Did You Know These Facts About The Presidents?
When you think about it, you have to be pretty demented to seek the office of the presidency. That’s why it’s not surprising that such big personalities have served as President of the United States.
George Washington
The first president also set the template for a love of animals in the White House. Washington was an avid dog breeder in his spare time.
John Adams
As dramatized in the 2008 HBO miniseries starring Paul Giamatti and Laura Linney, President John Adams had a long-standing letter correspondence with his wife Abigail. They wrote over 1,000 letters to each other.
.jpg){kind=link}
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson had a contentious, if still collaborative, relationship with previous President John Adams. They, strangely enough, passed away within hours of each other.
.jpg){kind=link}
James Madison
Weighing a little over 100 pounds, James Madison stood at 5’4”. He was the shortest president the US has ever had.
James Monroe
James Monroe must’ve been popular, because he ran virtually unopposed in the 1820 election. If Walter Mondale had known how badly he was going to be blown out in 1984, Reagan might’ve gotten that chance too.
(b).jpg){kind=link}
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams had a rich post-presidential life, especially in the court of law. He famously worked in the Supreme Court to defend the slaves who had rebelled aboard the Amistad ship.
Andrew Jackson
Presidents aren’t always the best people, especially if you consider how callous the job makes you about human life. Though Andrew Jackson may have already been that going into the position, once having ended another man’s life in a duel.
Martin Van Buren
During the height of Arnold Schwarzenneger’s popularity, Republicans were looking for a loophole to make the Austrian able to run for President. The established template for who was allowed was set by Martin Van Buren, who was the first American-born president to serve in the position.
William Henry Harrison
Lasting only 32 days in office, William Harrison is probably time’s most forgotten president. If only some other presidents had lasted that shortly.
John Tyler
Presidents have to be family men, but John Tyler took it to the extreme, fathering 15 children. Of course, Elon Musk, who currently acts as the symbolic president of sorts, might eventually beat him on this number.
_(cropped)(2).png){kind=link}
James K Polk
As a president, Polk was representative of America’s shameful past. He, in secret, purchased a number of enslaved children for his own plantation in the South.
Zachary Taylor
Not voting if candidates don’t speak to your interests is admirable, but it can be surprising to hear that a president never actually did it. This was the case with President Zachary Taylor before he was elected to office.
Millard Fillmore
Forget about Democrats and Republicans, it used to be the Dems versus the Whig Party. Millard Fillmore was the last president to represent it.
Franklin Pierce
A rather unremarkable president in the history books, Franklin Pierce’s perhaps most distinguishing feature is being the only president from New Hampshire. Generally voting blue, that state still has a strong libertarian base which makes it a wild card come election season.
James Buchanan
America has a particularly tricky relationship to Cuba, even well before the days of Castro. Case in point was President James Buchanan, who while serving Great Britain helped draft a motion for America to invade Cuba.
.jpg){kind=link}
Abraham Lincoln
At 6”4, Honest Abe is still, to date, the tallest president. Though it may be due to a condition he had, called Marfan Syndrome, which made people genetically tall and gaunt.
Andrew Johnson
President Trump has amassed some controversy for being the first in a long time to not have a White House pet. While President Andrew Johnson never officially had one, he apparently did take care of a family of White House mice.
Ulysses S Grant
The first president to receive a speeding ticket while in office was Ulysses S Grant. Of course, being in the 1870s, he was on a horse.
Rutherford B Hayes
Presidents of the 20th and 21st century are strongly associated with images of them on the phone in the Oval Office talking to someone important, like a fellow world leader. Well, President Hayes was the first to have telecommunication in the White House.
James A Garfield
President Garfield didn’t hate Mondays and love lasagna, but he did have a particularly distinguishing feature. He was the first left-handed president!
Chester A Arthur
President Chester Arthur was named after the doctor who delivered him. We can deduce that his parents hadn’t spent too much time thinking of a name beforehand.
Grover Cleveland
Before Donald Trump pulled off his comeback in 2024, Grover Cleveland was the first president to be elected to non-consecutive terms. Evidently, Benjamin Harrison made people nostalgic for Cleveland.
Benjamin Harrison
President Harrison helped break the glass ceiling by being the first president to hire a female White House staffer. Sadly, still no female president has been elected.
William McKinley
Did you know there was once a $500 bill? Discontinued in 1969, it featured President McKinley on it.
Theodore Roosevelt
If you get into the weeds of late-period The Simpsons, you’ll find an episode where Superintendent Chalmers inspires Bart to stop misbehaving by taking President Teddy Roosevelt as an inspiration. It’s one of the most bizarrely boomer-ish episodes the show has ever done.
William Howard Taft
Major League Baseball was seriously vindicated by President Taft throwing the ceremonial first pitch at a game. From there, the country’s strongly intertwined relationship to the game was established.
Woodrow Wilson
President Wilson must’ve credited a lot to his matriarch. We say that because he officially established Mother’s Day as the second Sunday in May during a 1914 proclamation.
Warren G Harding
Presidents having extramarital dalliances isn’t exactly out of the ordinary. That being said, it’s to a whole other level when we can publicly read the love letters one wrote to their mistress, as is the case with President Harding.
.jpg){kind=link}
Calvin Coolidge
In the age of radio and television, presidents have depended on public speaking talent to exert political influence. President Coolidge was the opposite, known to hardly utter anything.
.jpg){kind=link}
Herbert Hoover
George W Bush’s stint being a part-owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team is well publicized, but he wasn’t the only president with a strong sports connection. President Herbert Hoover managed the football team at Stanford in the late 19th century.
Franklin D Roosevelt
Many consider FDR the best president ever, chiefly due to his strong leadership during WWII. This was dramatized to particularly un-poetic effect in the 2001 film Pearl Harbor, where as portrayed by Jon Voight, FDR is so inspired that he rises from his wheelchair, which of course never happened.
Harry S Truman
As a birthday gift in 1947, President Truman’s friends had a bowling alley installed in the White House. The strange part was that he, in his adult life, had not been an avid bowler.
.jpg){kind=link}
Dwight D Eisenhower
Camp David, the presidential retreat, is a big part of the job’s mythos. It was originally named Shangri-La, but was changed because Eisenhower wanted to name it after his son.
John F Kennedy
It’s a corny tradition, but the pardoning of a turkey around Thanksgiving is a long-held presidential practice. Strangely enough, the first to do it was JFK.
Lyndon B Johnson
If politicians worked as educators, then teachers would likely have higher salaries. Well, President Johnson did work as one near the US-Mexico border before getting into politics.
Gerald R Ford
Generally speaking, Gerald Ford isn’t thought of as one of the more handsome Presidents. That being said, he did serve as a model for Cosmopolitan in 1942.
.jpg){kind=link}
Jimmy Carter
Back when Democrats could comfortably sweep the Southern states, Jimmy Carter proved his bona fides. Part of his Southern identity was that of the owner of a peanut farm.
Ronald Reagan
President Reagan’s acting career is well-known, but a particular cavalry Western he was in anticipated some elements of his political base. The 1940 film Sante Fe Trail, in which Reagan depicts George Custer, has a rigidly reactionary anti-abolitionist, pro-states’ rights stance regarding slavery.
.jpg){kind=link}
George HW Bush
Poppy Bush had a long-standing feud with The Simpsons that began with publicly badmouthing the show and culminated in an episode where he and Homer literally fought. Bush’s resentment likely had to do with the show being representative of the cool 90s culture he was evidently out of touch with.
.jpg){kind=link}
Bill Clinton
Slick Willy’s first hustle might surprise you. While working at a grocery store as a 13-year-old, he managed to convince the owner to let him sell comic books at the store, where he raked in $100.
George W Bush
In his post-presidential career, Bush Jr has taken up painting as a hobby. Unfortunately, he’s not quite good enough at it to make people forget about Iraq.
.png){kind=link}
Barack Obama
President Obama’s time as a community organizer in Chicago overlapped with the meteoric rise of basketball superstar Michael Jordan. Obama even appeared as a talking head in the 2020 documentary The Last Dance, which was about the famed Chicago Bulls dynasty led by Jordan.
Donald Trump
Donald Trump had a cut scene from the 2010 sequel, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, where he greets fellow 80s shark Gordon Gekko in a barbershop. While the scene was cut from the final film, director Oliver Stone went on to praise Trump’s acting ability.
Joe Biden
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Best Actor Oscar win in 2016 was so anticipated that it drew a number of people to the ceremony. During his acceptance speech, it even cut to Joe Biden, then the sitting Vice President, sitting in the Dolby Theatre (previously called the Kodak Theatre).
Richard Nixon
Tricky Dicky was so set on being with his future wife Patricia, who turned him down at first, that he drove her to meet dates just to show his fealty to her. The dedication to her evidently paid off down the line.
You May Also Like:
Ranking The Presidents From Best To Worst
The Largest Victories In Presidential History
Presidents Ranked From Tallest To Shortest
