BARACK OBAMA is our 44th president, but there
actually have only been 43 presidents: Cleveland was
elected for two
nonconsecutive terms and is counted twice, as our 22nd
and 24th
president.
EIGHT PRESIDENTS were born
British subjects: Washington, J. Adams, Jefferson,
Madison, Monroe, J.
Q. Adams, Jackson, and W. Harrison.
EIGHT PRESIDENTS never attended college:
Washington,
Jackson, Van Buren, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, A.
Johnson, and
Cleveland. The college that has the most presidents as
alumni (seven in
total) is Harvard: J. Adams, J. Q. Adams, T.
Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt,
Rutherford B. Hayes, J. F. Kennedy, and George W.
Bush.
PRESIDENTS WHO would be
considered "Washington outsiders" (i.e., the 18
presidents who never
served in Congress) are: Washington, J. Adams,
Jefferson, Taylor,
Grant, Arthur, Cleveland, T. Roosevelt, Taft,
Wilson, Coolidge, Hoover,
F. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Carter, Reagan, Clinton,
and G. W. Bush.
THE MOST COMMON religious affiliation among
presidents has been Episcopalian, followed by
Presbyterian.
THE ANCESTRY of all 44
presidents is limited to the following heritages, or
some combination
thereof: Dutch, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh,
Swiss, German , and
Africian.
THE OLDEST president inaugurated was Reagan (age
69);
the youngest was Kennedy (age 43). Theodore Roosevelt,
however, was the
youngest man to become president——he was 42 when he
succeeded McKinley,
who had been assassinated.
THE TALLEST president was
Lincoln at 6'4"; at 5'4", Madison was the shortest.
FOURTEEN PRESIDENTS served as vice presidents:
J.
Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Tyler, Fillmore, A.
Johnson, Arthur, T.
Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Nixon, L. Johnson, Ford,
and George Bush.
VICE PRESIDENTS were
originally
the presidential candidates receiving the
second-largest number of
electoral votes. The Twelfth Amendment, passed in
1804, changed the
system so that the electoral college voted
separately for president and
vice president. The presidential candidate, however,
gradually gained
power over the nominating convention to choose his
own running mate.
FOR TWO YEARS the nation was run by a president
and a
vice president who were not elected by the people.
After Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned in 1973,
President Nixon
appointed Gerald Ford as vice president. Nixon
resigned the following
year, which left Ford as president, and Ford's
appointed vice
president, Nelson Rockefeller, as second in line.
THE TERM "First Lady" was
used
first in 1849 when President Zachary Taylor called
Dolley Madison
"First Lady" at her state funeral. It gained
popularity in 1877
when used in reference to Lucy Ware Webb Hayes. Most
First Ladies,
including Jackie Kennedy, are said to have hated the
label.
JAMES BUCHANAN was the only president never to
marry.
Five presidents remarried after the death of their
first
wives——two of whom, Tyler and Wilson, remarried while
in the White
House.
Reagan was the only divorced president. Six presidents
had no children.
Tyler——father of fifteen——had the most.
PRESIDENTS LINCOLN,
Garfield,
McKinley, and Kennedy were assassinated in office.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS were made on the lives of
Jackson, T. Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon,
Ford, Carter,
Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, Clinton, and G. W. Bush.
EIGHT PRESIDENTS died in
office: W. Harrison (after having served only one
month), Taylor,
Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Harding, F. Roosevelt,
and Kennedy.
PRESIDENTS ADAMS, Jefferson, and Monroe all died
on
the 4th of July; Coolidge was born on that day.
KENNEDY AND TAFT are the
only
presidents buried in Arlington National Cemetery.
LINCOLN, JEFFERSON, F. Roosevelt, Washington,
Kennedy, and Eisenhower are portrayed on U.S. coins.
WASHINGTON, JEFFERSON,
Lincoln,
Jackson, Grant, McKinley, Cleveland, Madison, and
Wilson are portrayed on U.S. paper currency.
*The above information provided as
courtesy of
Borgna Brunner, who derived from "Facts About the
Presidents" by Joseph
Nathan Kane as posted on
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/prestrivia1.html
1. George Washington: No formal
education. The only president elected unanimously. He
received all 69
electoral votes. At his inauguration, Washington had
only one tooth. At
various times he wore dentures made of human teeth,
animal teeth, ivory
or even lead. Never wood. In addition to the nation's
capital and the
state,
31 counties and 17 towns are named in his honor. He
stood 6 feet and 2
inches
tall, weighed 200 pounds and wore size 13 shoes. He is
the only
president
who didn't live in Washington, D.C. during his
presidency. During his
presidency
the Judiciary Act of 1789 established the federal
court system, the
Bank
Act of 1791 established a nation wide banking system,
the Bill of
Rights
became law on December 15, 1791.
2. John Adams: Graduated
Harvard College (1755). Adams was the
great-great-grandson of John and
Priscilla Alden, pilgrims who landed at Plymouth
Rock in 1620. In 1800
the U.S. capital moved from Philadelphia to
Washington, D.C. Adams and
Jefferson were the only presidents to sign the
Declaration of
Independence, and they both died on its 50th
anniversary, July 4, 1826.
Vice-President under Washington. Older that any
other president at his
death, he lived 90 years, 247 days.
3. Thomas Jefferson: Graduated College of
William and
Mary (1762) Secretary of State under Washington,
Vice-President under
Adams. Jefferson was the first president to shake
hands with guests.
Previously people bowed to Presidents. Jefferson's
library of 6,000
books was purchased for $ 23.950 and formed the basis
of the Library of
Congress. Principal author of the Declaration of
Independence. First
president
to take his oath in Washington, D.C. Jefferson and
Adams were the only
presidents to sign the Declaration of Independence,
and they both died
on its 50th anniversary, July 4, 1826. He designed his
own tombstone
and
wrote his own epitaph, omitting the fact that he was
President of the
United
States.
4. James Madison:
Graduated
College of New Jersey (now Princeton University;
1771) Secretary of
State under Jefferson. Citing continued attacks on
its ships, the
United States declared war on Britain in June 1812.
British troops
burned the White House 1814. First president tho had
prior service as a
congressman. First president to wear trousers rather
than knee
breeches. He stood 5 feet
4 inches, the shortest president.
5. James Monroe: Graduated College of William
and
Mary (1776) Secretary of State under Madison.
Secretary of Was under
Madison. Convention of 1818 fixed the boundary between
the U.S. and
British North America. In 1819 purchased Florida from
Spain for the
cancellation of $ 5 million in debts. On December 2,
1923 proclaimed
the
Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers not to
interfere in U.S.
affairs.
First president to ride on a steamboat. First U.S.
Senator to become
president.
First inaugural to be held outdoors. His daughter was
the first to be
married in the White House. The U.S. Marine ban played
at his second
inaugural and every inauguration since.
6. John Quincy Adams:
Graduated
Harvard College (1787) Secretary of State under
Monroe. Adams swam nude
(weather permitting) in the Potomac River every day.
First elected
president not to receive either the most electoral
college votes or
popular votes. The first son of a president to
become a president.
(later followed by the only other father/son
presidents, George H.W.
Bush and George W. Bush.) Only
president elected to the House after his presidency.
He named one of
his sons George Washington.
7. Andrew Jackson: No formal education. Was
first man
elected from Tennessee to the House of
Representatives, and he served
briefly in the Senate. Placed 2,000 of his political
supporters in
government jobs and established a "kitchen cabinet" of
informal
advisors. In 1835 he made the final installment of
national debt making
Jackson
the only president of a debt free United States. He
was the only
president to serve in both the Revolutionary War and
the War of 1812.
He was the
only president to have been a prisoner of war. He was
the first
president
to have been born in a log cabin. First president to
ride a railroad
train. Wounded in a duel at the age of 39, Jackson
carried the bullet,
lodged near his heart, to his grave.
8. Martin
Van Buren: Graduated Kinderhook Academy (1796)
Secretary of State under
Jackson. Vice President under Jackson. First
president born in the
United
States of America. He and his wife spoke Dutch at
home. He took his
four
years salary, $100,000, in a lump sum at the end of
his term. After
serving
one term as president, he made three unsuccessful
bids for reelection.
9. William Henry Harrison: Attended
Hampden-Sydney
College. Harrison gave the longest inaugural address -
one hour 45 minutes. Only president who studied to
become a doctor. His
immediate job before becoming president was clerk of
Hamilton County
(Ohio)
court. First president to die in office. Inaugurated
on March 4, 1841,
contracted pneumonia in late March, died in the White
House on April 4.
Served 30 days.
10. John Tyler: Graduated
College of William and Mary (1807). Vice President
under Harrison.
First vice president to assume office after the
death of a president.
He was a Whig, but the Whig party disowned him after
he vetoed banking
bills supported by the Whigs. In January 1843, the
Whigs introduced
impeachment resolutions in the House, but the
measures were defeated.
Tyler served as president without being a member of
any political
party. He was a grand-uncle of Harry S Truman.
11. James Knox Polk: Graduated University of
North
Carolina (1818). Greatly expanded the western U.S. in
1848 through a
treaty with Mexico ending a two year war and giving
the U.S. control
over most of present-day Arizona, California,
Colorado, Nevada, New
Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Before the advent of
anesthetics and
antiseptic practices, Polk survived a gallstone
operation at age 17.
12. Zachary Taylor: No
formal
education. Taylor served in the regular Army for 40
years and never voted, never belonged to a political
party nor took any
interest in politics until he ran for president at
age 62. He was
elected
in the first national election held on the same day
in all states
(November
7, 1848). He pastured his old Army horse, Whitey, on
the White House
lawn
and visitors would take horse hairs as souvenirs.
Died in office of
gastroenteritis
on July 9, 1850.
13. Millard Fillmore: No formal
education. Vice President under Taylor. Fillmore did
not meet Taylor
until
after they were elected. When he moved into the White
House, it didn't
have a Bible. He and his wife, Abigail, installed the
first library. He
installed the first bathtub and kitchen stove in the
White House.
Fillmore
couldn't not read Latin and refused an honorary degree
from Oxford
University,
saying a person shouldn't accept a degree he couldn't
read.
14. Franklin Pierce:
Graduated
Bowdoin College (1824). In 1853 the Gadsden Purchase
settled boundary disputes with Mexico. In 1854 the
Kansas Nebraska Act
increased the conflict between pro and anti slavery
settlers and
required
the introduction of federal troops into Kansas in an
effort to end the
fighting. Because of religious considerations Pierce
affirmed rather
than
swore the Presidential Oath of Office. He gave his
inaugural address
from
memory, without the aid of notes. He installed the
first central
heating
system in the White House.
15. James Buchanan: Graduated Dickinson College
(1809). Secretary of State under Polk. In 1857
Buchanan recommended a
pro-slavery Kansas constitution. The constitution was
rejected and
Buchanan lost northern support. 1858 northern
candidates opposing
Buchanan
won a majority in both houses of Congress. 1859 John
Brown was seized
at
Harpers Ferry and hanged for his attempt to start a
slave revolt.
February
4, 1861 seven southern states formed the Confederacy.
By the time
Buchanan
was 30 years old, he had amassed a fortune of $
300,000. He was never
married,
so the duties of White House hostess were performed by
his niece,
Harriet
Lane. One of his eyes was nearsighted and the other
farsighted. As a
result
he always cocked his head to the left. Buchanan tired
of being
president
and refused to run for reelection.
16. Abraham Lincoln: No
formal
education. On April 12, 1861 Confederate forces
attacked Fort Sumter in
Charleston, South Carolina setting off the Civil
War. Lincoln quickly
mobilized the Union by executive order. January 1,
1863 he formally
issued the Emancipation Proclamation. On November
19, of that same year
he delivered the Gettysburg Address. On April 9,
1865 Generals Robert
E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant signed term of
Confederate surrender at
Appomattox, Virginia. Five days later, on April 14,
1865 Lincoln went
to Ford's Theater to watch "Our American Cousin" and
was shot by actor
John Wilkes Booth. He died the next morning at
Petersen's Boarding
House. Lincoln was the first president to die by
assassination. At 6
feet 4 inches he was the tallest president.
Lincoln's wife, Mary Todd, had a brother,
half-brothers and
brothers-in-law who fought in the Confederate Army.
Lincoln was the
only president to receive a patent, for a device for
lifting boats over
shoals. He was the first
president to wear a beard. His son Robert Todd
Lincoln, was in
Washington, D.C. when Lincoln was killed, was also
on the scene when
President Garfield was shot in 1881, and President
McKinley was
assassinated in 1901. A poll of historians named
Lincoln the nation's
greatest president. Washington was
second.
17. Andrew Johnson: No formal education. Vice
President under Lincoln. On May 29, 1865 issued
Amnesty Proclamation,
pardoning all Confederates except those with property
in excess of $
20,000 and certain Confederate leaders. On December 6,
1865 the 13th
amendment, officially abolishing slavery, was
ratified. On march 30,
1867
the U.S. purchased Alaska from Russia for $ 7.2
million. Johnson was
married
at a younger age than any other president. He was 18
on May 5, 1827 and
Eliza McCardle was 16. He is the only president to
serve in the Senate
after his presidency. He was host to the first Queen
to first the White
house. Queen Emma of Hawaii. Johnson was the only
president to be
impeached
by the House, but on March 26, 1868 was acquitted by
the Senate by a
one-vote
margin. Has was buried beneath a willow tree he
planted himself with a
shoot
taken from a tree at Napoleon's tomb.
18. Ulysses Simpson Grant:
Graduated U.S. Military Academy West Point, New
York. Witness to some
of the bloodiest battles in history, Grant could not
stomach the sight
of animal blood. Rare steak nauseated him. While
president, he was
arrested for driving his horse too fast and was
fined $ 20. Grant said
he knew only two songs. "One was Yankee Doodle and
the other wasn't."
He
smoked 20 cigars ad, which probably caused the
throat cancer that
resulted
in his death.
19. Rutherford Birchard Hayes: Graduated Kenyon
College (1842) and Harvard Law School (1845). On
September 8,
1880 Hayes arrived in San Francisco to become the
first president to
visit the West Coast. He was the first president to
graduate from law
school. Mrs. Hayes, Lucy Ware Webb, was known as
"Lemonade Lucy"
because
she refused to serve alcohol in the White House. The
first telephone
was
installed in the White House by Alexander Graham Bell
himself. The
first
Easter egg roll on the White House lawn was conducted
by Hayes and his
wife. He kept his campaign pledge and refused to run
for a second term.
20. James
Abram Garfield: Graduated Williams College (1856).
Only 131 days after
taking
office, on July 12, 1881, while entering a
Washington, D.C. railroad
station,
he was shot by Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed
office-seeker in
Garfield's new administration. Garfield was the
first left-handed
president. He was the last of seven presidents born
in a log cabin. On
election day, November 2, 1880, he was at the same
time, a member of
the House, Senator-elect and President-elect. After
Garfield's
shooting, repeated probing for the bullet with
non-sterile instruments
resulted in blood poisoning which eventually killed
him on September
19, 1881.
21. Chester Alan Arthur: Graduated Union College
(1848). Vice President under Garfield. Arthur's wife,
Ellen Lewis
Herndon, died before he became president, so Arthur's
sister, Mary
Arthur McElroy, served as White House hostess. Arthur
enjoyed walking
at night and seldom went to bed before 2 A.M. He had
24 wagon loads of
old
furniture and junk removed from the White House before
moving in. A
man-about-town, he entertained lavishly and often, and
enjoyed going to
nightclubs. Arthur told a temperance group that called
on him at the
White House, "I may be President of the United States,
but my private
life is my own damn business." Arthur destroyed all of
his personal
papers before his death.
22. Grover Cleveland: No
formal
education. Dedicated the Statue of Liberty on
October 28, 1886.
Cleveland is the only president to serve two
non-consecutive
terms. He lost the 1888 election for second term to
Benjamin Harrison,
despite garnering a larger popular vote. While
sheriff of Erie County,
New York, Cleveland was also the public executioner
and personally
hanged
two murderers. Since Cleveland was the sole
supporter of his family
during
the Civil War, he paid a substitute to take his
place. He vetoed 414
bill
in his first term, more that double the 204 vetoes
cast by all previous
presidents. The only president's child born in the
White House, was
Cleveland's
daughter, Esther.
23. Benjamin Harrison: Graduated Miami
University,
Oxford, Ohio (1852). Harrison grew up in a family of
13 children. He
was the second president whose wife died while he was
in office. An excellent extemporaneous speaker, he
once made 140
completely different speeches in 30 days. When the
Harrisons moved into
the White
House, it was in such a dilapidated state that plans
were made to build
a new mansion elsewhere in Washington. His last
daughter, Elizabeth,
was
younger than his four grandchildren. Harrison was
defeated for
reelection
by Grover Cleveland. Because of his wife's illness, he
did not campaign.
24. Grover Cleveland: No
formal
education. President March 4, 1885 to March 3, 1889.
Cleveland is the
only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
See
notes under 22ndPresident. Ran for an unprecedented
3rd term but lost
the
Democratic presidential nomination to Williams
Jennings Bryan.
25. William McKinley: Attended Allegheny
College. On
February 15 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine was blown
up
in Havana harbor. On April 25, the U.S. declared war
on Spain. May 1,
Admiral George Dewey led a major U.S. victory over
Spain in the Battle
of Manila Bay. February 6, 1899, the Treaty of Paris,
ending the war
was approved
by the U.S. Senate. Spain ceded the Philippines,
Puerto Rico and Guam
and
agreed to the independence of Cuba. September 6, 1901
McKinley was shot
twice in the chest at point blank range by Leon
Czolgosz while visiting
the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He
died on September
14 whispering his favorite hymn "Nearer my God to
Thee." McKinley's
wife,
Ida, was an epileptic and suffered a seizure during
the second
inaugural
ball. He was the first president to use the telephone
while campaigning
He
is thought to hold the record for presidential
handshaking - 2,500 per
hour.
McKinley exercised very little. Had he been in better
shape, his
doctors
said he might have survived his assassin's bullets.
26. Theodore Roosevelt:
Graduated Harvard College (1880) Vice President
under McKinley. On
November 18, 1903 the U. S. and Panama signed a
treaty for a canal
under U. S. sovereignty. Awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1906 for
arbitrating the end of the Russo-Jananese War. As a
child, Roosevelt
suffered asthma attacks and was too sickly to attend
school. At 42,
Roosevelt was the
youngest president. The teddy bear is named for him.
He lost the sight
in one eye while boxing in the White House. He had a
photographic
memory.
He could read a page in the time it took anyone else
to read a
sentence.
He was the first president to travel outside the
U.S. - Panama.
Roosevelt
craved attention. It was said that he wanted to be
the bride at every
wedding
and the corpse at every funeral.
27. William Howard Taft: Graduated Yale College
(1878); Cincinnati Law School (1880). Secretary of War
under Roosevelt.
February 3, 1913 the 16th Amendment to the U.S.
Constitution
authorizing income taxes was ratified. It states
simply: "The Congress
shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes,
from whatever
source
derived, without apportionment among the several
States, and without
regard
to any census or enumeration." Taft is the only person
to serve as both
President and Chief Justice (1921-1930) of the U.S. He
inaugurated the
custom of the president throwing out the first ball to
start the
baseball
season. Mrs. Taft was responsible for the planting of
the Japanese
cherry
trees in Washington. Taft, who weighed 332 pounds, got
stuck in the
White
House bathtub the first time he used it. A larger one
was ordered. The
Taft's
owned the last presidential cow and the first White
House automobile.
28. Woodrow Wilson:
Graduated
College of New Jersey (now Princeton University;
1879) First persuaded
to run for Governor of New Jersey in 1910. In
the campaign he
asserted his independence of the conservatives and
of the machine that
had nominated him, endorsing a progressive platform,
which he pursued
as governor. On May 7, 1915 more than 100 Americans
were killed as a German submarine torpedoed the
British liner
"Lusitania".
The U. S. purchased the Virgin Islands from Denmark.
April 6, 1917, the
United States declared war on Germany. November 11,
1918 an armistice
ending
World War I is signed. January 16, 1919 the 18th
Amendment
"Prohibition"
was ratified. August 18, 1920 the 19th Amendment,
giving women the
right
to vote, was ratified. Wilson is the only president
to earn a Ph.D.
degree.
In 1913 he held the first regular presidential press
conference.
Afterwards,
he met the press twice a week. His second wife,
Edith, was a
great-granddaughter of Pocahontas, seven times
removed. An avid golfer,
Wilson used black golf balls when playing in the
snow. He is the only
president buried in Washington, D.C.
29. Warren Gamaliel Harding: Graduated Ohio
Central
College (1882). On July 2, 1921 the president signed a
joint
congressional resolution of peace with Germany,
Austria and Hungary.
The treaties were singed in August. After Harding's
death, several of
his high officials were linked to the "Teapot Dome"
and other scandals.
He was the first newspaper publisher to be elected
president. Both of
Harding's parents were doctors. He was the first
president to own a
radio.
While president, Harding played golf, poker twice a
week, followed
baseball
and boxing, and sneaked off to burlesque shows.
30. Calvin Coolidge:
Graduated
Amherst College (1895) Vice President under Harding.
Sent U.S. Marines
to Nicaragua in 1925 after the outbreak of civil
war.
Despite strong party support, Coolidge announced on
August 2, 1927, "I
do
not choose to run for president in 1928." Charles
Lindbergh completed
the
thirst transatlantic flight in 1927. While governor
of Massachusetts,
Coolidge
was once punched in the eye by the mayor of Boston.
He was the only
president
sworn into office by his father, a justice of the
peace and notary
public.
Coolidge averaged nine hours of sleep a night and
took afternoon naps
of
from two to four hours. His wife recounted that a
young woman sitting
next
to Coolidge at a dinner party confided to him she
had bet she could get
at least three words of conversation from him.
Without looking at her
he
quietly retorted, "You lose."
31. Herbert Clark Hoover: Graduated Stanford
University (1895). Secretary of Commerce under
Harding, Secretary of
Commerce under Coolidge. The New York Stock Market
crashed on October
29, 1929, marking the beginning of a severe economic
depression that
dominated the Hoover presidency. The School of
Engineering and Applied
Science of
Columbia University in 1964, Herbert Hoover and Thomas
Edison were
named
the two greatest engineers in U. S. History. He was
the youngest member
of Stanford University's first graduating class.
During their first
three
years in the White House, the Hoovers dined alone only
three times,
each
time on their wedding anniversary. Hoover was the
first president to
donate
his salary to charity. One of the most honored
presidents, Hoover
received
84 honourary degrees, 78 medals and awards, and the
keys to dozens of
cities.
3
2. Franklin Delano Roosevelt: Graduated Harvard
College (1903) Attended
Columbia Law School. In 1933 Roosevelt launched the
"New Deal" relief
measures, revived the banking industry, and
delivered the first of 30
"Fireside Chats". In December, the 21st Amendment,
ending Prohibition,
was ratified. In 1935 the Social Security Act was
passed and the Works
Progress Administration (WPA) was passed. In 1936 he
was reelected in a
landslide over Alfred M. Landon. In 1939 Germany
overran Poland and war
was declared in Europe. In 1949 reelected to an
unprecedented third
term. December 7, 1941 Japan launched a surprise
attack on Pearl
Harbor. Congress declared war against Japan the next
day. June 6, 1944,
D-Day, Allied forces landed on the Normandy coast of
France. Reelected
to an unprecedented fourth term. Roosevelt was the
vice presidential
candidate on James M. Cox's ticket in 1920. He was
the first defeated
vice presidential candidate to be elected president.
He was related by
blood or marriage to 11 former presidents. In 1921,
at the age of 39,
Roosevelt
contracted polio which left him without the use of
his legs. A stamp
collector,
he received the first sheet of every new
commemorative issue. In, 1939,
he
became the first president to apear on television.
Died in office on
April
12, 1945.
33. Harry S Truman: Attended University of
Kansas
City Law School, Vice President under Roosevelt. May
7, 1945 Germany
surrendered ending World War II in Europe. June 19 he
flew to
Washington State and became the first president to use
air travel
within the country. June 26, 1945 the United Nations
Charter was
signed. August 6, 1945 the atomic bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima, Japan.
The second atomic bomb was
dropped August 9 on Nagasaki. August 14, announced the
surrender of
Japan.
On January 17, 1946 Truman proposed a 182 cent per
hour wage increase
to
settle the labor dispute between U.S. Steel and the
United Steel
Workers
union. A walkout was not prevented but it, and most
labor disputes in
1946
were settled on that basis. On July 15, he signed a
bill authorizing
loan
of $3.75 billion to Great Britain. November 21, 1946
he ordered
contempt
proceedings against John L. Lewis when the mine
leader, defying a
government
injunction, called members of the United Mine Workers
union out on
strike.
On December 5 Lewis sent the miners back to work after
a federal
district
court had fined him $10 thousand and the union $3.5
million. March 21,
1947
ordered loyalty investigation of all federal
government employees.
February
2, 1948 he sent a message to Congress asking for civil
rights
legislation
to secure the rights of the country's minority groups.
May 10, 1948 he
ordered
government operation of the railroads by the army to
forestall a
nationwide
railroad strike. May 14, 1948 he recognized new state
of Israel.
November
2, 1948 won reelection over Thomas E. Dewey in what
was regarded as a
major
political upset. September 3, 1949 he announced that
there was evidence
of
a Russian atomic explosion.. January 31, 1950 He
revealed that he had
ordered
the Atomic Energy Commission to develop the hydrogen
bomb. June 26,
1950
Truman ordered U.S. air and sea forces to aid South
Korean Troops in
resisting
the Communist forces of North Korea which had invaded
South Korea the
day
before. June 30 he announced that he had ordered
American ground forces
in
Japan to Korea and the navy to blockade the Korean
coast. General
Douglas
MacArthur, the American commander in Japan, was put in
charge of all
U.N.
troops in the area, which included forces from other
nations. August 25
Truman ordered seizure of the railroads by the
government on August 27
to
forestall a nationwide strike. November 1 Truman
escaped attempted
assassination
by two Puerto Rican nationalists. December 16 Truman
proclaimed a state
of national emergency following entry of Communist
China into the
Korean
conflict on November 6, after U.N. forces had taken
over most of North
Korea. April 11, 1951 Truman relieved General Douglas
MacArthur of all
posts as commander of American and U.N. forces in the
Far East for
making
statements critical of the government's military and
foreign policies
in
that area. MacArthur replaced by Lt. Gen. Matthew B.
Ridgway. March 29,
1952
he announced at Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner decision
not to run for
reelection.
April 8, during the Korean action, Truman signed
executive order
direction
Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer to seize steel
mills to prevent
strike
of steel workers. On June 2, seizure was declared
unconstitutional by
the
Supreme Court in a six to three decision. June 14 he
laid keel of the
USS
Nautilus, world's first atomic powered submarine, at
Groton,
Connecticut.
January 20, 1953 Truman attended inauguration of
President Eisenhower
and
then left by train for Independence, Missouri. The
middle initial "S"
in
Truman's name is not an abbreviation and has no
significance. At 60
years
old, he was the oldest vice president to succeed to
the presidency. In
recognition
of Truman's contribution to medical insurance,
President Johnson
presented
the first two Medicare cards to Mr. and Mrs. Truman.
Truman's mother, a
Confederate sympathizer, refused to sleep in Lincoln's
bed during a
White House visit.
34. Dwight David
Eisenhower:
Graduated U.S. Military Academy, West Point New
York. Held no other
political office. In 1953 Eisenhower established the
Department of
Health, Education and Welfare. The Korean War ended
and he nominated
Earl Warren as chief justice of the Supreme Court.
In 1956 Egypt
nationalized the Suez Canal and the president
refused to join Britain,
France and Israel in an invasion of Egypt. Also, in
1956 he denounced
the USSR for crushing a Hungarian uprising. In 1957,
he sent federal
troops to Little Rock, Arkansas to ensure the
integration of Central
High School. On May 1, 1956, the USSR downed a U.S.
U-2 reconnaissance
flight over Soviet territory which was flown by
Francis Gary Powers, a
civilian. This resulted in the collapse of
a summit conference with Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Dwight David
Eisenhower was born David Dwight Eisenhower. He was
the last president
born in the 19th
century. He was the only president to serve in both
World Wars. A
skilled
chef, he was famous for his vegetable soup, steaks,
and cornmeal
pancakes.
He was the first president licensed to fly an
airplane.
35. John Fitzgerald Kennedy: Graduated Harvard
College (1940). In 1961 Kennedy established the Peace
Corps.
On April 17, 1961 a force of anti-Castro Cubans,
trained by the Central
Intelligence Agency, staged an unsuccessful attempt to
establish a
beachhead
at the Bay of Pigs, Cuba. In August, East Germany in
an attempt to
curtail
defections from East To West, constructed a wall
separating East and
West Berlin. On February 20, 1962 Lt. Col. John H.
Glenn, Jr. became
the
first American to orbit the earth. In October, 1962
after U.S.
reconnaissance
flights revealed that Soviet offensive missiles were
being installed in
Cuba, the United States established a naval
"quarantine" around Cuba.
This
period is generally considered the closest the world
has ever come to
nuclear
war. On October 28, after the U.S. agreed to withdraw
the quarantine
and
never to invade Cuba, the Soviets withdrew their
missiles. On August
28,
1963 more than 200,000 persons staged a march in
Washington, D.C. and
the
Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have
A Dream" speech.
South
Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem was overthrown on
November 1. On
November
22, 1963, Kennedy was killed by an assassin, Lee
Harvey Oswald, as his
motorcade
wound through Dallas, Texas. Kennedy, at 43 years old,
was the youngest
man
elected president; and at 46 years old, he was the
youngest to die.
Kennedy
was the only president to win a Pulitzer Prize, for
his biography
"Profiles
in Courage". He was the first president to have served
in the U.S.
Navy.
He was the only president to appoint his brother to a
cabinet post.
36. Lyndon Baines Johnson:
Graduated Southwest Texas State Teachers College
(1930). Vice President
under Kennedy. In 1965 he signed an $ 11.5 billion
tax-reduction bill
and a major civil-right bill which was proposed and
initiated under the
Kennedy administration. Proclaimed a "War on
Poverty". On February 7,
1965 ordered the bombing of targets in North Vietnam
and began
escalating U.S. troop strength in Indochina. In
April, he ordered U.S.
troops into the Dominican Republic to end a
rebellion. Also in 1965
Johnson signed legislation establishing Medicare and
the Department of
Housing and Urban Development. In 1967 he nominated
Thurgood Marshall
as an associate justice to the Supreme Court. In
1968 Johnson withdrew
his candidacy for the presidential race and ordered
a reduction in the
bombing of North Vietnam.Johnson and his wife,
Claudia "Lady Bird" Alta
Taylor, were married with a $ 2.50 wedding ring
bought at Sears Roebuck. He was the only president
to take the oath of
office
from a female official, Judge Sarah T. Hughes.
Johnson rejected his
official
portrait painting, saying it was the ugliest thing
he ever saw. He was
the
first incumbent president to meet with a pope.
37. Richard Milhous Nixon: Graduated Whittier
College
(1934) and Duke University Law School (1937). Vice
President under
Eisenhower. July 20, 1969 Neil A. Armstrong became the
first man
to walk on the moon. April 30, 1970 he announced that
U.S. troops were
being sent into Cambodia to destroy enemy sanctuaries.
Nixon visited
China in
February of 1972 becoming the first president to visit
a country not
recognized
by the U. S. June 17, 1972, five men were arrested for
breaking into
the
Democratic National Committee headquarters located at
the Watergate
Hotel.
The Vietnam cease-fire agreement was signed January
1973. October 10,
1973
Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned and pleaded
guilty to one count
of income tax evasion and Nixon appointed Gerald R.
Ford to replace
him.
August 9, 1974, effective at noon, Nixon resigned as
president,
becoming
the first president to ever voluntarily leave office.
This was a direct
result of the scandal created by attempting to cover
up the "Watergate
Affair".
38. Gerald Rudolph Ford:
Graduated University of Michigan (1935) and Yale
University Law School
(1941). Vice President under Nixon. Appointed Nelson
A. Rockefeller as
vice president. Granted Richard M. Nixon an
"absolute pardon" for all
federal crimes he may have committed or taken part
in while president.
He was born Leslie Lynch King, Jr. Both Ford and his
wife, Elizabeth
"Betty" Bloomer Warren, had been models before their
marriage. Running
for Congress in 1948, Ford campaigned on his wedding
day. He was the
first president
to release to the public a full report of his
medical checkup. Ford was
the only president whose two assassination attempts
against him were
made
by women. Ford was the first president not elected
by the people to
become
president. He became vice president when Agnew
resigned, and president
when Nixon resigned. He was defeated by Jimmy Carter
in his bid to win
a
full term. Ford was a model for Cosmopolitan
and Look magazines
in the 1940's.
39. James Earl Carter, Jr.: Graduated U.S. Naval
Academy (1946). September 1977, signed treaties
providing for
the termination of U.S. operation of the Panama Canal
in 1999 and for
the
permanent neutralization of the canal. In 1978 Carter
signed the
"Framework
of Peace in the Middle East and the "Framework for the
Conclusion of a
Peace
Treaty Between Egypt and Israel" following eleven days
of negotiations
at
Camp David with Israeli Prime Minister Menahem Begin
and Egyptian
President
Anwar el-Sadat. The treaty was signed March 26, 1979.
In December 1978,
China
and the U.S. agreed to establish diplomatic relations.
In 1979 Carter
signed
an bill creating the Department of Education. Reached
Strategic Arms
Limitation
Agreement with President Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet
Union.
Protesting
the U.S. support of the Shah, radical Iranian student
seized a group of
American
diplomats and embassy officials in Tehran in November.
The "hostage
crisis"
remained with Carter for the remainder of his term.
Carter was the
first
president born in a hospital. He was the first
president graduated from
the
U.S. Naval Academy. He was the first president sworn
in using his
nickname,
"Jimmy".
40.
Ronald Wilson Reagan: Graduated Eureka College
(1932). Moments after
Regan was inaugurated on January 20, 1981, 52
Americans held hostage in
Iran since November 1979 were released. September 22
1981 Sandra Day
O'Connor is
confirmed 91-8 as an associate justice of the
Supreme Court. She was
the
first female to serve on the Supreme Court. While
participating in a
multinational peacekeeping force in Lebanon on
October 23, 1983, 241
U.S. Servicemen were killed in a terrorist attack.
Later on October 25,
U.S. troops invaded the Caribbean island of Grenada
in an effort to
restore order and democracy. November 6, 1984
winning 49 states, Reagan
was reelected in a landslide over
Walter Mondale. January 28, 1986, seven astronauts
lost their lives on
the space shuttle Challenger. April 5, 1986 two
American servicemen
lose their lives in a terrorist bombing of the La
Belle Discotheque in
Berlin. April 14 and 15 in retaliation for the disco
bombing, American
warplanes attack "terrorist related targets" in
Libya. November 25, the
Iran-Contra Affair becomes public. Ronald Reagan was
77 years old when
he left office, making him the oldest president. He
was the first
president to have been divorced. Reagan was a
Hollywood actor before
becoming involved in politics. He made more
than 50 movies,
mostly
westerns or action pictures. For those of you
who would like to
know
more about this man, here
is a link that will take you to a Ronald Reagan Home
Page. http://www.dnaco.net/~bkottman/reagan.html
41. George Herbert Walker Bush:
Graduated Yale University (1948). March 24, 1989 the
tanker Exxon
Valdez
leaks history's largest oil spill, 11.3 million
gallons, in Alaska.
December
20 Bush authorizes the use of U.S. troops to remove
Panama's General
Manuel
Noriega. Noriega avoids capture and on December 24
seeks asylum in the
Vatican embassy. Eventually surrenders to U.S.
authorities on January
3,
1990. August 2, 1990 Iraq, under President Saddam
Hussein, invades
Kuwait.
August 7, Operation Desert Shield begins. October 2,
the U.S. Senate
confirms
90-9, David H. Souter as Supreme Court Justice.
October 3, East and
West
Germany merge to become one Germany. January 12, 1991
Congress
authorizes
President Bush to wage war against Iraq. January 16,
Desert Storm
begins.
February 24, the ground assault against Iraq begins.
February 28, a
cease
fire is granted to Iraq and the "Mother Of All Wars"
is ended. April 1,
the
Warsaw Pact is dissolved an on April 9, Georgia SSR
votes to secede
from
the USSR and the collapse of the Soviet Union begins.
August 19, Soviet
hardliners
stage a coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev. The
coup is crushed,
but
Gorbachev resigns as head of the Communist Party on
August 24.
September
6, the USSR recognizes the independence of the three
Baltic republics.
October
15, after a bitter partisan debate, Clarence Thomas is
confirmed by a
52-48
vote as Supreme Court Justice. December 8, Russia,
Byelorussia and
Ukraine
form The Commonwealth of Independent States. November
3, 1992 Bush is
defeated
in his bid for reelection. When Bush received his
military commission
in
1943, he became, at age 19, the youngest pilot in the
Navy. Bush is
related
to Benedict Arnold, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill,
Presidents
Franklin
Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Gerald
Ford. Bush
became the first vice president ever to serve as
acting president when
Ronald Reagan underwent surgery for three hours in
1985. George
Herbert Walker Bush is the second man in US
Presidential history whose
son became President. In 1992, while at a formal
dinner in Japan
Bush became ill and vomited on the prime minister of
Japan, then
fainted.
42. William Jefferson
Clinton:
Graduated Georgetown University (1968), Yale
University Law School
(1973) August 10, 1993 Ruth Bader Ginsberg is
confirmed 96-3 as Supreme
Court Justice. September 30, Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
President of Haiti
is overthrown in a military coup. September 19, 20,
1994 U.S.
forces invade Haiti. October 15, Aristide is
returned to office.
October
1994 congress fails to enact Clinton's controversial
health care
program
which was a strong priority during the election
campaign. November 8,
1994
Republicans gain control of both houses of congress
for the first time
since
1954. November 17, U.S. Congress votes for the North
American Free
Trade
Agreement (NAFTA ). July 1, 1997 China regains
sovereignty of Hong
Kong.
In 1978 when Clinton was elected governor of
Arkansas, he was at the
time,
age 32 and the youngest governor in the U.S. In high
school, Clinton
played
saxophone in a jazz trio. The three musicians wore
dark glasses on
stage
and they called themselves "Three Blind Mice".
He was the second
president of the United States to be impeached by
the House of
Representatives. His nickname as a child was
Bubba.
43. George W. Bush: Graduated Yale
University
(1968). He earned a Master of Business
Administration Degree from
Harvard Business School in 1975. Bush worked in
the energy
business, and was once part owner of the Texas Rangers
baseball
franchise. Governor of Texas from 1995-
2000. Elected
President of the US in 2001. Bush's first
initiative was the No
Child Left Behind Act, a measure that raised schools
standards,
requiring accountability in return for tax dollars and
lead to
measurable gains in achievement, especially among
minority
students. Most significant event during his
tenure was the
9/11/2001 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000
people in the
United States, after which began the War on
Terror. Having lost
the 2000 election (for his second term) by more than a
half-million
popular votes, Bush is the first president since 1888
( President
Benjamin Harrison) to become President without winning
the popular
votes. Bush lost the popular vote to Al Core by
500,000 votes,
then won a disputed recount in Florida by a few
hundred. George
W. Bush is the second father and son to be elected as
presidents in the
U.S. Presidential history.
44. Barack Obama:
Born to
a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas, Obama
worked his way
through college, aided also by student loans and
scholarships. He
attended Occidental College and Columbia University,
and went on to
attend law school and became the first African
American president of
the Harvard Law Review. He later taught law at
the University of
Chicago. Obama became President of the United
States on November
4, 2008. He does not like ice cream as a result
of working at an
ice cream shop as a teenager. Collects Spiderman
and Conan the
Barbarian comic books. He was known as “O’Bomber” at
high school for his skill at basketball. His favorite
meal is wife Michelle’s shrimp linguini. He won
a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir,
Dreams From My Father. He is left-handed – the
sixth post-war president to be left-handed. He
has read every Harry Potter book. He owns a set of red
boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali. He
can speak Spanish. While on the campaign trail he
refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on
instead. His favorite drink is black forest
berry iced tea. He promised Michelle he would
quit smoking before running for president – he
didn’t. His favorite book is Moby-Dick by Herman
Melville. His desk in his Senate office once
belonged to Robert Kennedy. He enjoys playing
Scrabble and poker. He doesn’t drink coffee and
rarely drinks alcohol. He would have liked to
have been an architect if he were not a
politician. As a teenager he took drugs
including marijuana and cocaine. He was given
the code name “Renegade” by his Secret Service
agents. He was nicknamed “Bar” by his late
grandmother. His favorite artist is Pablo
Picasso. He keeps on his desk a carving of a
wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the
fragility of life. His late father was a
senior economist for the Kenyan government. He has
added more deficit spending and national debt that all
the President's before him combined.
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