William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States and its 10th chief justice – the only person the have held both offices. He was also the governor of Cuba and the Philippines when they were US colonies.
Taft is one of the earlier presidents so he doesn’t have his own presidential library like John F. Kennedy or Gerald R. Ford. Instead, the federal government designated his home in Cincinnati as a national park and provides tours twice an hour every day it is open.
William’s father, Alphonso, arrived in Cincinnati as a lawyer and became a diplomat after he helped the republican party. He brought his family all over Europe while he was in Austria-Hungary and Russia. William Taft had four surviving brothers and a sister. He attended law school in Yale when he was 17 with his brother Charles and graduated second of his class, only beaten by Charles.
Whole he was Secretary of War, just as his father was, he was the head of the commission to build the Panama Canal. After his political career, he Baca me a professor of law at his Alma mater Yale and became the university’s president. The cherry blossoms in Washington DC were a gift from the Mayor of Tokyo to Taft, who had them planted near the Washington Memorial.
