1993 William McKinley Stamp and Commemorative Medal Cover

This cover pairs a postage stamp featuring William McKinley with a silver medal bearing his portrait, part of a series of presidential medal covers issued to commemorate American presidents through a combination of philatelic and numismatic material. The cover carries a postmark from Niles, Ohio, McKinley's birthplace, dated January 29, 1994, marking what would have been his 151st birthday. McKinley was born in Niles on January 29, 1843, the seventh of eight children, and went on to serve in the Civil War before building a career in law and politics that eventually carried him to the White House.

McKinley took office on March 4, 1897, delivering an inaugural address focused on tariff reform, currency stability, and a stated preference for keeping the United States out of foreign conflicts, a position his administration soon abandoned. Rising tensions with Spain over Cuban independence drew the country into the Spanish American War in 1898, a brief but consequential conflict that ended in American victory and left the United States in possession of the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, marking the nation's emergence as a global colonial power. McKinley won reelection in 1900, campaigning on the economic prosperity and international standing his first term had helped secure.

McKinley's second term ended tragically less than a year after it began, when an assassin shot him while he greeted the public at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901. He died eight days later from complications of his wounds, becoming the third American president assassinated in office.