Video: 'John Tyler: His Accidency (1841 - 1845)'

(Tuesday, April 6, 1841, noon local time) — U.S. Vice President John Tyler was sworn in today as the 10th President of the United States, two days after the death of President William Henry Harrison, becoming the first U.S. vice president to assume the office of president upon the death of his predecessor.

William Cranch, Chief Judge of the United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, administered the oath to Tyler in the lobby of the Brown’s Indian Queen Hotel, making this the first extraordinary presidential inauguration in history.

Video: 'How President Tyler, born in 1790, still has two living grandsons'

Harrison’s death sparked a brief constitutional crisis regarding succession to the presidency, because the Constitution was unclear as to whether Tyler should assume the office of president or merely execute the duties of the vacant office.

Tyler claimed a constitutional mandate to become the new president and took the presidential oath of office, setting an important precedent for an orderly transfer of the presidency and its full powers when the previous president fails to complete the elected term.