Americans celebrate Presidents’ Day each year in mid-February. Though some may see the holiday, which is celebrated on a Monday, as a great opportunity to book a three-day weekend getaway, others may be inspired to learn about the many men who have held the highest office in the United States. For the latter, the following are some interesting facts about U.S. presidents, courtesy of History.com.
Founding father and first U.S. president George Washington was a man with many hobbies, including dog breeding. Alex Hager of the Presidential Pet Museum told History.com that Washington likely developed his passion for dog breeding as a result of his love of fox hunting. Indeed, the American Kennel Club considers Washington the father of the American foxhound. It’s also worth noting Washington’s predilection for giving his dogs humorous names, including Drunkard, Tippler and Sweet Lips.
The country’s fourth president, James Madison, was a slight man. Madison was five-feet-four and weighed just over 100 pounds. Madison might have put on a few additional pounds had he lived to enjoy the snack cake brand Dolly Madison, which was inspired by the fourth president’s wife, Dolley, and introduced in 1937.
John Quincy Adams might be most recognized as the first man to follow his father and hold the office of the president. However, the sixth president had a notable career even after his time holding the highest office in the land. John Quincy Adams argued before the Supreme Court in a case that freed African captives who had rebelled aboard the slave ship Amistad. That rebellion and its subsequent court case was later dramatized in the 1997 Steven Spielberg film “Amistad,” in which Adams was portrayed by Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins.
It took some time before the United States had its first American-born president, but that happened upon the election of Martin Van Buren in 1837. Prior to Van Buren’s victory, all presidents had been born before 1776 and were thus British subjects at their time of birth.
Many Americans fought long and hard to secure the right to vote, but one president never voted until his own name appeared on the ballot. Zachary Taylor, the nation’s twelfth president, acknowledged he had never voted prior to 1848, the year he was elected president.
Only two men in U.S. history have been elected to serve non-consecutive terms as president. The first to do so was Grover Cleveland, who served as the nation’s twenty-second and twenty-fourth president. That feat was not replicated until it was pulled off by Donald Trump, who was elected in 2016 as the nation’s forty-fifth president and then again in 2024.
Some presidents are more soft spoken than others, but perhaps none have been more reserved than the thirtieth president Calvin Coolidge. When a female visitor bet Coolidge that she could get three words out of him, Coolidge simply replied, “You lose.”
Thirty-third president Harry S. Truman’s name is somewhat misleading. The middle initial “S” is not an abbreviation for any particular name, but rather an homage to his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.
Richard Nixon, the nation’s thirty-seventh president, was a highly skilled poker player. In fact, during his time serving in the United States Navy during World War II, Nixon won substantial sums of money playing poker, funds he ultimately used to finance his first political campaign.
