Header from samulli

Click here to see other entries or to play along.

What better way to combine my interest in history and interesting, but mostly useless, facts than to make this week's list a combo deal? I hope that you enjoy 13 interesting, sometimes strange, facts about U.S. Presidents.


1. William Howard Taft was too large to fit in the White House bathtub and after getting stuck in it once, had an oversized tub installed.

2. James Madison was the only president to weigh less than 100 pounds.

3. Calvin Coolidge was the only U.S. president born on the 4th of July.

4. John Quincy Adams kept his pet alligator in the East Room of the White House.

5. Franklin D. Roosevelt was related in some way to 11 former U.S. Presidents.

6. John Tyler fathered 15 children, the last of which was born when Tyler was in his 70s!

7. Abraham Lincoln used to keep important papers inside his famous stovepipe hat.

8. The only president to get married in the White House was Grover Cleveland.

9. Ronald Reagan is the only president, so far, to have been divorced.

10. George Washington is the only president to have been elected unanimously. He received all 69 electoral votes.

11. Martin Van Buren was the first president born in the United States.

12. Grover Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms in office.

13. In elections since the end of WWII, the taller of the two main party candidates has won the election 75% of the time. Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush are the only post-war presidents to have defeated taller rivals. Since 1900, nobody under the height of 5ft 9in has ever won the presidential election.