served, and resigned. If you want to raise a beer to honor President Lascuráin, do not nurse your drink, or it may last longer than his administration. His Presidency is estimated as lasting anywhere from twenty to forty-five minutes. Maybe as long as fifty-six minutes. No one was watching the clock in the Lascuráin Administration! Less than an hour, certainly. He has the distinction of having the shortest term as leader of a major country. But he did live long as a former president: Forty-five years after he resigned. He died in 1952 at the age of 96, something that few Mexican presidents of that era managed to do.
Lascuráin was a pawn in the coup staged by General Victoriana Huerta against President Francisco Madero. It's a tragic story, part of the long series of coups and revolutions Mexico suffered a hundred years ago. Go look it up. It's fairly complicated, but Lascuráin did manage to survive, which neither Madero nor Huerta did.
A pencil sketch based on a photo of Lascuráin you can find online. (I actually did it on the back of the program for today's Mass during the sermon. When you're up in the choir loft, you're pretty well hidden from sight. Well, not God's, of course. Forgive me.)

Description
Today is Pedro Lascuráin Day! It was on this day in 1913 that Pedro José Domingo de la Calzada Manuel María Lascuráin Paredes became the 34th President of Mexico. Viva! Long live President Lascuráin!
Actually, he did and didn't -- live long as President. For on this day, he was inaugurated, served, and resigned. If you want to raise a beer to honor President Lascuráin, do not nurse your drink, or it may last longer than his administration. His Presidency is estimated as lasting anywhere from twenty to forty-five minutes. Maybe as long as fifty-six minutes. No one was watching the clock in the Lascuráin Administration! Less than an hour, certainly. He has the distinction of having the shortest term as leader of a major country. But he did live long as a former president: Forty-five years after he resigned. He died in 1952 at the age of 96, something that few Mexican presidents of that era managed to do.
Lascuráin was a pawn in the coup staged by General Victoriana Huerta against President Francisco Madero. It's a tragic story, part of the long series of coups and revolutions Mexico suffered a hundred years ago. Go look it up. It's fairly complicated, but Lascuráin did manage to survive, which neither Madero nor Huerta did.
A pencil sketch based on a photo of Lascuráin you can find online. (I actually did it on the back of the program for today's Mass during the sermon. When you're up in the choir loft, you're pretty well hidden from sight. Well, not God's, of course. Forgive me.)