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Happy President’s Day, everyone! I hope you are all wearing your Lincoln top hats and George Washington wigs in celebration of this exciting holiday. Okay, I get that President’s Day is one of the lamest holidays, celebrated only by car dealerships, Macy’s (who never misses an excuse to have a “one day sale”), banks and governmental agencies. Some of you are lucky enough to get the day off from work or school, but for many of us this hardly seems like a holiday at all.
So to get into the holiday spirit — to really embrace the true essence of President’s Day — I have complied a list of interesting or unusual facts about each of our 43 presidents (in order):
- George Washington freed all of his slaves in his will. He was one of 12 U.S. presidents to own slaves.
- John Adams was the first president to reside in the White House. The White House was under construction for eight years; Adams moved there in 1800.
- Thomas Jefferson could speak at least four languages – English, French, Italian and Latin. He was also able to read Greek and Spanish, and there is evidence he studied German.
- James Madison was the smallest president. He stood 5 feet 4 inches tall and never weighed more than 100 pounds.
– James Monroe is one of three presidents who died on Independence Day. (The others were Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, who died within 6 hours of each other in 1826.)
- John Quincy Adams was elected president by the House of Representatives after no candidate received the majority of electoral votes. His political rival, Andrew Jackson, won the popular vote and had more electoral votes than Adams.
- Andrew Jackson was the first president to invite the public to his inaugural ball. Attendees stormed past guards into the White House, where they damaged furniture, dishes and other breakables. The crowd was eventually lured back outside by barrels of liquor that were set up on the front lawn.
- Martin Van Buren was the first president born a citizen of the United States. All of the previous presidents were born before the American Revolution.
- William Henry Harrison was the first president to die in office. He succumbed to pneumonia on just his 32nd day as president.
- John Tyler fathered more children than any other president — he had eight children with his first wife and seven with his second.
- It is rumored that James K. Polk was sterile due to a urinary stone removal surgery he underwent in his teens.
- Zachary Taylor had little formal education, and was known to have terrible spelling, grammar and handwriting.
- When Millard Fillmore became president after Taylor's sudden death, Taylor's entire cabinet resigned due to Fillmore's stance in favor of the Compromise of 1850, a bill that dealt with slavery.
- Franklin Pierce was arrested while in office for running over a woman with his horse. The charges were ultimately dropped due to a lack of evidence.
- James Buchanan Jr. is the only president who never married.
- Before he became a lawyer, Abraham Lincoln was a bartender. He co-owned a store/tavern called Berry and Lincoln, which was located in New Salem, Illinois.
- Andrew Johnson was the first president to be impeached. He was kept in office by only one vote.
- Ulysses S. Grant was the first president, and one of only three, to have both parents living at the time of his election. The other two presidents were John F. Kennedy and George W. Bush.
- Rutherford B. Hayes did not allow alcohol to be served in the White House during his presidency.
- James A. Garfield was the only president to have been a preacher.
- Chester A. Arthur, who took over the presidency after Garfield's death, had no vice president.
- Grover Cleveland had a secret surgery to remove a cancerous lesion on his jaw. The surgery was performed on a friend's yacht and the public was led to believe that Cleveland was on a vacation cruise.
- Benjamin Harrison was the first president to use electricity in the White House.
- William McKinley was featured on the $500 bill, which was last printed in 1934.
- Theodore Roosevelt was blind in his left eye due to a boxing injury he sustained while in office.
- William Howard Taft is the only person to have served as both president of the U.S. and chief justice of the Supreme Court.
- Woodrow Wilson holds the record for the most rounds of golf played by a sitting president. He reportedly played approximately 1,200 rounds during his presidency.
- Warren Harding once gambled away the White House's entire set of china on one hand of cards.
- Calvin Coolidge is the only president to be born on Independence Day.
- Herbert Hoover became an orphan at the age of 9. After the death of his mother, he was raised by relatives in Iowa and Oregon.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only president to serve three terms. The two-term limit was established after his death.
- Harry S. Truman was one of the most unpopular presidents in history. His approval rating sunk to just 22 percent in February 1952, the lowest recorded approval rating of any sitting president.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower had six brothers. All of the boys were called "Ike," which was an abbreviation of their last name.
- John F. Kennedy was the wealthiest president. His net worth was estimated at $1 billion in 2010 dollars.
- Lyndon B. Johnson ties Abraham Lincoln for the record of tallest president. Both men stood 6 feet 4 inches tall.
- Richard Nixon is the only president to resign from the office.
- Gerald Ford's birth name was Leslie Lynch King Jr., after his father. Although he had gone by the name Gerald Ford, after his stepfather, since he was 2 years old, he did not legally change his name until he was 22.
- A devote Christian, Jimmy Carter has taught Sunday school almost all of his life, including during his presidency.
- Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been divorced. He divorced his first wife, Jane Wyman, in 1949 after nine years of marriage.
- George H.W. Bush hated broccoli and banned it from Air Force One.
- Bill Clinton's father died in a car accident three months before he was born.
- George W. Bush is the only U.S. president to have an earned a Master's in Business Administration degree.
- Barack Obama didn't pay off his student loans until he was 43 years old. He and his wife were able to pay off their student loans with royalties from Obama’s two best-selling books.
The post Impress Your Friends with These Presidential Facts appeared first on How to Get Rid of Things™.
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