United States Presidential trivia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- See also: :Category:United States presidential history and :Category:Lists relating to the United States presidency
Contents |
[edit] Births
William Henry Harrison, born February 9, 1773 in British colonial territory, was the last President who was not a natural-born U.S. citizen. Martin Van Buren, born December 5, 1782, was the first President born after the Declaration of Independence and was thus arguably the first natural-born U.S. citizen (rather than a British subject) to become President. A Dutch-American, he was also the first President not of Anglo-Celtic origin. John Tyler (b. March 29, 1790) was the first President born after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution: all previous Presidents were eligible to serve because they were citizens at the time the Constitution was adopted.
Franklin Pierce, born November 23, 1804, was the first President born in the 19th century.<ref>Millard Fillmore was born January 7, 1800, the last year of the 18th century.</ref> Warren G. Harding, born November 2, 1865, was the first President born after the American Civil War. Herbert Hoover, born August 10, 1874, in West Branch, Iowa, was the first President born west of the Mississippi River. John F. Kennedy, born May 29, 1917, was the youngest President elected,<ref>See:List_of_United_States_presidents_by_age_at_ascension_to_office and note Theodore Roosevelt was younger than Kennedy when he became President, but was not elected, succeeding after the assassination of McKinley.</ref> and the first person born in the 20th century to serve as President. Lyndon B. Johnson (b. August 27, 1908) was the American president born earliest in the 20th century. Jimmy Carter, born October 1, 1924, was the first person born after World War I to become President and the first President to be born in a hospital. Ronald Reagan was the oldest President elected. Bill Clinton, born August 19, 1946, was the first person born after World War II to serve as President.
Between the birth of George Washington (1732) and the birth of Bill Clinton (1946), future Presidents have been born in every decade except two: the 1810s and the 1930s. Presidents or former Presidents have died in every decade except four since George Washington in the 1790s: the 1800s, 1810s, 1950s, and 1980s. Since the inauguration of George H. W. Bush in 1989, there has been at least one presidential birthday in every month.
[edit] Deaths in office and assassination attempts
Four Presidents have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln (1865) by John Wilkes Booth, James Garfield (1881) by Charles J. Guiteau, William McKinley (1901) by Leon Czolgosz, and John F. Kennedy (1963) by Lee Harvey Oswald.<ref>[1] [2]</ref>
Four others died in office of natural causes: William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia in 1841, Zachary Taylor died of "acute indigestion" in 1850,<ref>Taylor's body was exhumed in 1991 to test if he had died of arsenic poisoning. It was determined he did not.</ref> Warren G. Harding died of a heart attack in 1923, and Franklin D. Roosevelt died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1945.
Seven other Presidents have survived assassination attempts, as did Franklin Roosevelt as President-elect:
- Andrew Jackson (1835) by Richard Lawrence
- President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933) by Giuseppe Zangara
- Harry S. Truman (1950) by Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo
- Richard Nixon, (1974) by Samuel Byck
- Gerald Ford (1975) by Lynette Fromme and Sara Jane Moore
- Ronald Reagan (1981) by John Hinckley, Jr.
- Bill Clinton (1994) by Francisco Duran
- George W. Bush (2005) by Vladimir Arutinian
"Tecumseh's Curse" refers to the fact that between William Henry Harrison and John F. Kennedy, each President elected or re-elected in a year evenly divisible by twenty died in office: William Henry Harrison (1840), Abraham Lincoln (1860), James Garfield (1880), William McKinley (1900), Warren G. Harding (1920), Franklin D. Roosevelt (1940), John F. Kennedy (1960). Ronald Reagan (1980) survived an attempt on his life and George W. Bush (elected in 2000) had a Soviet grenade thrown at him while in Georgia, which failed to explode.
John Tyler is considered by some to be the only President who died outside of the United States, as he died in 1862 in the State of Virginia, which at the time considered itself part of the Confederate States of America.
[edit] Resignations and impeachments
Richard M. Nixon is the only President to have resigned, leaving office in 1974. Two Presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson, tried and acquitted in 1868; and Bill Clinton, impeached in 1998, tried and acquitted in 1999.
[edit] Elections
Four Presidents<ref>A possible addition to this list is John F. Kennedy, who may have trailed Richard Nixon in the 1960 election. The precise gap in votes is difficult to determine because Alabama voters could only vote "Democratic" without choosing a candidate. Half of the state's electoral votes were pledged to Kennedy, and the other half went to Harry F. Byrd. It is impossible to know how many voters meant their "Democratic" vote to be for Kennedy or Byrd, and the margin between Kennedy and Nixon was smaller than the number of Democratic votes in Alabama. The official U.S. government figure counts all Alabama votes in Kennedy's total, giving Kennedy the plurality over Nixon.</ref> have been elected by a majority of the Electoral College without a plurality of popular votes:
- John Quincy Adams trailed Andrew Jackson by 44,804 votes in the 1824 election<ref>However, in six of the then twenty-four states in 1824, the electors were chosen by the state legislature, with no popular vote.</ref>
- Rutherford B. Hayes trailed Samuel J. Tilden by 264,292 votes in the 1876 election
- Benjamin Harrison trailed Grover Cleveland 95,713 votes in the 1888 election
- George W. Bush trailed Al Gore by 543,895 votes in the 2000 election
- Eleven Presidents have been elected with a plurality of popular votes, without a majority of popular votes:
- James K. Polk—49.3% of the popular vote in the 1844 election
- Zachary Taylor—47.3% of the popular vote in the 1848 election
- James Buchanan—45.3% of the popular vote in the 1856 election
- Abraham Lincoln—39.9% of the popular vote in the 1860 election
- James Garfield—48.3% of the popular vote in the 1880 election
- Grover Cleveland—48.8% of the popular vote in the 1884 election
- Grover Cleveland—46.0% of the popular vote in the 1892 election
- Woodrow Wilson—41.8% of the popular vote in the 1912 election
- Woodrow Wilson—49.3% of the popular vote in the 1916 election
- Harry S. Truman—49.7% of the popular vote in the 1948 election
- John F. Kennedy—49.7% of the popular vote in the 1960 election
- Richard Nixon—43.2% of the popular vote in the 1968 election
- Bill Clinton—42.9% of the popular vote in the 1992 election
- Bill Clinton—49.2% of the popular vote in the 1996 election
- Two Presidents have been elected by the House of Representatives when no candidate achieved a majority of electoral votes:
Thomas Jefferson had the same number of electoral votes as Aaron Burr in the 1800 election, and John Quincy Adams trailed Andrew Jackson by 15 electoral votes in the 1824 election, but Jackson did not have a majority.
- Two Presidents won the electoral vote but lost their resident state:
- James Polk—lost Tennessee to Henry Clay but won the election in the 1844 election.
- Woodrow Wilson—lost New Jersey to Charles Evan Hughes but won the election in the 1916 election.
- Six Presidents won the electoral vote but lost their birth state:
- William Henry Harrison lost Virginia to Martin Van Buren but won his resident state of Ohio and the 1840 election.
- James Polk lost North Carolina to Henry Clay but won the 1844 election.
- Zachary Taylor lost Virginia to Lewis Cass but won the 1848 election.
- Abraham Lincoln lost Kentucky to John Bell but won his resident state of Illinois and the 1860 election. Lincoln also lost Kentucky to George Brinton McClellan, but won Illinois and the 1864 election.
- George H. W. Bush lost Massachusetts to Michael Dukakis but won his resident state of Texas and the 1988 election.
- George W. Bush lost Connecticut to Al Gore but won his resident state of Texas and the 2000 election. Bush also lost Connecticut to John Kerry but won his resident state of Texas and the 2004 election.
- Only James Polk has won the presidency while losing both his resident state and birth state.
- Eight Presidents took office without being elected to the presidency, having been elected as Vice Presidents and then promoted from that position:
- Four of them did not run to succeed themselves and were never elected President.
- John Tyler—assumed the presidency on the death of William Henry Harrison; did not run in the 1844 election
- Millard Fillmore—succeeded Zachary Taylor; did not run in the 1852 election
- Fillmore did run for President in the 1856 election as a Know Nothing Party candidate and received 873,053 votes (21.6%), finishing third
- Andrew Johnson—succeeded Abraham Lincoln; did not run in the 1868 election
- Chester A. Arthur—succeeded James Garfield; did not run in the 1884 election
- The other four later ran for President and were elected to succeed themselves as President:
- Theodore Roosevelt—succeeded William McKinley; elected to succeed himself as President in the 1904 election
- Calvin Coolidge—succeeded Warren G. Harding; elected to succeed himself as President in the 1924 election
- Harry S. Truman—succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt; elected to succeed himself as president in the 1948 election but did not run again in the 1952 election, despite being eligible for a third term.
- Lyndon B. Johnson—succeeded John F. Kennedy; elected to succeed himself as president in the 1964 election but did not run again in the 1968 election
- Four of them did not run to succeed themselves and were never elected President.
- One President, Gerald Ford, was never elected; he was appointed Vice President by Richard Nixon (with approval from Congress) upon the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew. He succeeded to the presidency after Nixon's resignation and was defeated in the 1976 election by Jimmy Carter.
[edit] Terms of office
- There were four cases in which only one person served in a presidential term but that person did not serve for a full 1461 days.
- Although the first presidential term was deemed to have started on March 4, 1789—the day that the United States Constitution became operational—the First Congress did not meet to count the electoral vote until April 6, and thus George Washington did not accede to the office until then, giving him 1427 days and some number of hours.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term began at noon EST March 4, 1933, but the twentieth amendment changed the start of the next term to Noon EST on January 20, 1937, giving Roosevelt a first term of 1419 days.
- Because of the properties of the Gregorian calendar, 1800 and 1900 were not leap years, so John Adams' term and William McKinley's first term were shortened to 1460 days.
- An urban legend claims that David Rice Atchison was the 11½th president of the United States for one day on March 4, 1849, in between the terms of James K. Polk (whose term expired at the first moment (noon EST) of March 4) and Zachary Taylor (who chose not to be sworn in until March 5). However, the logic of this is contradictory. If one does not consider Taylor to have officially become President until the administration of his Oath of Office, then the same logic precludes any person from having automatically succeeded before likewise having taken the same oath. In fact, Taylor, as President-elect, automatically acceded to the Office of President upon the expiration of Polk's term, even if he did not yet enter into the execution of that office until the oath was administered. This fact was confirmed by Congress when it certified his election, as it defined the beginning of the administration as the instant Polk left office. Even if supposing, for the sake of argument, the rather odd interpretation that only Presidents-elect are required to take the oath before officially occupying the office, while officials in the Presidential Line of Succession occupy the Presidency ipso facto, then there would be a long list of dozens of additional "Presidents" who only held the office for a matter of hours or minutes.
- Grover Cleveland had two non-consecutive terms as President and is counted both as the 22nd and the 24th President. Consequently, all subsequent Presidents who are referred to as "the <math>n^{th}</math> President of the United States" are actually the <math>(n-1)^{th}</math> person to hold the office. So George W. Bush, the 43rd President, is actually the 42nd person to be President.
[edit] Longevity of former Presidents
As many as five former Presidents have been alive at three periods of American History:
- March 4, 1861–January 18, 1862 (from the inauguration of Lincoln to the death of Tyler): Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan.
- January 20, 1993–April 22, 1994 (from the inauguration of Clinton to the death of Nixon): Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush
- January 20, 2001–June 5, 2004 (from the inauguration of George W. Bush to the death of Reagan): Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.
There have been six periods in American history during which no former Presidents were alive:
- April 30, 1789 – March 4, 1797: There were no former Presidents.
- December 14, 1799 – March 4, 1801: from the death of Washington to the end of John Adams's term.
- July 31, 1875 – March 4, 1877: from the death of Andrew Johnson to the end of Grant's term.
- June 24, 1908 – March 4, 1909: from the death of Cleveland until the end of Theodore Roosevelt's term.
- January 5, 1933 – March 4, 1933: from the death of Coolidge until the end of Hoover's term.
- January 22, 1973 – August 9, 1974: from the death of Lyndon Johnson until the resignation of Nixon.
Herbert Hoover lived the longest time as a former president at 31 years, 7 months and 16 days (11,553 days). If Gerald Ford lives through September 7, 2008, he will match this record, having been a former president since January 20, 1977. James K. Polk had the shortest life as a former President, dying on June 15, 1849, three months (103 days) after his term ended (March 4, 1849).
As of 2006, there are four living former presidents: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. The most recently deceased President is Ronald Reagan, who died June 5, 2004. Gerald Ford is currently the oldest living U.S. president.
[edit] Other facts
- All Presidents have been white males.[citation needed]
- Except for John F. Kennedy who was Catholic, all Presidents have been either Protestant or Unitarian.
- Most presidents have been of substantially British descent, but there have been a few who came from a different background:
- Predominantly Dutch: Martin Van Buren [citation needed]
- Although Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt had Dutch names, neither was predominantly Dutch; each had only one Dutch grandfather. Theodore Roosevelt's other three grandparents were all British; Franklin Roosevelt's other three grandparents were of Puritan stock.[citation needed]
- Predominantly German: Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower[citation needed]
- Predominantly of Irish descent: William McKinley, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton[citation needed]
- Kennedy was also America's only Roman Catholic president.
- More than one third of all U.S. presidents have ancestral roots in Ulster.[citation needed]
- Predominantly Dutch: Martin Van Buren [citation needed]
- No president has been an only child.<ref>Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and Museum, [3]</ref> <ref>Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum, [4]</ref>
- Only one President, James Buchanan, remained a bachelor. Bachelor Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom while in office, while both John Tyler and Woodrow Wilson became widowers and remarried while in office.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only President to have had a readily apparent physical disability.
- Four Presidents were father-son duos: John Adams and John Quincy Adams; George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush
- Historical rankings of United States Presidents by academic historians usually regard three Presidents — in chronological order, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt — to be the three most successful presidents by a wide margin.[citation needed]
- The Secret Service and some agencies in the government use acronyms as jargon. Since the Truman Administration the President of the United States has been called POTUS, pronounced /poʊtʊs/. The wife of the President, traditionally referred to as the First Lady is called FLOTUS, pronounced /floʊtʊs/. The Vice President of the United States is often abbreviated to VPOTUS, pronounced /vipoʊtʊs/.
- Military service: 30 out of the 43 U.S. presidents have served in the military
- Three out of the first five presidents died on July 4th (Independence Day): John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe. The first two died within hours of each other, 50 years to the day after adopting the Declaration of Independence together.[citation needed]
- Seven Presidents graduated from Harvard University: both Adamses, Hayes, both Roosevelts, Kennedy, and George W. Bush; five graduated from Yale University: Taft, Ford, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush (Harvard Business); two graduated from Princeton University: Madison and Wilson.[citation needed]
- A President has been born in every decade except the 1810s and the 1930s from 1730s--when George Washington was born--to the 1940s--when Presidents William J. Clinton and George W. Bush were born. [citation needed]
- Since 1947, almost every president has pardoned a Thanksgiving turkey, in a ceremony informally called the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation.
[edit] Birthdates
There has been a President born in every single month of the calendar year. The most Presidents born in any one month is 6, in October. The least is one, shared by June and September.
[edit] References
