was born in Wallace, South Dakota, on this date in 1911.
Humphrey was first elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945 and U.S. Senator in 1948. He introduced his first bill in 1949; it became law in 1965 and we know it as Medicare.
Humphrey became Vice President with the election of President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. After Johnson withdrew from the 1968 campaign, and after Robert Kennedy was killed, Humphrey was nominated as the Democratic candidate for President. He lost to Richard Nixon in one of the closest elections in history. Some commented that with the vote trending as it did, had the election been one or two days later Humphrey would have won.
But then we wouldn’t have had Watergate and Nixon to kick around.