The Presidency.. Odds are Good, but the Goods are Odd.... vol 5 rel 14

George Washington

• The only president to be unanimously elected was George Washington (1732-1799). Initially refused to accept his salary while president, but eventually relented. It was $25,000 annually.

• Was really bad at war.  When it came to strategy, Washington lost virtually every major battle that he led.  His near-perfect record of retreat and defeat stretched back to pre-revolutionary days.

• Washington was an ultra-successful liquor distributor in the new country. He made rye whiskey, apple brandy and peach brandy in his Mount Vernon distillery.

• George called Mt. Vernon, Virginia, home, and was the only president who didn’t live in the White House. He chose the location in what would become Washington, D.C., and even approved the original White House plans, but he never lived in the village known as Washington—named in his honor. Sadly, the first president wasn’t able to see the White House completed, dying 11 months before they put on the finishing touches.

• George Washington made the shortest inauguration speech on record—133 words and less than two minutes long.

John Adams

• Unlike his presidential predecessor and successor, Washington and Jefferson, Adams has no monument to him in the national capital. In 2001, the U.S. Congress authorized the Adams Memorial Foundation to construct a monument to the second president and his family, including sixth president John Quincy Adams, on federal land, but site selection, design and fundraising work is ongoing.

• During the presidential elections, when the final tabulation of votes arrived at the Senate, it was Adams who opened the envelope as President of the Senate. He won 71 votes against Jefferson’s 68.

• He was the first president to live in the White House, he moved in before it was finished.

• Adams was not a popular president, his independent mind led to political isolation, unwilling to compromise he faced opposition from his own cabinet.

• He did not attend Jefferson’s inauguration. He was one of only three presidents not to attend his successor’s inauguration.

• His son John Quincy became the 6th President. There have been two father-son Presidents in American history:  John Adams and John Quincy Adams, and George Bush and George W Bush.

Thomas Jefferson

• Jefferson was a huge fan of the exceptionally progressive, archaic justice system offered in what is known as the Old Testament or Torah, and he loved the teachings of Jesus; however, he couldn’t get behind the possibility of the miraculous, so he removed those stories from its pages, and titled the book, The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth. This is now known as the Jefferson/Jeffersonian Bible.

• Thomas Jefferson believed that soaking your feet in a bucket of cold water would keep you from catching "catarrhs," also known as the common cold.

• Jefferson and John Adams paid a visit to William Shakespeare's home in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1786. There, they chipped off a piece from Shakespeare's chair as a souvenir. 

• Thomas couldn’t speak in public.  He had terrible stage fright.  Throughout his presidency, he only made two speeches per term.  Some historians believed he had a stuttering problem.

James Madison

• James Madison was the shortest president, standing at just 5’4”.  7 inches shorter that the average president.  In addition, only weighed 100 lbs.

• He was Princeton University's first graduate student.

• James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were once arrested together for taking a carriage ride in the countryside of Vermont on a Sunday, which violated the laws of that state.

James Monroe

• James Monroe has a city in Africa named after him: Monrovia is the capitol of Liberia. He supported the American Colonization Society in its work to create a home for freed slaves in Liberia.

• Monroe had some help writing the Monroe Doctrine. John Quincy Adams was a driving force behind the policy, which President Monroe introduced with his annual message to Congress in 1823. The doctrine stated that Europe needed to stay out of the affairs of new countries and territories in the Western hemisphere; in exchange, the United States would stay out of European affairs.

• Monroe was able to buy Florida for $5 million. Monroe had started talks with Spain about Florida while he was James Madison’s secretary of state in 1815. After violence in the region and a flurry of diplomacy, Adams helped negotiate a deal for Monroe where the U.S. would pay off damage claims made by Spain during the violence. The U.S. got Florida and promised that it would recognize Spain’s sovereignty over Texas.

• Monroe died on the Fourth of July, too. Three Founding Fathers who were elected president died on July 4. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Monroe died on July 4, 1831.

• Monroe was also the last president who was never photographed in his lifetime.

John Quincy Adams

• John Quincy, the son of John Adams, was known to go skinny-dipping in the Potomac River. Reports say he preferred to go for a dip in the early morning.

• Greenlighted an expedition to prove that the earth was hollow.

• John Quincy Adam's victory in the Election of 1824 was known as the 'Corrupt Bargain'. With no electoral majority, the election was decided in the US House of Representatives. The belief is that Henry Clay negotiated that if he gave the presidency to Adams, Clay would be named Secretary of State. This occurred despite Andrew Jackson winning the popular vote. This would be used against Adams in the election of 1828 which Jackson would handily win.

• Despite losing the presidency in 1828, Adams was elected to represent his district in the US House of Representatives. He served in the House for 17 years before collapsing on the floor of the House and dying two days later in the Speaker of the House's private chambers.

Andrew Jackson

• When Andrew Jackson arrived in New Orleans in 1814, he found he was at risk due to poor defense and unpracticed soldiers. In an effort to solidify a defensive front, Jackson met with infamous French-American pirate and privateer, Jean Lafitte. Lafitte, his brother, and several men who once sailed with them.  Lafitte agreed to fight in what would become known as The Battle of New Orleans in exchange for a full pardon for himself and anyone he enlisted into the man’s military might. The pirates fought valiantly, in a battle beginning on December 28, and Jackson was keen to use the tactical advice of Lafitte during the conflict. The American forces were reliant on the skill set of the pirates, who were granted clemency on February 6, 1815.

• Andrew Jackson had a parrot that knew how to swear. One popular story says the parrot started cursing at the president’s funeral.

• Jackson was involved in as many as 100 duels, most of which were fought to defend the honor of his wife, Rachel. He was shot in the chest in a duel in 1806 and took a bullet in the arm in a bar fight with Missouri Sen. Thomas Hart Benton in 1813.

Martin Van Buren

• Van Buren was the first president to be born an American citizen. All presidents before him were born British subjects.

• Tensions within Jackson’s cabinet broke out, however, when his Secretary of War, John Eaton, married a woman of low social status who might have begun her relationship with Eaton while she was still married to her first husband. Vice President John Calhoun and his wife snubbed the Eatons socially, and Van Buren said the scandal left the government and Jackson’s cabinet in the “defiling clutches of the gossips.”  Van Buren, a widower, faced no reprisals for his kindness toward Mrs. Eaton. Still, he devised a plan to bring peace to the administration: he would resign, allowing Jackson to then dismiss the remainder of the cabinet and appoint new senior administration officials. President Jackson then guaranteed Van Buren a nomination for vice president in the following election.

• In terms of lasting impact, it’s hard to top “Old Kinderhook,” a reference to the village of Van Buren’s birth in upstate New York. The term of endearment was utilized during the 1840 election by his supporters as they formed the OK Club and marched with placards marked OK. The Oxford English Dictionary notes that the abbreviation came into great usage at the time and its popularity can be attributed to Van Buren and his supporters.

William Henry Harrison

• William Henry Harrison kept a pet Billy goat at the White House.

• He has longest inauguration speech and the shortest term in office in American history.  Unfortunately, one begat the other.  During his long speech, he lacked an overcoat, a hat, and gloves. Hence, he experienced both a cold and pneumonia. He only lived 30 days after becoming president.

• The former United States Senator from Ohio intended to give the longest inauguration speech in American history. Unfortunately for the American politician, giving a long speech was not a bright idea. Moreover, he was not protecting himself enough from the cold, as he did not wear warm clothing. He lacked an overcoat, a hat, and gloves. A quotation by Harrison describes the effects of his mistake well, “I am ill, very ill, much more so than they think me.”

• Miller listed Harrison’s cause of death as pneumonia of the “lower lobe of the right lung complicated by congestion of the liver.” Modern scholars think the explanation may be more complicated. In those days, Washington, D.C. had no sewer system, and the White House and its water supply sat mere blocks from a marsh that held a depository of “night soil,” human excrement and waste hauled in every day. Harrison likely suffered from enteric fever caused by one of two bacteria, Salmonella typhi or S. paratyphi, that devastated his gastrointestinal system. Two other presidents, James K. Polk and Zachary Taylor, also suffered severe gastroenteritis while living in the White House, and Taylor, like Harrison, passed away in office. est term in office.

John Tyler

• John Tyler had 15 children, more than any other president.

• When he became president when William Henry Harrison died, he was one of the most hated presidents in history.  He was described as a “poor, miserable, despised imbecile.

• Tyler set a record for the numbers of cabinet and Supreme Court nominations that were rejected or forced to be withdrawn. In fact, he made eight nominations to fill two Supreme Court vacancies, only one of which the Senate confirmed.

James K Polk

• When he was 17, James Polk underwent surgery for urinary stones. The only pain-killer used: whiskey.

• Polk oversaw the groundbreaking of the Washington Monument, the founding of the Naval Academy, and the creation of the postage stamp.

• During his tenure, the United States acquired over 800,000 square miles of Western territory and extended its boundary to the Pacific Ocean.

• The Polks were such prudes that all music and dancing at James’ inaugural ball ceased when they arrived and didn’t resume until they left.

• The "K" is for Knox. (Turns out he wasn’t a very interesting president.)

• He sneaked in a quick baptism as a Methodist one week week before his death, which (bonus fact!) was technically attributable to diarrhea.

Zachary Taylor

• In 1850  Zachary Taylor was considered to be the most popular man in America, and a hero of the Mexican-American War

• He became the 12th President of America when he was 64 years old, he served only 31 days of his term before he passed away

• He was the second President to die whilst in office. He died unexpectedly – the doctors suspecting foul play determined that he died of eating too many cherries with an entire pitcher of milk.

• Zachary Taylor voted for the first time in 1848 aged 62. He had not voted before then as he had not lived anywhere for the given time to qualify. His first vote was for himself!

• Zachary Taylor married Margaret (Peggy) Mackall Smith, together they raised six children but only one survived into adulthood

• The nickname of Zachary Taylor was "Old Rough and Ready” this was due to his untidy dress sense

• Zachary Taylor had an elderly warhorse which he named Whitney, he kept it on the on the lawns of the White House

Millard Fillmore

• President Taylor died a little over a year after being in office and Fillmore succeeded to
  
  the role of president. His support over the next year of the Compromise of 1850 meant that he was not renominated to run in 1852.

• While at New Hope Academy, Fillmore found a kindred spirit in Abigail Powers. Even though she was his teacher, she was only two years older than him. They both loved learning. However, they did not get married until three years after Fillmore joined the bar. They later had two children: Millard Powers and Mary Abigail.

• He was the first to establish a permanent library in the White House

• He was born in a log cabin to hard working parents, Nathaniel Fillmore and Phoebe Millard; he was one of nine children

• Millard Fillmore's wife Abigail had the first running water bathtub installed in the White House.

• Millard Filmore looks like Alec Baldwin.

Franklin Pierce

• Franklin Pierce didn’t actually take the oath of office with a Bible. He placed his hand on a law book instead.

• HE PERFECTED THE COMB-OVER - Pierce had some of the finest hair of any U.S. president. One witness described it approvingly as a "mass of curly black hair "¦ combed on a deep slant over his wide forehead." And that was after viewing Pierce's body in state after his death in 1869.d until three years after Fillmore joined the bar. They later had two children: Millard Powers and Mary Abigail.

• Pierce was an outspoken critic of the Civil War as prosecuted by Republican Abraham Lincoln, whose approach to constitutional freedoms was more free form. After Lincoln was assassinated, a group of citizens in Pierce's hometown of Concord, N.H., gathered on the street to express their grief and to confront neighbors who were not displaying the flag in that moment of national tragedy.

James Buchanan

• James Buchanan regularly bought slaves in Washington, D.C. and quietly freed them in Pennsylvania. 

• James Buchanan was the first US President to wear blue jeans in the Oval Office.

• James lost his middle finger on his right hand during the Battle of Raisin River in the War of 1812.

• In his spare time, he raised pygmy goats in the White House Rose Garden.

• James had two different color eyes: One green, one brown.

• He was a direct descendant of both King James I of Scotland and Cleopatra of Egypt.

• James was scheduled to participate in the Lewis and Clark Expedition, but was unable to make the journey due to an unfortunate archery accident involving his buttocks. He was replaced by Sacagawea.

Abraham Lincoln

• Lincoln never slept in the Lincoln Bedroom. When he occupied the White House, the 16th president used the current Lincoln Bedroom as his personal office. It was there that he met with Cabinet members and signed documents, including the Emancipation Proclamation.

• Lincoln was dangerous in a wrestling ring. He even made it to the Wrestling Hall of Fame.  As a young man, he was only defeated once out of approximately 300 matches. He made it to the Wrestling Hall of Fame with the honor of "Outstanding American."

• Lincoln created the Secret Service hours before his assassination. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln signed legislation creating the U.S. Secret Service. That evening, he was shot at Ford’s Theater. Even if the Secret Service had been established earlier, it wouldn’t have saved Lincoln: The original mission of the law enforcement agency was to combat widespread currency counterfeiting. It was not until 1901, after the killing of two other presidents, that the Secret Service was formally assigned to protect the commander-in-chief

• Lincoln, who loved tinkering with machines, designed a method for keeping vessels afloat when traversing shallow waters through the use of empty metal air chambers attached to their sides. For his design, Lincoln obtained Patent No. 6,469 in 1849.

• He was a licensed bartender. He was the part owner of a saloon in Springfield, Illinois, called Berry and Lincoln.

• Was reported by William H Herndon (July 19 1887) to ha a high-pitched voice.  “Lincoln’s voice was, when he first began speaking, shrill, squeaking, piping, and unpleasant.”

• Lincoln Logs are named after Abraham Lincoln and the log cabin where he was born. John Lloyd Wright, son of famous architect Francis Lloyd Wright, invented them.

Andrew Johnson

• Andrew Johnson escaped from indentured servitude when he was a boy.  When Andrew Johnson was only three his father Jacob died. His mother, Mary McDonough Johnson, remarried and later sent him and his brother out as indentured servants to a tailor named James Selby. The brothers ran away from their bond after two years. On June 24, 1824, Selby advertised in a newspaper a reward of $10 for anyone who would return the brothers to him. However, they were never captured.

• Andrew Johnson was trained as a tailor, and made his own suits even after becoming president.

• Johnson never attended school at all. In fact, he taught himself to read. Once he and his brother escaped from their 'master', he opened up his own tailoring shop in order to make money. You can see his tailor shop at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site in Greeneville, Tennessee.

• Initially, the conspirators in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln also planned on killing Andrew Johnson. However, George Atzerodt, his supposed assassin, backed out. Johnson was sworn in as president on April 15, 1865.hop at the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site in Greeneville, Tennessee.

Ulysses S. Grant

• Ulysses S. Grant was once given a speeding ticket while riding a horse on a street in Washington D.C. It was for $20.

• Notoriously timid, Grant was known to be terrified of the sight of blood, even on rare steaks. 

• Painfully shy, Grant refused to change or shower with his men while they were camped during the Civil War.

• Ulysses S. Grant smoked a ton of cigars — at least 20 a day. After a great military victory at the Battle of Shiloh, citizens sent him more than 10,000 boxes of cigars as gratitude. He died of throat cancer in 1885.

• OK, so who is really buried in Grant’s tomb? That’s a trick question. Grant and his wife, Julia, are interred inside the tomb, but their crypt is above ground. It is the largest mausoleum in North America

Rutherford B. Hayes

• Alexander Graham Bell installed the first White House telephone during Rutherford B. Hayes' presidency. It's number: One.

• Hayes was the only president to be wounded in the Civil War — not once, but four times. Four horses were shot down from beneath him (ouch).

• The Election of 1876 was highly controversial. The electoral votes from four states were contested and a Congressional commission had to be set up to resolve the dispute. The bi-partisan commission granted the disputed electoral votes to Hayes, giving him the presidency by one vote.

• Because of the bitter controversy of  Hayes’ election, the Republicans were worried that the opposing party may try to derail his inauguration. He became the first president to be given the oath of office inside the White House. This occurred in a secret ceremony in the Red Room. Later that same day, he took the oath publicly on the East Portico of the Capitol.

• Hayes and his wife conducted the very first Easter egg roll on the White House lawn. It began a tradition that continues today on the Monday after Easter.

James A. Garfield

• James Garfield is the only president to ever have been a preacher. He was a minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

• Garfield was the first president to campaign in multiple languages. He often spoke in German with German-Americans he encountered along the campaign trail.

• Garfield was the last of seven presidents who were born in a log cabin.

• President Garfield’s mother was the first president’s mother to attend her son’s inauguration.

• James Garfield was ambidextrous, meaning he could write well with both hands. In fact, he could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other at the same time.  

• Garfield is the only person in American history to be a U.S. Representative, a Senate-elect and a President-elect all at the same time. In 1880, while serving as a U.S. Representative, he was elected to be Ohio’s next Senator. At the 1880 Republican Convention, he campaigned for John Sherman (brother of General William Sherman) to win the nomination. However, after 36 votes Garfield himself unexpectedly became the nominee and went on to win the Presidency by a margin of only 10,000 popular votes. To date, he is the only sitting member of the House of Representatives to be elected President of the United States.

• Garfield was effectively killed by his doctors.  After he’d been shot, the doctors used a metal detector newly invented by Alexander Graham Bell, but kept detecting the metal bedsprings and thus cut in the wrong place several times.  The president died of a punctured kidney and streptococcus introduced by the procedures.

Chester A. Arthur

• Chester Arthur was one of the best-dressed presidents, and was said to own 80 pairs of pants.

• Arthur liked to take friends on late night walks around Washington, D.C., sometimes as late as three or four in the morning. It was rare for him to be in bed before two o’clock.

• Political opponents of Arthur questioned his citizenship and alleged he was born in Canada, making him ineligible to serve as President because he wasn’t a natural-born citizen. However, some argue that even if born in Canada, this point was meaningless since his mother was a U.S. citizen at the time of his birth. Arthur denied the allegations and continued on with his term.

• Hillary is in good company... After spending the summer in Connecticut, Arthur returned home very ill. On November 16, 1886, he ordered the burning of nearly all his personal and official papers. He died two days later as the result of a cerebral hemorrhage.

• After Garfield’s death, Arthur did not immediately move into the White House. He insisted it be redecorated and had twenty-four wagonloads of furniture hauled off and sold at public auction. The pieces included some dating back to John Adams’ term and would be considered priceless today.

Grover Cleveland

• He used the name Grover as an adult; maybe he tired of using the name “Stephen Cleveland” in grade school?

• Grover Cleveland served as an executioner when he was sheriff in Erie County, New York.

• Grover married a woman he helped raise.  Her name was Frances Folsom, and she was 28 years younger than Grover.  He supervised her upbringing after her father passed away, and was the executor of her father’s estate.

• Republicans accused him of fathering an illegitimate child in 1874. Cleveland admitted it was possible, but his law partner, Oscar Folsom, may have also been the father. Cleveland’s honesty helped to blunt the scandal’s impact.

• Big spending by the Republicans swing the electoral vote in New York state away from Cleveland, and Benjamin Harrison took the Electoral College vote, and the presidency.

• The Populist Party took 8 percent of the popular vote, and Cleveland easily defeated Harrison in the 1892 rematch, by a 277-145 margin in the Electoral College.

Benjamin Harrison

• Benjamin Harrison was nicknamed "the human iceberg" due to his cold disposition.

• Harrison was the first president to use electricity in the White House, installed by Edison General Electric Company. However, he and his wife would not touch the light switches for fear of being electrocuted and often went to bed with the lights left on.

• On November 2, 1889, President Harrison signed the proclamations admitting North and South Dakota to the Union. Due to a rivalry which existed between the two states, Harrison ordered the papers to be shuffled and for the names to be hidden from him while signing so there would be no argument over which he signed first. We don’t actually know which one was signed first because it was never recorded. However, since North Dakota is before South Dakota alphabetically, its proclamation was printed first in the Statutes At Large, thus North Dakota has always been considered the 39th state. 

• Benjamin Harrison defeated the incumbent President Grover Cleveland in the election of 1888. However, in his bid for re-election in 1892, Harrison was defeated by Cleveland making it the only time an incumbent president was defeated by a former president.

William McKinley

• William McKinley often wore a red carnation in his lapel. Some accounts say he gave a flower to a little girl, moments before he was assassinated.

• McKinley was the first president to ride in an automobile while in office. After he was shot, he was transported to the hospital in an electric ambulance.

• After Leon Frank Czolgosz shot McKinley, the crowd subdued him and began to beat him severely. The wounded McKinley shouted “Boys! Don’t let them hurt him!

• McKinley’s wife, Ida, disliked the color yellow so much she had all things yellow removed from the White House, including the yellow flowers in the garden.

• McKinley’s inauguration was the first presidential inauguration to be filmed.

Theodore Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft

• On Valentine’s Day in 1884, Roosevelt’s mother passed away from typhoid fever. One floor above in the same house, his first wife, Alice, died less than 12 hours later from Bright’s disease and complications from giving birth to the couple’s first child just two days before. “The light has gone out of my life,” Roosevelt wrote in his diary that night.

• Teddy Roosevelt was shot in an assassination attempt while delivering a speech in Milwaukee. "I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot," he told the stunned audience. "I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot; not a rap." He completed the 90-minute speech with the bullet still lodged in his chest.

• “Teddy Bears” were so named when Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt (1858-1919) refused to shoot a small bear cub one day. The incident was reported in the news, which inspired a toy manufacturer to come out with the cute stuffed animals.

• In November 1906, Roosevelt made presidential history by becoming the first chief executive to leave the United States. He sailed aboard USS Louisiana to personally inspect the construction of the Panama Canal, a project that he had championed as president.

• Roosevelt boxed for Harvard University’s intramural lightweight championship and continued to spar recreationally during his political career. During his days in the White House, he regularly put up his dukes against former professional boxers and other sparring partners until a punch from a young artillery officer smashed a blood vessel and left him nearly blind in his left eye.

• While a student at Harvard, Dr. Dudley Sargent warned Roosevelt, who had been a  sickly child, that, because of a weak heart, failure to lead a sedentary life could have fatal consequences. “Doctor, I’m going to do all the things you tell me not to do,” Roosevelt responded. “If I’ve got to live the sort of life you have described, I don’t care how short it is.” A year after graduation, Roosevelt took time from his European honeymoon with Alice to scale the 15,000-foot Swiss Alp with two guides.

William Howard Taft

• William H. Taft once got stuck in his bathtub and had to call staffers to help pull him out.

• Though he’s best remembered for his one-term stint on Pennsylvania Avenue, Taft had been pining for the Judicial Branch since 1889. Upon becoming Chief Justice in 1921, he happily declared “I don’t remember that I was ever president.”

• Hall of Famer Walter Johnson managed to snag a low-flying ball Taft gracelessly lobbed from the stands at the start of a 1910 Washington Senators game. One hundred and four years later, this opening day tradition’s still going strong.

• It’s hard to demean someone whose spouse is sitting right in front of you. After her husband won the Republican presidential nomination, First Lady Helen Herron “Nellie” Taft made a beeline for the Democratic National Convention in Baltimore. Grabbing a front-row seat, she stared down orator after orator, including the cantankerous William Jennings Bryan of Nebraska, who suddenly decided to soften his anti-Taft rhetoric.

Woodrow Wilson

• Woodrow Wilson’s likeness is on the $100,000 bill, which was largely replaced by wire transfers.

Warren G. Harding

• Twenty-ninth president Warren Gamaliel Harding (1865-1923) repeatedly made love to a young girl, Nan Britton, in a White House closet. On one occasion, Secret Service agents had to stop his wife from beating down the closet door

• Warren Harding enjoyed gambling, and he once allegedly lost an expensive set of White House china in a poker game.

Calvin Coolidge

• Calvin Coolidge was nicknamed "silent Cal" because he didn't talk very much.

• Calvin Coolidge would occasionally press all the buttons in the Oval Office, sending bells ringing throughout the White House — and then hide to watch his staff run in. He just wanted to see who was working.

Herbert Hoover

• Herbert Hoover’s family had two pet alligators, which were sometimes allowed in the White House.

• Hoover demanded that the White House staff be invisible.  Any time Hoover or the first lady entered a room, servants were expected to jump into the nearest closet to avoid being seen.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

• Some researchers dispute that Franklin D. Roosevelt suffered from polio. Many doctors have speculated that he likely had Guillain-Barre Syndrome.ever photographed in his lifetime.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

• Harry S. Truman didn't actually have a middle name, just a middle initial.  His parents couldn't decide on a middle name for over a month, so they settled on the letter "S" in honor of his maternal grandfather, Solomon Young, and his paternal grandfather, Anderson Shipp Truman.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

• Dwight D. Eisenhower was a qualified and licensed pilot. 

• Eisenhower played a big role in popularizing golf. He installed a putting green at the White House and played more than 800 rounds while in office — exceeding the record of any other president. He holds a spot in the World Golf Hall of Fame in the Lifetime Achievement Category.

John F. Kennedy

• John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s (1917-1963) famous inaugural line “Ask not what you your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country” echoes similar directives made by many others, including Cicero, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and President Warren G. Harding, who told the 1916 Republican convention: “We must have a citizenship less concerned about what the government can do for it, and more anxious about what it can do for the nation.”

• John F. Kennedy’s own father said he was “careless” and “lacks application” when writing him a recommendation to Harvard. Kennedy was still admitted.

• He told the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, “If I don’t have a woman for three days, I get terrible headaches.”

• JFK was a huge James Bond fan. He first met the author of the series, Ian Fleming, at a dinner party in 1960. They allegedly bounced around ideas about how to get rid of Fidel Castro. 

• John F. “Jack” Kennedy most likely had the most active extramarital sex life of any president. He allegedly slept with Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Audrey Hepburn, Angie Dickinson, stripper Blaze Starr, Marlene Dietrich, and many other women including White House staffers, secretaries, stewardess, campaign workers, strippers, and acquaintances of trusted male friends. The FBI taped sounds of him and Inga Arvad making love.

Lyndon B. Johnson

• Lyndon B. Johnson's seat in the Oval Office was a vinyl helicopter seat, since he loved riding in helicopters. 

• Lyndon referred to his privates as “Jumbo” – he would make a habit of peeing wherever he needed to go – and if people complained he would show them jumbo.

•  He also wasn’t shy in deploying “Jumbo” in as many women he could.  In fact, his male staffers called his bevy of babes that constantly surrounded him, “LBJ’s harem”

• According to biographer Robert Dallek, Johnson met with a reporter who asked him multiple times why American troops were in Vietnam. In response, Johnson unzipped his pants, pulled out "Jumbo," and yelled, "This is why!"

Richard M. Nixon

• Richard Nixon was the first president to visit all 50 states.

• Plotted to assassinate newspaper columnist, Jack Anderson who dogged Nixon for 40 years exposing corruption throughout his career.  Nixon and his “plumbers” decided to get rid of Anderson once and for all by poison or LSD on his steering wheel.  The only reason the plot was tabled is because the Watergate scandal hit.

Gerald R. Ford

• Gerald Ford was once on the cover of “Cosmopolitan” as a model.

James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr.

• Jimmy Carter reported seeing a UFO in 1973. He was Georgia’s governor at the time.   He called it “the darndest thing I’ve ever seen.”

• James Earl “Jimmy” Carter (1924-) was the first president to be born in a hospital.

Ronald W. Reagan

• Ronald Reagan was the recipient of the “Most Nearly Perfect Male Figure Award” from the University of California in 1940. The prize was the opportunity to pose nearly nude for an art class learning to sculpt the human body.

George H.W. Bush

• George Bush Sr. inspired a word in Japanese. “Bushusuru” means “to do the Bush thing.” It’s used when someone publicly vomits, as Bush did on the Japanese Prime Minister in 1992.

• On Sept. 2, 1944, Bush was flying over Japan when his aircraft was shot down in the Pacific. Bush and another crewman were able to bail out, but the other man's parachute malfunctioned, and he went down with the plane. Bush was eventually rescued by a submarine off the coast of Chichi-jima.

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton

• Bill Clinton once aced a My Little Pony quiz on an NPR show.

• Bill actually lost the Nuclear Launch Codes.  He didn’t just leave them in his other pants, they were missing for months.

George W. Bush

• George W. Bush was a cheerleader during high school – the head cheerleader, actually. He also played baseball.

Barack H. Obama

• Barack Obama collects comic books. His favorites: Spiderman and Conan the Barbarian.

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Source(s)

• Boller, Paul F. Jr. Presidential Diversion: Presidents at Play from George Washington to George W. Bush. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Books, 2007.
• Frank, Sid and Arden Davis Melick. The Presidents: Tidbits and Trivia. New York, NY: Greenwich House, 1977.
• Garrison, Webb. Love, Lust, and Longing in the White House. Nashville, TN: Cumberland House, 2000.
• Gregory, Leland H. Presidential Indiscretions. New York, NY: Dell Publishing, 1999.
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• Nelson, Michael, Ed. The Presidency: A to Z. Washington D. C.: Congressional Quarterly, Inc, 1998.
• O’Brien, Cormac. Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents: What Your Teachers Never Told You about the Men of the White House. Philadelphia, PA: Quirk Books, 2004.
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About Rick Ricker

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