From Unfazed by a Bullet
When electing Presidents of the United States, Americans haven't been partial to one type of man. Commanders in Chief of all kinds -- tall and short, handsome and homely, well-educated and barely schooled, scoundrel and saint -- were sent to Washington to serve. Even the most obscure of the bunch (does anyone really know anything about Franklin Pierce?) has left his mark. The following questions delve behind the formal portraits of our nation's Presidents to reveal their idiosyncrasies, oddities and ironies. The answers may challenge your perceptions of the men and the highest office in the land they held.
Q. Which President's son was personally affected by three Presidential assassinations?A. Abraham Lincoln's oldest son, Robert Todd, was at his father's side after the 16th President was assassinated at Ford's Theatre in 1865. Sixteen years later he was at the Washington rail depot where the 20th President, James Garfield, was shot and killed in 1881. In 1901 Lincoln was in Buffalo at the Pan-American Exposition, where 25th President William McKinley was assassinated. Thereafter Lincoln avoided functions where a President was present.
Q. Who was the first President to go to his party's convention to accept its nomination in person?
A. Perhaps nominees wanted to avoid those infamous smoke-filled rooms, but for whatever reason, it wasn't until 1932 that Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then governor of New York, attended the Democratic convention in Chicago. Roosevelt would go on to become our 32nd President.
Q. Four state capitals are named after Presidents. What are they?
A. In order of the states' admittance to the Union, they are Jackson, Miss.; Jefferson City, Mo.; Madison, Wis.; and Lincoln, Neb.
Q. Which President, while living in the White House, regularly skinny-dipped in the Potomac River?
A. Between 1825 and 1829 there was a "moon" on the Potomac around 5 a.m., when John Quincy Adams stripped down and took his morning constitutional.
Q. Which President, as a parlor trick, would write a Greek sentence with one hand, while writing a Latin sentence with the other?
A. James Garfield, also the only minister elected President.
Q. Which President was shot during a speech and kept on speaking?
A. Theodore Roosevelt was shot by an insane stalker, John Schrank, in October 1912 in Milwaukee, Wis. At the time, Roosevelt was running for President on the Progressive Party ticket, having lost the Republican nomination to William Howard Taft. The bullet hit T. R. in the chest, but the eyeglass case and speech manuscript in his pocket slowed the bullet. Despite being shot, T. R. delivered his hour-long speech.
Q. Which President was also a King?
A. Gerald Ford. Born in 1913 as Leslie L. King, Jr., his mother divorced and remarried. His stepfather informally adopted him, renaming him Gerald R. Ford.
The Little League President
Q. Which President killed a man?A. In 1828, after General Andrew Jackson was elected President but before his inauguration, his wife, Rachel, died of a heart attack. In Jackson's mind, ugly rumors broke her heart. Bigamist was one epithet hurled at her and technically it was true. Rachel married Jackson in 1791, thinking she'd divorced her first husband. But the marriage was not dissolved. After the divorce was finalized, Rachel remarried Jackson in 1794. One of those who gossiped about Rachel was a prominent lawyer, Charles Dickinson. In May 1806 Jackson challenged Dickinson to a duel in Kentucky, killing him.
Q. Who were the largest, smallest and tallest Presidents?
A. Elected in 1908, the six-foot William Howard Taft weighed in at 335 pounds. Once, Chauncey Depew, a renowned turn-of-the-century orator, pointed to Taft's massive stomach and asked, "What are you going to name the baby?" Taft replied: "If it's a boy, he will be a junior. If it's a girl, I'll name her Helen. But if, as I expect, it is only gas, I'll name it Chauncey Depew." James Madison was our smallest leader: 5 feet, 4 inches, 100 pounds. Abraham Lincoln, 6 feet, 4 inches, was our tallest.
Q. Which President's father was a film producer?
A. John F. Kennedy's father. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., was also a bootlegger during Prohibition, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and ambassador to Britain.
Q. Which President fathered a child at age 70?
A. John Tyler, father of 15 and the only President to be subsequently elected to the Confederate Congress.
Q. Which President had a foreign country's capital named for him?
A. In 1821 the American Colonization Society purchased land in West Africa for the purpose of resettling freed slaves. This land became Liberia (Freedom), and the capital was named Monrovia in honor of President James Monroe. Even today, Liberia uses as its currency U.S. bills.
Q. Which President is credited with saving 77 lives?
A. Ronald Reagan, as a lifeguard in his hometown of Dixon, Ill. But some of the rescues may have been young women faking it simply to get the handsome "Dutch" Reagan's attention.
Q. Which two Presidents died on the Fourth of July, 1826?
A. Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence.
Q. Which President was taught by his wife to read and write?
A. In 1827, in Greeneville, Tenn., Eliza McCardle, 16, married Andrew Johnson, 18. He was a tailor who could barely read or write. Yet he was extremely ambitious. In the evening his wife taught him to read and write. And from there his political career took off, from mayor of his town to governor to Vice President and finally President.
Q. Who was the first President to play Little League baseball?
A. George W. Bush, for the Midland, Texas, Cubs from 1954 to 1958. His coach, Frank Ittner, now 94 years old, recalls Bush as a fine defensive catcher who needed work on his hitting.