25 Facts You Didn't Know About the Presidents!
Jonathon Andrews
Happy Presidents Day! No better way to celebrate Presidents' Day than exchanging little known trivia about them with our family and friends. Enjoy these 25 Facts You Didn't Know About the Presidents!
1. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams both died on July, 4 1826, fifty years after the Declaration of Independence was signed.
2. Andrew Jackson was famous for dueling, he had around 100 duels, and he got shot in the chest and still managed to kill his opponent. It was unsafe to have it removed so it remained there for the next forty years.
3. Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear cub while he was on a hunting trip. Eventually word got out about this and a toy maker decided to honor the 26th president by producing “Teddy Bears”.
4. When Ronald Reagan was shot by an assassin in 1981 he said “I forgot to duck”.
5. Lyndon B. Johnson was only President because of the assassination of JFK, but this wouldn’t have been possible if he didn’t make a particular trip to the bathroom. While he in the military during WWII, Johnson boarded a plane called the Wabash Cannonball for his bombing mission. But he really had to go to the bathroom, so he left the plane and when he returned the Wabash Cannonball had left. The plane crashed and everyone on board died.
6. Barack Obama had a pet ape named Tata when he lived in Indonesia.
7. Abraham Lincoln told his bodyguard he had a dream that he was assassinated the day he was shot.
8. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson visited the home of Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon, England. While there, they chipped a piece off of one of Shakespeare’s chairs as a memento.
9. Zachary Taylor was snacking on some cherries and followed them with milk while celebrating the Fourth of July where the Washington Monument now stands. He died a few days later due to bacteria present on the cherries or the milk.
10. Eleanor Roosevelt didn’t need to change her last name when she married Franklin Delano Roosevelt because they’re cousins.
11. FDR was afraid of the number thirteen. He wouldn’t dine with this number of people or even leave to go on a trip on the 13th of any month.
12. James Madison is the shortest president we have ever had, at 5 ft. 4 inches and weighing about 100 lbs.
13. James Monroe also died on the Fourth of July, making him the third president to die on Independence Day.
14. William Henry Harrison had the shortest presidency; he gave his ninety minute inauguration speech without a coat. This led him to get pneumonia and die 31 days after being inaugurated.
15. Abraham Lincoln created the Secret Service the same night he was assassinated. But it wasn’t to protect the president, it was created to investigate and put an end to counterfeit money.
16. Ulysses S. Grant’s name never had an ‘S’ until a clerical error was made on his application to West Point. But the ‘S’ sounded so good it stuck.
17. Lyndon B Johnson was the only president to be sworn into office on an airplane,it happened almost immediately after the assassination of JFK; in fact Jackie Kennedy stood by Johnson for the swear-in with the blood of her husband on her coat.
18. Richard Nixon loved bowling so much he had a one lane bowling alley installed in the basement of the White House.
19. Woodrow Wilson suffered multiple strokes due to very high stress levels; this led to him being partially paralyzed and almost completely blind. He relied on his First Lady Edith Bolling Galt (a descendant of Pocahontas!) to help him with his presidential duties, she even got the nickname “Presidentress”.
20. Grover Cleveland was the only president to be in office for two non-consecutive terms. He served from 1885 to 1889 and again from 1893 to 1897.
21. JFK donated his entire congressional and presidential salaries to charity, because he didn’t need the money.
22. Ronald Reagan was the first divorced president to take office.
23. Barack Obama worked at Baskin-Robbins as a teenager and now he dislikes ice cream because of it.
24. To try to unite the North & South Ulysses S. Grant made Christmas a national holiday in 1870.
25. A dairy farmer from New York gifted Andrew Jackson a 1400 pound cheese, he left it in the White House Entrance Hall to age for two years. In 1837 he invited the public to come and eat it, it was gone in two hours.
For more interesting facts about the Presidents check out my sources below!
46 Amazing Facts About All 45 American Presidents. (2019, February 11). Retrieved January 21, 2021, from https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/531531/american-presidents-facts
Ballard, J. (2020, February 10). 44 Fun Facts About Each President Just in Time for President's Day. Retrieved January 21, 2021, from https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/g5126/president-facts/
Hapsis, E. (2016, February 18). Weird Facts You Never Knew about the U.S. Presidents. Retrieved January 21, 2021, from https://www.kqed.org/pop/20516/weird-facts-you-never-knew-about-the-u-s-presidents
US Presidents. (n.d.). Retrieved January 21, 2021, from https://www.ducksters.com/biography/uspresidents/president_fun_facts.php
Disclaimer: I do not own any of these photos. Please note that all images and copyrights belong to their original owners. No copyright infringement intended.
