| Rare President Facts |
| 1.Andrew Jackson was the first president to ride in a railroad train. 2.Grover Cleveland was the only president to have been married in the White House. 3.Herbert Hoover is the only president to have an asteroid named after him. It was called Hooveria, and the reason it's not on my asteroid list is because I don't know of the asteroid number. 4.Ulysses Simpson Grant once got a $20.00 fine for speeding on his horse. 5.When William McKinley's wife Ida McKinley became first lady of the White House, she hated the color yellow so much that she made it a White House yellow-free zone. She even ordered the gardeners to yank every yellow flower out of the garden grounds. 6.James Buchanan was the only president to not have been married. His niece, named Harriet Lane, took over as First Lady. 7.Hmm, presidents can only serve 2 terms? Guess wrong for the past. Franklin Delano Rooselvelt served the most years as president than anyone else, which was 4 terms, each 4 years long. But if you think he served 16 years, also guess wrong because sadly, he died on his 4th term, so how many years was that? Not sure yet, but I'll be back for the answer. 8.The only person to have been president and chief justice is William Howard Taft. (He was first president and then chief justice). 9.You think that's cool? Well, it also justs happens so that the only president that was stuck in his bathtub and had to be yanked out was William Howard Taft. He weighed over 300 pounds, and had ordered a bigger bathtub. 10.Herbert Hoover was the first president to have a telephone on his desk. 11.Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to fly in an airplane. 12.The first president to fly across the Atlantic Ocean while in office was Woodrow Wilson. 13.Warren Gamaliel Harding was the first president to speak in the radio, and to have one in the White House. 14.Franklin Delano Roosevelt was also the first president to appear on T.V. 15.Millard Fillmore's wife Abigail was the first one to set up the White House Library. 16.James K. Polk's inauguration was the first to be reported by telegraph. 17.The first telephone was installed in the White House when Rutherford Birchard Hayes was president. 18.James Abram Garfield was the first left handed president. 19.The candy, Baby Ruth, was named after the birth of Grover Cleveland's daughter, Ruth. 20.William Mckinley could write his name with both hands at the same time. 21.John Tyler was the first president to marry while in office. 22.The most words at a president's inauguration was William Henry Harrisons', at 8,445 words, which took an hour and 45 minutes, during a snowstorm. 23.He was also the president to be in office for the least period of time, a month, or 32 days to be exact. 24.The least amount of words for a president's inauguration was George Washinton's second term of becoming president, at 135 words. 25.John Quincy Adam's wife Louisa Johnson was the first and only First Lady born in a foreign country. She was born in London, England. 26.The first wife of a president to have a college degree Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of Rutherford Hayes. She had a degree in geology, which was rare for a woman to have degrees at that time. 27.The first U.S. national monument was Devils Tower in Wyoming named by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906. 28. He also gave the White House it's official name in 1901. Before, it was known as President's House, President's Palace, and Executive Mansion. 29.Richard Milhouse Nixon kept a music box in his Oval office desk that played the tune "Hail to the Chief." 30.Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first President to make a hole-in-one in golf. 31.President William McKinley had a pet parrot that he named “Washington Post.” 32.President William Taft kept a cow on the White House lawn to supply him with fresh milk. He was the last president to do so. 33.U.S. President George Washington, the first president, was the first person to breed roses in the United States. George Washington laid out his own garden at Mount Vernon and filled it with his own selections of roses. He named one of his varieties after his mother and it is still being grown today. 34.Ulysses Simpson Grant was the first president whose parents were both alive when he was inaugurated. 35.Richard M. Nixon was the first president to visit all 50 states. 36.Rutherford Birchard Hayes won lots of spelling contests when he was in elementary school. 37.Abraham Lincoln, who invented a hydraulic device for lifting ships over shoals, was the only president ever granted a patent. 38.Abraham Lincoln was the first president to be born outside of the original 13 colonies. 39.Andrew Jackson's tombstone does not mention that he served as a president of the United States. 40.Andrew Johnson was also the only former president elected to the U.S. Senate. 41.Andrew Johnson was the only president to sew his own clothes. 42.Franklin Pierce was the first president to memorize his inaugural speech and recite it from memory. 43.Bill Clinton was the first left-handed U.S. president to serve two terms. 44.Franklin Pierce was the first United States’ president to decorate an official White House Christmas tree. 45.George Washington was the first U.S. president to appear on a postage stamp. 46.David Rice Atchison, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, was president for a day. When Zachary Taylor was inaugurated in 1849, he refused to take the oath on a Sunday, so someone had to be sworn into office for one day. Atchison got the job. 47.John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. president who had formally been a Boy Scout. 48.John Quincy Adams is the only president to serve in the House of Representatives after his presidency, which was for 17 years. 49.John Quincy Adams was the only American president who was also a published poet. 50.The White House purchased 12 tons of jelly beans during Ronald Reagan's presidency. 51.Less is known about Millard Fillmore than any other U.S. president. After his death in 1874, his son buried all of his father’s private papers and letters. 52.Harry Truman was the first U.S. president to travel underwater in a modern submarine. 53.Woodrow Wilson is the only president buried at Washington D.C. 54.Dwight David Eisenhower was the first American president to hold an airplane pilot's license. 55.Dwight Eisenhower was responsible for creating NASA. 56.None of Franklin Pierce's children was alive to see his presidency (3 children). 57.Lyndon Baines Johnson was so obsessed with secrecy that he often wrote "burn this" on personal letters. This was so personal that no one on Earth including me knew about this. 58.Theodore Roosevelt found his favorite dog, Skip, wandering around the Grand Canyon. While Roosevelt had many dogs, Skip was the only one permitted to sleep in the presidential bed. 59.The Star-Spangled Banner was chosen as the U.S.'s national anthem while Herbert Hoover was president. 60.Martin Van Buren was the eighth president, the eighth vice president and lived to see the election of eight different presidents from eight different states. 61.Martin Van Buren was the first president to be born as a U.S. citizen. 62.Millard Fillmore authorized Matthew C. Perry’s trip to Japan, which helped open trade with Japan. 63.In 1820, James Monroe received all the electoral votes except one. The single elector was voted against him strongly felt that only George Washington should have the historical honor of being elected president unanimously. Now this fact had questioned me when I first saw it, because at that George Washington was dead, and who would vote for a dead president? I'll have to ask and research about this one. 64.Electric lights were installed in the White House during Benjamin Harrison’s term. His wife never used them because she was frightened of the switches. Due to their tremendous fear, a servant had to turn on or off the light switches for them. 65.Eleven years after Abraham Lincoln’s burial, grave robbers broke into his tomb and dragged the casket partially out before they were caught. The men were convicted merely of breaking and entering and served a year in prison as there was no law in America then against body snatching. 66.Elizabeth Ballou Garfield was the first mother of a president to witness her son’s, James Garfield, inauguration. His first act after inauguration was to kiss her. 67.Elizabeth Wallace, Harry Truman’s wife, was the longest living First Lady. 68.President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's wife Eleanor Roosevelt ate three chocolate-covered garlic balls every morning. Her doctor recommended this to improve her memory. 69.The first and only president to name his son George Washington was John Quincy Adams. 70.Millard Fillmore’s wife, Abigail Powers, was his former teacher and was the first First Lady to have a job after marriage. 71.The first and only vice president to be drunk at his inauguration was Andrew Johnson. His doctor had prescribed an alcoholic drink to relieve pain. 72.Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, was named for the original landowner, Vernon Washington. 73.Former First Lady Barbara Bush's great-great-great-uncle was President Franklin Pierce, 14th U.S. president. 74.The first U.S. president to visit a European country while serving as president was Woodrow Wilson. He arrived at Brest, France, on the continent of Europe, in December 13, 1918. 75.The inauguration of George W. Bush on January 20, 2001 was only the second time in history when both parents of the newly elected president were present at the ceremony; the first time was with John F. Kennedy in 1961. 76.On election night in 1876, Rutherford Birchard Hayes went to his bed believing he had lost the presidential election. The next day, however, his Republican campaign manager boldly proclaimed him the winner. It was discovered that three Republican states in the South (Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana) had sent in double returns. The Democrats screamed foul, until it was revealed they too, had committed election return fraud. Congress debated the election results for weeks. The year ended with no U.S. president-elect. In January 1877, Congress appointed an electoral commission to laboriously re-count the entire vote and settle the dispute. On March 2, the commission announced that Hayes had 185 electoral votes and Samuel Tilden 184. If only one of the 20 disputed electoral votes had gone to him, Tilden would have been elected. His popular vote was 4,284,020, and Hayes at 4,036,572. 77.William Rufus DeVane King was the first and only U.S. vice president to take the Oath of Office from outside the United States. He did this in Havana, Cuba in 1853. 78.The last president to not attend college was Harry Truman. Regardless, there is a college named after him, in Chicago, Illinois. 79.James Abram Garfield was the last president to be born in a log cabin. 80.One Native American has served as vice president of the United States. Charles Curtis of Kansas was President Herbert Hoover’s vice president. Curtis's mother was a full-blooded member of the Kaw tribe. 81.The only time in American history that the president and vice president were members of different political parties occurred in 1797, when Thomas Jefferson, Republican, became vice president under John Adams, a Federalist. 82.John Fitzgerald Kennedy served exactly 1,000 days in office. 83.President Grover Cleveland used his veto powers 584 times during his two terms in office. This is the highest record for any resident that served for two terms. For all the presidents, this is the second highest. First highest came from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died on his fourth term. 84.President Rutherford Birchard Hayes never knew his father, who died a few months before he was born. 85.Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital. 86.President James Buchanan was a gracious host. When the Prince of Wales visited the White House in the fall of 1860, so many guests accompanied him, there weren't enough beds. The story goes that the president decided to sleep in the hallway. 87.Theodore Roosevelt was the only U.S. president to deliver an inaugural address without using the word "I". 88.The first president to visit both Alaska and Canada while president was Warren Gamaliel Harding, who visited Metlakahtha, Alaska, in July 8, 1923, and Vancouver, British Columbia in July 26, 1923. He sailed on the U.S. naval transport Henderson. 89.A collection of highly romantic love letters from Ronald Reagan to actress Nancy Davis, whom he married in 1952, was published in September 2000 and became a best-seller. 90.The first president to live in the White House was second president John Adams, who moved there in 1800. 91.The first president inaugurated in Washington D.C. was Thomas Jefferson, in 1801. 92.The first president to be photographed while in office was President James K. Polk, in 1849. 93.The first president to have been chosen by the House of Representatives, was Thomas Jefferson (ties between him and Aaron Burr). 94.The only president with a Ph.D. was Woodrow Wilson, whom received a doctorate in political science from John Hopkins University in 1886. 95.John Quincy Adams married for money. 96.Ulysses Simpson Grant thought Venice would be a nice city if it were drained. |
| Uhh, so much to do, so little time, so I'm just throwing some facts from my head here. Then, I will organize them by putting the presidents in chronological order, with a number identifying what president number they were. If you want to see that, click here. |
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