Thomas Jefferson was the third President of
the USA, and many would say the greatest. He was the main author of the
Declaration of Independence, he oversaw the Louisiana Purchase which
secured much of the territory that makes up the modern USA, and he sent
Lewis & Clark to explore the west. But possibly the greatest of all his achievements was that he invented the world's first swivel chair.
2-'Smurfette is on the move'
The Secret Service's codenames for the president are
an endless source of amusement - Ronald Reagan's codename was 'Rawhide',
George H. W. Bush's was 'Timberwolf', Bill Clinton's was 'Eagle',
George W. Bush's was 'Trailblazer' and Barack Obama's is 'Renegade'.It's
not just the president who gets a
codename, though - so does the vice-president, and their family
members. This doesn't always work out well for them: Al Gore's daughter
Karenna complained that the Secret Service made her choose her own
codename without getting much time to think it over. Karenna soon
discovered the down side of deciding to be called 'Smurfette' wherever
she went.
3-The long and the short of it
America likes its presidents tall. In the modern era,
since the end of World War II, the taller of the two main presidential
candidates has had an overhwleming advantage in elections. In fact, only
25% of presidential elections since then have gone to the shorter of
the two candidates, with Richard Nixon,
Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush (twice) being the only presidents to
have overcome taller rivals. And post-1900, nobody 5ft 9in or under has
ever been elected president (5ft 7in William McKinley, elected in 1900,
was the last reasonably small chap to make it to the White House.)This
is possibly a bad omen for the 6ft 1in Barack Obama. While he easily
defeated the 5ft 9in John McCain (above) in 2008, this year he's up
against the marginally taller Mitt Romney, who's 6ft 2in.
4-Grover Cleveland gets married
The 22nd and 24th
President of the USA, holds the distinction of being the only president
to return for a second term after previously being defeated. The
Democrat won his first election in 1884, lost (narrowly, and possibly
due to voting fraud) in 1888, but then came back
again to win a second term in 1892.But Cleveland is interesting for
another reason: he's the only president to date who had a wedding while
in the White House. And his marriage was... unusual, to say the least.
Cleveland was 49 years old when he got married 21-year-old Frances
Folsom. She was the daughter of a close friend of his - and more to the
point, after his friend died, he had become her legal guardian. Then
married her. Oh, and he liked to call her 'Frank'.
5-James Garfield: massive show-off
The USA has had plenty of clever
presidents, but some of them were a bit more keen than others to
demonstrate their intellect. 20th President James Garfield (seen above
riding an eagle) liked to show off at parties with a trick in which he
would write in Latin with one hand, while at the same time writing in Ancient Greek with the other hand
6-William Henry Harrison: barely there
Most presidents serve for four or eight years. But in 1841, 9th
President William Henry Harrison was in office for only a month, the
shortest presidential term ever. His time as president was cut short by
the fact that he inconveniently died of pneumonia a mere 30 days, 12
hours and 30 minutes after being sworn in. Gutting.
7-Rubbish nicknames
Lots of presidents have been given nicknames. Many of them have been
terrible, or just weird. Grover Cleveland was called 'Uncle Jumbo'. John
Tyler got stuck with the disparaging 'His Accidency'. Zachary Taylor
was lumbered with the nickname 'Old Rough And Ready'. Andrew Jackson was
called 'Old Hickory'. Ulysses S. Grant (above) was known as
'Unconditional Surrender Grant'. Rutherford B. Hayes got named
'Rutherfraud'.Chester A. Arthur, on the other hand, was known as the
'Dude President', which probably wins.
8-William Howard Taft: a big unit
Who was the heaviest American president ever? That would be 27th
President William Howard Taft , who weighed over 300lb (136kg). He was
so fat that he he would sometimes get stuck in the White House bath, and
needed his aides to help him out. (He eventually had a larger bath
installed.
9-Presidental pets
Most presidents throughout history have kept animals - with cats, dogs
and horses being the most popular. However, some presidents have had
slightly more varied animal tastes. For example, both John Quincy Adams
and Herbert Hoover kept pet alligators. The two largest presidential
menageries probably belonged to
Calvin Coolidge and Theodore Roosevelt. Among Coolidge's miniature zoo
were two lion cubs called Tax Reduction and Budget Bureau, a wallaby, a
bear, an antelope, a pygmy hippopotamus and two raccoons called Rebecca
and Horace (Rebecca is pictured above, with Coolidge's wife Grace).
Theodore Roosevelt, meanwhile, had a large number of dogs, a pig, five
guinea pigs, a macaw, a garter snake called Emily Spinach and a badger
called Josiah who used to bite people.Josiah doesn't hold the record for
the most badly behaved presidential pet, though. That honour goes to
Andrew Jackson's parrot, called Poll, who had to be ejected from
Jackson's funeral service because she wouldn’t stop swearing.
10-Andrew Johnson, booze monkey
Before he served as the 17th President, Andrew Johnson was Abraham
Lincoln's vice-president. However, his vice-presidential inauguration in
1865 didn't go terribly smoothly, largely due to the fact that Johnson
was completely off his face. Johnson had been necking whiskey all day -
supposedly in an attempt to fight off typhoid fever. By the time the
inauguration ceremony came round, he was so drunk he slurred his way
through the oaths and was forced to give up his efforts to swear in new
senators. We're not sure how the 'but I was trying to medicate myself
for typhoid fever' excuse would go down in our workplace. Not well, we
suspect...
0 comments:
Post a Comment