HOLLYWOOD, Md. – In what was originally celebrated Feb. 22 in recognition of George Washington’s birthday, President’s Day now falls on the third Monday of February, honoring presidents past and present. Here are 25 facts about our nation’s leaders that you won’t find in a history book.
President Calvin Coolidge (1924-28) enjoyed buzzing the buttons on his desk and then hiding under his desk or behind the door as the staff searched for him. He’d pop out and say he wanted to see who was working.
Theodore Roosevelt read at least one book every day.
Richard Nixon was so good at poker that most of his first campaign for the House of Representatives was funded by poker winnings from his time in the navy.
John F. Kennedy ordered over 1,000 Cuban cigars for personal use just hours before he made them illegal.
After being seized by the feds, Al Capone’s armored limousine was later used to protect President Roosevelt after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
President Lyndon Johnson smoked at least 3 packs of cigarettes a day.
Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender.
Teddy Bears were named after a story of Theodore Roosevelt refusing to shoot a bear while on a hunting excursion in Mississippi. The black bear had been tied to a tree by his aides after they had chased it down with hounds. Roosevelt considered it unsporting and refused to shoot.
Grover Cleveland once held the job of a hangman. He was once the sheriff of Erie County, New York, and twice had to spring the trap at a hanging.
James Garfield is the first president to ever talk on the phone. When he spoke to Alexander Graham Bell, who was at the other end 13 miles away, he said: “Please speak a little more slowly.”
Martin Van Buren was the first President to be born a United States citizen. All previous presidents were born British subjects.
Jimmy Carter was the first president to be born in a hospital, and is the only President who is on record as having seen a UFO.
President James Buchanan quietly but consistently bought slaves in Washington, D.C., and then set them free in Pennsylvania.
James Buchanan is the only bachelor president. He was virtually inseparable from William R. King, a senator from Alabama, earning the pair the nickname “Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy” and “Mr. Buchanan and his wife.”
George Washington made the shortest inauguration speech on record—133 words and less than two minutes long.
William Henry Harrison holds the record for the longest inauguration speech in history at 8,578 words long and one hour and 40 minutes. Unfortunately, he gave the speech during bad weather and a month later, he was dead from pneumonia, making his the shortest presidency on record.
John Quincy Adams would often skinny dip in the Potomac River.
The first attempt to assassinate a president was on Andrew Jackson by Richard Lawrence, a house painter. Both of his guns misfired, however—an event that statisticians say could occur only once in 125,000 times. Andrew Jackson then chased Lawrence with his walking stick.
Warren G. Harding was obsessed with poker and once bet an entire set of priceless White House China and lost it.
On his epitaph, which he composed, Jefferson mentions that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence and the Statuette of Virginia for Religious Freedom and that he was the father of the University of Virginia. He neglected to mention he had been the President of the United States.
JFK was the first Roman Catholic to be president, the first Boy Scout to become president, and the first president to be born in the twentieth century.
Gerald Ford was the first person to be both vice president and president without being elected by the people. He was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned and he succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned.
Warren Harding was the first president to own a radio, the first to make speech over the radio, and the first to ride to his inauguration in a car.
Rutherford B. Hayes banished alcohol from the White House and held gospel sing-alongs every night in the White House.
Abraham Lincoln’s mother died when the family dairy cow ate a poisonous plant (White Snakeroot), and Mrs. Lincoln drank the milk.
It was so cold at Ulysses S. Grant’s presidential inauguration that the canaries that were supposed to sing at the inaugural ball froze to death.