One of the most famous photographs in American history portrays Harry Truman holding up a newspaper with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman", because, obviously, there has never been a President Dewey. The paper was the Chicago Tribune, who went hot to the presses before the results were officially confirmed.

Leading to the 1948 election, Thomas Dewey, the Governor of New York (and NOT the man behind the Dewey Decimal System) was supposed to win in a landslide. He didn't. Truman easily got to 303 electoral votes, 114 more than Dewey. (Racist third-party candidate Strom Thurmond got the rest by taking four southern states.)

So why was Dewey favored to win? Pollsters. Pretty much every single one had him topping Truman, and it wasn't even close. (We could say that polls have come a long way since then, but, you know, 2016.) There was one outlier: Louis Hyman Bean.

Bean, who was born in Courland and came to America at a young age, previously trumped the polls in the 1936 election. Others thought it would be close, Bean predicted a landslide; FDR won 532 to 8. He called 1940 and 1944 correctly as well, and even wrote a book, "How to Predict Elections". Apparently, in private Bean wasn't so sure about Truman winning, but that didn't stop many from calling him the "Lone Prophet" of Truman's triumph.

In the next election, Bean favored Adlai Stevenson over Dwight Eisenhower. Pollsters!