normal presidential term lasts four years which is enough time for a president to make a positive impact on the country he is leading, but sometimes things don’t go as planned, especially when the “wrong” president is chosen.

Lascurain was born in 1856 into a modest family and spent most of his life studying to become someone. In 1880, he got his law degree and after a few years working as a lawyer he actually became the mayor of Mexico City.

This was a great achievement for him, but he wanted to go even further. After a few years as a mayor, he managed to use his connections to become the Minister of Foreign Affairs in Mexico, a very well-established position within the political panorama.

What was a very important turning point, not only for Lascurain but everyone within Mexico, as well as Mexico’s history, is the national revolution that began in 1910. During the revolution, Francisco Madero came to power as the country’s 37th president wanting to bring the gift of democracy to the people of Mexico.

Madero, although with good intentions, was a man of incredible wealth and power. During 1910 and 1920 the country of Mexico was a civil battlefield with numerous armed struggles.

The 19th of February 1913 is a date that does truly live in infamy for Mexico as there are a million things that occurred, and sadly most of them ended with death. On this date, the biggest military coup took place in the Mexican Revolution led by General Victoriano Huerta and with the support of the United States ambassador from Mexico.

Madero was imprisoned in the national palace by military force and was threatened to be killed if he didn’t give up his presidency. Lascurain was quite well acquainted with Madero and he managed to convince him to quit as his life was in dire danger.

As Madero accepted to step down as president, the law at the time said that the next person to become president would be the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Therefore Lascurain replaced him as president. Many historians argue that Lascurain didn’t really care about Madero’s safety and only persuaded him in order to become president.

What happened in those 45 minutes?

The first thing that Lascurain undertook as president was a command. General Huerta, the head of the military coup ordered Lascurain to make him Minister of Foreign Affairs as this was the position Huerta always wanted to occupy, not the position of a president surprisingly.

After all of this Lascurain was forced by Huerta to resign which he did because he would have been killed otherwise. Although in the midst of a military coup, Huerta decided to respect to some extent the laws set in place, that is why he went through this hustle to become Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Huerta eventually became the 39th president of Mexico, but not before he decided to execute Francisco Madero and his Vice-President Pino Suarez. Lascurain was offered a post in the Political Administration, but after everything that happened on the 19th, he decided to quit the political scenery and became a lawyer.

Pedro Lascurain died in 1952 at the age of 96 from natural causes. His presidency remains in history as the shortest there ever was. Victoriano Huerta was overthrown in 1914 and died in 1916 in Fort Bliss Prison.