⑩ On Election day

On election day, November 2 1948, Truman, along with Bess and Margaret, voted in their hometown of Independence, Missouri. Truman had lunch with several old friends and repaired alone to a local hotel to await the returns.

At midnight, Truman heard NBC report that while he was ahead by more than one million votes, Dewey was still expected to win. At four in the morning, his secret service agents woke him and told him to turn on the radio: he was ahead by two million votes -- and would maintain the lead. With victory in hand, Truman went to Kansas City, where he awaited Dewey's concession, which came by mid-morning.

Dewey himself went to bed election night thinking he had won. Imagine his surprise the next morning when he discovered that Truman was the victor. Dewey said he felt like a man who awoke in a sealed coffin with a lily in his hand. "If I'm alive, what am I doing here?" he asked. "And if I'm dead, why do I have to go to the bathroom?"

Two days after the election, as the Truman returned to Washington via St. Louis, reporters snapped the most famous photo of Truman's career: an image of the President holding aloft a copy of the Chicago Tribune with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman."