Teddy Roosevelt and the meteorite

I read and enjoyed Jim Rasenberger’s book America, 1908, which tells the story of the year the Model T was introduced, the Wright brothers made a series of record-breaking flights in the US and France, and two attempts were made on the North Pole.

It was also a significant year for meteorites. An estimated 80 million trees were knocked over when a big meteorite exploded near the Tunguska River in Siberia. And in the US, a smaller meteorite nearly ended the second term of Theodore Roosevelt prematurely.

In an interview that summer for the magazine The American, Roosevelt said several times, “I’m through now,” though he still had six months left to serve. As Rasenberger notes, “He was closer to being through than he realized.”

Just past midnight, August 24, as Roosevelt slumbered in his bed, a small meteorite bored into earth’s atmosphere and blazed across a clear starlit sky toward Oyster Bay. Secret Service agents who were posted outside heard a hiss, then saw a flash that bathed Sagamore Hill and its lawn and tennis court in intense light. The meteorite landed less than a hundred yards from the house, just missing the president of the United States. It exploded into a hundred fiery pieces and disintegrated into dust.