John Adams - 2^nd President (1797-1801)

The only presidents to sign the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on the 50th anniversary of the document, July 4, 1826. Besides that, The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.

John Adams, later President, defended the soldiers accused of starting the Boston Massacre, and won their acquittal. Adams made the successful argument that the true culprits were the officers, not the soldiers.

John and Abigail Adams were the first presidential couple to move into the White House (1800)--it wasn't quite finished at the time. She hung her laundry in the East Room to dry

Susanna Adams, John Adams' granddaughter, lived in the White House during the last 4 months of his term.

John Adams and his friend/enemy/friend, Thomas Jefferson, both died on July 4th, 1826.

John Adams (1735-1826), was the first president defeated for reelection, in 1801. Thomas Jefferson defeated him and served two terms, from 1801 to 1809.

While it was President George Washington who signed an Act of Congress in December of 1790 declaring that the federal government would reside in a district "not exceeding ten miles square on the river Potomac," the first actual president to reside at what would become 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, was John Adams and his wife, Abigail, in 1800, who moved in while the building was still under construction

James Buchanan - 15^th President (1857-1861)

Buchanan, Polk's secretary of state, was appointed minister to Russia in Jackson's first term: "It was as far as I could send him out of my sight, and where he could do the least harm. I would have sent him to the North Pole if we had kept a minister there!"

Buchanan, the only bachelor president, almost married in 1819. His fiance, Anne Caroline Coleman, broke off the engagement and died a week later, probably by suicide. Buchanan maintained an ironclad silence about the relationship throughout the rest of his life.

James Buchanan, the fifteenth President of the United States, had the opportunity to buy Cuba for only $90,000,000. Unfortunately, Congress wouldn't let him, as they were afraid that no one person could possibly be trusted with so much money - they thought he would steal the money and run away. Buchanan, the only president to never be married, was said to have the neatest handwriting of all the presidents. He was farsighted in one eye and nearsighted in the other, with his left eye also sitting higher in its socket than his right. This caused him to tip his head to the left and close one eye when talking to people. Upon relinquishing the White House he sent a note to newly elected Abe Lincoln saying, "My dear sir, If you are as happy on entering the White House as I on leaving, you are a happy man indeed."

Grover Cleveland - 22^nd President (1885-1889)

Cleveland was the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms.

He was also a draft dodger. He hired someone to enter the service in his place, a common practice in those days. That didn't stop him from being ridiculed by his political opponent, James G. Blaine. It was soon discovered, however, that Blaine had done the same thing himself. Evidently, hypocrisy was as rampant on Capitol Hill back then as it is today.

Cleveland was also the first executive movie star. In 1895, Alexander Black came to Washington and asked Cleveland to appear in "A Capital Courtship", his photoplay. He agreed to be filmed while signing a bill into law. The early film was a big hit on the Lyceum Circuit.

He also used his veto powers 584 times during his two terms, the highest total of any president except Franklin Roosevelt, and he served three terms.

Baby Ruth candy bars were named after President Grover Cleveland's oldest daughter. No, she wasn't lumpy and full of nougat in real life.

The twenty-second President of the U.S., Grover Cleveland went sailing during July 1893 for what people thought was a fishing trip, but he was really having surgery for a strange growth in his mouth. The operation was kept so secret that nobody found out about it until 1917.

Calvin Coolidge - 30^th President (1923-1929)

The thirtieth President of the United States, while not mute, wasn't called "Silent Cal" for nothing. Coolidge was named after his father, and came from a family who spoke in sign language when they did not wish to be overheard. While president, he was so famous for saying so little that a White House dinner guest made a bet that she could get the president to say more than two words. Telling the president of her wager, he replied, "You lose." Silence seemed to be more than an affectation for Coolidge. On one occasion he heard to have said, "If you don't say anything, you won't be called on to repeat it." Another indication of his feelings can be found in his statement, "Four-fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would only sit down and keep still." His succinctness carried over beyond the grave - his last will and testament, executed in December 1926, was just 23 words long: "Not unmindful of my son John, I give all my estate, both real and personal, to my wife, Grace Coolidge, in fee simple."

President Coolidge liked cats and would often walk around the office with his yellow cat draped over his shoulders like a fur piece.

Dwight D. Eisenhower - 34^th President (1953-1961)

Dwight David Eisenhower was born David Dwight Eisenhower. He was the last president born in the 19^th century. He was the only president to serve in both World Wars. He was the first president licensed to fly an airplane.

Graduated U.S. Military Academy, West Point New York. Held no other political office.

A skilled chef, he was famous for his vegetable soup, steaks, and cornmeal pancakes.

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.

Ulysses S. Grant - 18^th President (1869-1877)

During the Civil War, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant believed that onions would prevent dysentery and other physical ailments. He reportedly sent the following message via wire to the War Department: "I will not move my army without onions." Within a day, the U.S. government sent three trainloads of onions to the front.Graduated U.S. Military Academy West Point, New York.

President Ulysses S. Grant was once arrested during his term of office. He was convicted of exceeding the Washington speed limit on his horse and was fined $20.

Witness to some of the bloodiest battles in history, Grant could not stomach the sight of animal blood. Rare steak nauseated him.

Grant said he knew only two songs. "One was Yankee Doodle and the other wasn't." He smoked 20 cigars a day, which probably caused the throat cancer that resulted in his death.

He owned a slave named William Jones, acquired from his father-in-law. At a time when he could have desperately used the money from the sale of Jones, Grant signed a document that gave his freedom.

He suffered from intense migraine headaches that were sometimes reported as bouts of drunkenness.

His favorite breakfast was a cucumber soaked in vinegar.

Herbert Hoover - 31^st President (1929-1933)

One Native American has served as vice president of the United States. Charles Curtis of Kansas was Pres. Herbert Hoover's vice president. Curtis's mother was a full-blooded member of the Kaw tribe.

For his entire forty-seven years in government, Hoover turned over each of his Federal salary checks to charity. He had become independently wealthy before entering politics. (He was a former mining engineer.)

Not until Herbert Hoover was U.S. president, in 1929, did the U.S. chief executive have a private telephone in his office. (The telephone had been invented 53 years earlier.) The booth in a White House hallway had served as the president's private phone before one was installed in the Oval office.

Herbert Hoover was called "Bert" by his friends from his early youth. One of our most honored presidents, Hoover received 84 honorary degrees, 78 medals and awards, and the keys to dozens of cities. He was the first president to have an asteroid named after him, the first born west of the Mississippi, the first to donate his salary to charity, and one of two to live past his 90th birthday. He had never held an elected office prior to his being elected president, having worked in Australia at the turn of the 20th century as a mining engineer. The Hoovers held many parties at the White House, with as many as 4,000 invitations would be loaded on a truck and hand delivered around Washington. Indeed, during their first three years in the White House, the Hoovers dined alone only three times, each time on their wedding anniversary. With all of this hustle and bustle going on around the White House, it was fortunate that the Hoovers could speak in Chinese when they didn't want to be overheard by others. An eighth cousin once removed of Richard Nixon, Hoover also had the unique honor of approving "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem.

Andrew Jackson - 7^th President (1829-1837)

- Both of his parents came from the village of Boneybefore in Carrickfergus, Ireland.
- He was the only president who served in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.
- His advisors were known as the "Kitchen Cabinet."
- He loved children and the White House was always filled with kids. He raised 11 children, none of them his own.
- He was the first president to ride on a railroad train.
- His picture is on the $20 bill.
- At President Andrew Jackson's funeral in 1845 his pet parrot was removed for swearing.

Andrew Jackson's tombstone does not mention that he served as the president of the United States.

Andrew Jackson is the only president to pay off the national debt. A racist and a sexist who believed the earth was flat, evidence shows that he was also quite a character and certainly a product of his day. He was also the victim of an early assassination attempt - on January 30, 1835, a mentally disturbed man named Richard Lawrence fired two different guns at Jackson from point-blank range. Both weapons failed to fire. The odds of this happening were put at 1:125,000. Jackson then chased after Lawrence and beat him with his cane. Had he been hit by either bullet, however, it wouldn't be the first time. In 1806 Jackson had a duel with Charles Dickinson over some things that he said about Jackson's wife. Dickinson got the first shot, and hit Jackson directly in the chest, about two inches from his heart. But Jackson didn't even fall down. Instead, he raised his gun and killed Dickinson and walked away. The bullet had lodged too close to his heart to be removed, so he carried it there for the rest of his life. The only president to serve in both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, he was also the only one to have been held as a prisoner of war, during the Revolutionary War when he was only 13 years old. The first president to be born in a log cabin (before Abraham Lincoln), Jackson evidently picked some colorful speech along the way as, at his funeral in 1845, his pet parrot had to be removed because it was swearing. One probably didn't have to look very far to figure out where he picked up the language.

He was involved in many duels. In 1806, in a duel against Charles Dickinson over some unflattering remarks made about Jackson's wife, Jackson was wounded. He then fired, killing Dickinson. The bullet that wounded Jackson was lodged near his heart and could not be safely removed. He carried that bullet in his chest for the rest of his life.

When John Quincy Adams lost to Andrew Jackson in the election of 1828, the town of Adams, New Hampshire, changed its name to Jackson. The town had been named in 1800 to honor the election of John Adams.

He bought 20 spittoons for the East Room for $12.50 each. Some said it was a great waste of government money while others said it would save the White House carpets.

Thomas Jefferson - 3^rd President (1801-1809)

Prior to the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, the candidate who ran second in a presidential race automatically become vice president. Thomas Jefferson became John Adams' vice president in this way.

The democratic custom of shaking hands instead of bowing at White House receptions was initiated in the Blue Room by Thomas Jefferson early in his first term as U.S. president.

The only presidents to sign the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, both died on the 50th anniversary of the document, July 4, 1826. Besides that, The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp (marijuana) paper.

Thomas Jefferson wrote his own epitaph without mentioning that he served as president of the United States.

While serving in Congress, Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill that attempted to bar slavery from all future states admitted to the Union, a measure that might later have prevented the U.S. Civil War if it had not been defeated - by a single vote.

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. Jefferson and Adams were the only presidents to sign the Declaration of Independence, and they both died on its 50^th 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.

Thomas Jefferson kept a mockingbird named Dick in the White House study, and let the bird ride on his shoulder whenever possible. President Jefferson even trained Dick to take bits of food that he held between his lips at meals! When Jefferson went upstairs, his faithful companion would hop up after him, step after step, never far from his side.

Though one of history's most learned men, the third president of the U.S. was as prone to superstitions as any men of his time. Thomas Jefferson, when organizing the Lewis and Clark expedition, believed that dinosaurs still existed in the American West, and he instructed the explorers to search for these creatures. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as that may be) they never found any.

Jefferson once described the White House as "a great stone house, big enough for two emperors, one pope and the grand lama in the bargain."

He was the first president to be inaugurated in Washington, D.C. The story that he walked to his inauguration in 1801 wearing a gray homespun suit is true: bad weather had delayed the arrival of a new $6,000 carriage and an expensive velvet suit.

The Library of Congress purchased his 6,500 volume book collection in 1815 to replace the collection that had been burned by the British. He received $23,950 for his books.

On the day he died, friends were soliciting money for his relief at a ceremony in the House of Representatives marking the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. His assets had dwindled considerably and he desperately needed cash. Had he lived, however, he would not have been able to depend on this solicitation. According to John Quincy Adams only 4 or 5 people at the ceremony contributed to Jefferson's relief.

Thomas Jefferson was so upset with the Continental Congress' editing of his original Declaration of Independence that, for years afterward, he sent copies of both the original and the final version to friends and asked their opinions as to which version they preferred.

Thomas Jefferson was the first losing candidate in a US presidential election. He lost to John Adams. George Washington had been unopposed.

Abraham Lincoln - 16^th President (1861-1865)

Abe Lincoln's mother died when the family dairy cow ate poisonous mushrooms and Ms. Lincoln drank the milk.

Abraham Lincoln's political experience before he became president was a two-year term in the House of Representatives.

Mary Todd Lincoln was so disliked in her day that she was nicknamed "The She-Wolf."

Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. The same play was also running at the McVerick Theatre in Chicago on May 18, 1860--the day Lincoln was nominated for president in that city.

Abraham Lincoln - When he was 22, his business failed. When he was 23, he lost a bid for U.S. Congress. When he was 24, he failed in business again. The following year, he was elected to the state legislature. When he was 26, his sweetheart died. At age 27, he had a nervous breakdown. When he was 29, he was defeated for the post of Speaker of the House in the state legislature. When he was 31, he was defeated as Elector. When he was 34, he ran for Congress again and lost. At the age of 37, he ran for Congress yet again and finally won, but two years later he lost his re-election campaign. At the age of 46, he ran for a U.S. Senate seat and lost. The following year he ran for Vice President and lost. Finally, at the age of 51, he was elected President of the United States

He grew a beard because a little girl wrote him a letter telling him that he would look more handsome with a beard.

Abraham Lincoln was granted a patent for a device for lifting vessels over shoals, in 1849.

President Lincoln proclaimed the first national Thanksgiving Day in 1863.

The 16th president of the U. S. was the tallest president, measuring in at 6 feet four inches. He was also the first to wear a beard, the first Republican Chief Executive, and the first presidential assassination victim.

The Gettysburg Address was considered by its first audience to be a great disappointment? After Lincoln finished, one impertinent eyewitness even asked, 'Is that all?

Most Americans misquote Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, believing for some reason that he said "Fourscore and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth . . .." He actually said "fathers," not "forefathers."

Lincoln was shot at twice before John Wilkes Booth killed him. Both times were while he was on his way to the Soldier's Home and Lincoln joked about them and ordered that they not be publicized.

Abraham Lincoln remained unconscious after he was shot by John Wilkes Booth and never spoke any "last words." However, we do know the last words he heard. He was attending a performance of the play, "Our American Cousin," and just before the shot rang out, one of the characters uttered the line, "You sockdologizing old man trap." Source: 2201 FASCINATING FACTS

Abraham Lincoln signed the first federal income tax law. The tax was 3 percent on incomes over $600.

John Wilkes Booth first planned only to kidnap Abraham Lincoln, holding the president hostage until all Confederate prisoners of war were released. (Source: Complete Idiot's Guide to the Civil War)

A form of the word sockdolager (meaning anything big or otherwise outstanding) figured in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. As an actor, John Wilkes Booth knew that the biggest laugh line in the play Our American Cousin would be, "Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, you sockdologizing old man-trap!" So Booth waited until that line, and then as the audience roared, he fired his gun and fled.

MERCURY MAY EXPLAIN LINCOLN'S TEMPER
During the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate, Abraham Lincoln became so angry "his voice thrilled and his whole frame shook." A new study suggests that mercury poisoning may explain Lincoln's bizarre behavior. Published in the Summer 2001 issue of Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, the study suggests that a common anti-depressive medication of the 19th century would have delivered a daily dose of mercury exceeding the current Environmental Protection Agency safety standard by nearly 9000 times. "We wondered how a man could be described as having the patience of a saint in his 50s when only a few years earlier he was subject to outbursts of rage and bizarre behavior," said Norbert Hirschhorn, retired public health physician, medical historian and lead author of the study. Lincoln took the "blue mass" pills to treat "melancholia," but stopped soon after he assumed the presidency

Did a Booth really rescue a Lincoln?

Absolutely, not long before the infamous assassination. On his way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to visit his parents, Harvard student Robert Lincoln fell between two railroad cars at the station in Jersey City, New Jersey, and was rescued by actor Edwin Booth (the brother of the man who a few weeks later would murder President Lincoln) who was on his way to visit a sister in Philadelphia.

 

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.