Fun Presidential Facts

• President George Washington was captain of the baseball team at Yale University.

• President George Washington's teeth where rumoured to have been made of wood. They were in fact made of elephant and walrus tusks.

• President George Washington is said to have donated some of his own silver spoons and forks when our new country needed silver and gold to make money.

• President John Adams is said to have held the first fireworks display at the White House.

• President Thomas Jefferson had a pet mockingbird that flew freely around the White House unless Jefferson had guests.

• President James Madison's wife, Dolley, loved to give parties. She regularly served ice cream to her guests.

• President James Monroe toured the whole country while he was president. At that time St. Louis was the most western city in our country!

• President John Quincy Adams was the first president to be photographed.

• President John Quincy Adams liked to go skinny-dipping in the Potomac River.

• President Andrew Jackson's supporters came to a party at the White House after he was elected. They broke dishes and stood on the furniture in their muddy boots.

• President Martin Van Buren was a widower. He lived in the White House with his four sons.

• President William Henry Harrison was president only 32 days. He caught pneumonia and died after standing outside for hours during his inauguration.

• President John Tyler was the first president to get married while in office.

• President John Tyler had fifteen children. His youngest child was born after he turned seventy.

• President James K. Polk's wife was very strict. She did not allow card playing, dancing, or drinking in the White House.

• President Zachary Taylor brought his horse, Old Whitey, with him to the White House. Old Whitey used to stand on the White House lawn, eating the grass.

• President Millard Fillmore established the White House library. Before this time there was no permanent collection of books in the White House.

• President Franklin Pierce ordered the first bathtub for the White House. Many people were upset. They thought taking baths was not healthy and would make you sick!

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt got permission to build a swimming pool and a movie theater in the White House.

• President Franklin D. Roosevelt in one way or the other, was related to eleven former Presidents.

• President James Buchanan was the only president who never married.

• Standing six feet and four inches, President Abraham Lincoln was the tallest President in history. He also used his well known black top hat to carry letters and notes on his head.

• President Abraham Lincoln used to walk alone at night to the War Department to find out news about the Civil War.

• President Andrew Johnson did not learn to read until he was 17 years old. His parents had been too poor to send him to school. Later in life, he was nearly lynched in Virginia and was forced to vacate his home in Tennessee when he opposed the South’s secession from the Union.
  

• President Ulysses S. Grant helped set up Yellowstone National Park, which was our country's first national park.

• President Ulysses S. Grant got pulled over for speeding in a horse and buggy.

• President James Garfield was ambidextrous, and could write Greek and Latin at the same time.

• President Rutherford B. Hayes had the first telephone installed in the White House. Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, gave Hayes personal instructions on how to use it.

• President James A. Garfield could write with both hands. Sometimes he amused people by writing Greek with one hand and Latin with the other!

• President Chester A. Arthur thought the White House was too gloomy so he redecorated it. Twenty-four wagonloads of old furniture were carted away to make room for new, more fashionable furniture.

• President Grover Cleveland was both the twenty second and twenty-fourth president. He is also the only president to have had his wedding inside the White House.

• President Grover Cleveland was drafted in the Civil War but paid a substitute $150 to take his place so he could stay behind to care for his mother and sisters. Unlike President Bill Clinton who would dodge the military draft nearly a century later, Cleveland wasn’t widely criticized for this move: the Conscription Act of 1863 expressly permitted such a substitution.

• President Grover Cleveland was the only president to openly admit that he had fathered an illegitimate child. When the allegations came out during his presidential campaign, he instructed his staff to tell the truth about the child. In reality, it was never determined whether Cleveland was the child’s real father; he paid child support because he was the only single man among the mother’s suitors.

• President Benjamin Harrison had the White House wired for electricity, but because he was afraid of getting shocked, he would not touch the switches!

• President William McKinley's picture is on the 500 dollar bill. Guam, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico all became part of the United States during his term.

• President Theodore Roosevelt had the West Wing built onto the White House. He moved his office there so he could work in peace and quiet.

• President William Howard Taft started the tradition of the president throwing out the first ball at the beginning of baseball season.

• President Woodrow Wilson was president when World War I began. He tried to keep our country out of the war. Then, when we had to go to war, Wilson said he hoped it would be the "war to end all wars."

• President Warren G. Harding was the first president to give a speech over the radio.

• President Warren Harding gambled away a set of White House china. He was known for his gambling addiction.

• President Calvin Coolidge liked to sit outside at night to think and relax. But so many people stopped and pointed at him that he finally gave up and sat inside.

• President Calvin Coolidge was reported to be a very interesting character. When not having his head massaged with Vaseline during breakfasts in bed or riding his own mechanical bull, he was ringing the White House doorbell and then running off to hide.

• President Herbert C. Hoover was the first president to be born west of the Mississippi River.

• President Harry S. Truman and his wife, Bess, lived across the street from the White House in Blair House while the White House had some much-needed construction work done.

• President wight D. Eisenhower was the first president to use a helicopter that took off and landed on the White House lawn.

• President John F. Kennedy's young son, John Jr., used to hide under the president's desk. John Jr. called the desk "my house."

• President Lyndon B. Johnson was the first president to fly all the way around the world visiting other governments.

• President Richard Milhous Nixon was the first president to resign from office.

• President Rerald R. Ford swam laps in the White House pool almost every day. Once he gave a press conference while he was swimming!

• President Jimmy Carter's daughter Amy had a tree house on the South Grounds of the White House. Sometimes she watched special ceremonies from there.

• President Ronald Reagan was the first movie actor to be elected president.

• President George Bush invited tennis champions to play with him on the White House tennis courts.

• President George W. Bush walked down the aisle only three months after he met his wife Laura.

• So far, all American presidents have claimed ancestry limited to one or more of just seven nationalities: Dutch, English, German, Irish, Scottish, Swiss, and Welsh.

• Three presidents have died to the sound of fireworks on Independence Day.

• There were four presidents who were not actual presidents of the United States: Sam Houston, Mirabeau Lamar, and Anson Jones were all presidents of the Republic of Texas. Jefferson Davis was President of the Confederate States of America.