The Most Fascinating Fact About Every Single U.S. President
From George Washington's dentures to James Garfield's agonizing death, learn some captivating presidential facts that even some history buffs don't know.
1. George Washington's teeth weren’t made of wood. The truth was actually much worse.Washington's dentures were made of animal bone and human teeth. Some of those teeth may have come from enslaved people on Washington's Mount Vernon plantation.
Public Domain 2. John Adams' last words are thought to be: "Thomas Jefferson still lives."Adams believed that Jefferson, whom he shared an on-again, off-again friendship with for decades, had outlived him. However, Jefferson had actually died just hours earlier.
What's more, both men died on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence.
Public Domain 3. Thomas Jefferson was not only the primary author of the Declaration of Independence, but also a passionate inventor. In addition to the swivel chair, he also invented a "Wheel Cypher" to encode and decode messages and a roof system that captured rainwater.Public Domain 4. James Madison appeared on the $5,000 bill, which the government stopped printing in 1945 and discontinued for good in 1969.The $500 bill (featuring William McKinley), the $1,000 bill (featuring Grover Cleveland), and the $10,000 bill (featuring Supreme Court Justice Salmon P. Chase) were also discontinued.
National Numismatic Collection/National Museum of American History 5. Like John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father James Monroe died on July 4th — just five years later.He's also the last president who was never photographed.
Public Domain 6. John Quincy Adams started writing in his diaries around the age of 11, and recorded everything from his travels around the world, to his relationship with his family members, to his political views.Public Domain 7. Andrew Jackson was the target of America's first presidential assassination attempt when Richard Lawrence fired a gun at him from just feet away on January 30, 1835.When the gun misfired, Lawrence pulled out a second gun — which also misfired.
An enraged Jackson charged Lawrence with his cane. Both pistols were later found to be working just fine, which means the odds of them both misfiring were 125,000 to 1.
Public Domain 8. Martin Van Buren's nickname, "Old Kinderhook" (a reference to his hometown of Kinderhook, New York), helped lead to the expression "O.K." When Van Buren ran for president, O.K. Clubs popped up around the country. Voters who gave him the "O.K." were giving him a stamp of approval.Van Buren was also the first president to be born a U.S. citizen, as his predecessors had been born before the American Revolution.
Public Domain 9. William Henry Harrison became known as the "log cabin and hard cider" candidate after a newspaper sneeringly stated: "Give [Harrison] a barrel of hard cider and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him, and take my word for it, he will sit the remainder of his days in his log cabin."His avid supporters adopted the insult as their own and helped Harrison win the White House. Unfortunately, he died after just a month in office, likely from enteric fever.
Public Domain 10. John Tyler, born in 1790, still has a living grandson in 2024. Public Domain 11. After being nominated at the Democratic convention, James K. Polk's Whig opponents sneered: "Who is James K. Polk?"Though some historians have dismissed him as inconsequential, Polk oversaw major events like the Mexican-American War and the establishment of the Canada-U.S. border.
Public Domain 12. When Zachary Taylor died in 1850, doctors declared he'd succumbed to cholera morbus, a bacterial infection. In 1991, however, his remains were exhumed to see if he'd actually died from arsenic poisoning.An investigation found only small amounts of arsenic in his body, not enough to be deadly.
Public Domain 13. A Yale professor once remarked that "to discuss... Millard Fillmore is to overrate [him]."And with that, we give you no Fillmore facts.
Public Domain 14. When he left office in 1857, Franklin Pierce allegedly remarked, "There’s nothing left to do but get drunk."He died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1869.
Public Domain 15. A lifelong bachelor, James Buchanan had a close friendship with Alabama Senator William Rufus King, with whom he lived for 13 years.Their friendship drew attention even in their day, and prompted Andrew Jackson to call the two "Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy."
Public Domain 16. Abraham Lincoln signed a bill creating the Secret Service on April 14, 1865, the day he was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth.That said, the Secret Service was originally part of the Treasury Department, and did not protect the president full-time until 1901.
Public Domain 17. The first impeached president — and one of America's worst presidents for his failures during Reconstruction — Andrew Johnson nevertheless considered himself a devout patriot. He was buried wrapped in an American flag, with a copy of the Constitution underneath his head.Public Domain 18. Ulysses S. Grant was actually born Hiram Ulysses Grant. When he applied to West Point, however, a clerical error spelled his name as U.S. Grant — and the rest is history.Public Domain 19. Hoping to court anti-alcohol Prohibitionists, Rutherford B. Hayes banned liquor at the White House (his wife, a lifelong teetotaler, was sometimes called "Lemonade Lucy"). But the presidential couple did make some exceptions to their rule when they hosted visiting dignitaries. Public Domain 20. One of Charles Guiteau's shots grazed James Garfield's arm; the other lodged near his pancreas. Doctors couldn't locate the second bullet, though Alexander Graham Bell tried to find it with an early version of a metal detector. Garfield ultimately succumbed to his wounds on September 19, 1881.More than a century later, his spine — bullet hole and all — was put on display by the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
Public Domain 21. In order to raise money for new furniture, Chester A. Arthur sold 24 wagons worth of White House items, including a pair of Abraham Lincoln's pants. Public Domain 22. Grover Cleveland was elected in 1884, defeated in 1888, and re-elected in 1892. That makes him the 22nd and the 24th president.Public Domain 23. Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of William Henry Harrison.His fellow Republicans supported him with the slogan “The Same Old Hat – It Fits Ben Just Right.” Democrats responded with the slogan: “His Grandfather’s Hat – It’s Too big for BEN.”
Though Benjamin Harrison survived his term, unlike his grandfather, he lost his re-election bid to Cleveland.
Public Domain 24. When Grover Cleveland was 49, he married 21-year-old Frances Folsom at the White House — the only presidential White House wedding in history. He and Frances also made history when their daughter Esther was born at the White House. So far, she's the first and only presidential White House baby.Public Domain 25. William McKinley often wore a red carnation on his lapel for good luck.At the 1901 Pan-American Exposition, he gave his carnation away to a little girl.
Mere moments later, he was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz.
Public Domain 26. Theodore Roosevelt was boxing with his aide, Daniel T. Moore, when Moore suddenly hit the president hard in the eye, causing permanent damage.But Roosevelt didn't stop boxing, and Moore didn't learn about the severity of the injury until he read about it in the newspaper almost a decade later.
Public Domain 27. On April 14, 1910, William Howard Taft threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a game between the Washington Senators and the Philadelphia Athletics.Taft threw the ball to a pitcher — not the catcher like today — and returned the next year to throw the pitch again.
Though Taft skipped the ceremony in 1912 because of the sinking of the Titanic, the tradition was picked up by his successor, Woodrow Wilson.
Library of Congress 28. Not only is Woodrow Wilson buried in D.C., but he's interred at the National Cathedral. His wife, Edith, felt that it was an appropriate resting place because her husband had done his most important work in the nation's capital. The National Cathedral also sought to be a place where the "heroes of democracy" could be celebrated. Public Domain 29. For about a decade before his presidency, Warren G. Harding penned elaborate, explicit love letters — often on official Senate stationery — to his mistress, Carrie Fulton Phillips.In one letter, he wrote: "There is one engulfing, enthralling rule of love, the song of your whole being which is a bit sweeter — the ‘Oh Warren! Oh Warren!’ When your body quivers with divine paroxysm and your soul hovers for flight with mine.”
Public Domain 30. Calvin Coolidge was famously a man of few words. When a woman at a dinner party bet that she could get him to say three words, he allegedly told her: "You lose."Coolidge was also taciturn when he announced that he would not run for re-election, handing the press pieces of paper that read: "I do not choose to run for president in 1928."
Public Domain 31. Herbert Hoover's White House physician, Adm. Joel T. Boone, came up with Hoover-Ball around 1928 to keep the president fit. "It required less skill than tennis, was faster and more vigorous, and therefore gave more exercise in a short time," Hoover wrote.The Hoover Presidential Library Association, alongside the city of West Branch, Iowa, hosts a Hoover-Ball competition every year.
Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum 32. Franklin Roosevelt starting collecting stamps around the age of eight. When he was diagnosed with polio, the hobby helped him pass the time, and he amassed a collection of one million stamps in his lifetime.National Postal Museum 33. Harry S. Truman survived an assassination attempt in 1950 when two Puerto Rican nationalists tried to kill him while he was staying at the Blair House. With Truman upstairs, the would-be presidential assassins exchanged fire with Truman's guards, fatally wounding White House Policeman Leslie Coffelt in the process.Public Domain 34. Infuriated by the squirrels who dug up the new putting green outside the Oval Office, Dwight D. Eisenhower told his valet: “The next time you see one of those squirrels go near my putting green, take a gun and shoot it!"However, groundskeepers chose to trap the squirrels instead and release them elsewhere.
Public Domain 35. A huge James Bond fan, John F. Kennedy once tried to write his own spy thriller — about a coup d'état organized by his own vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson. Public Domain 36. Not only did Lyndon B. Johnson call his penis "Jumbo," but he earned a reputation for waving it around. In the bathroom, he was known for shouting: “Woo-eee, have you ever seen anything as big as this?” And once, when questioned by reporters why the U.S. was in Vietnam, Johnson allegedly pulled out his penis and said: "This is why!"Public Domain 37. In addition to the piano, Richard Nixon could also play the saxophone, clarinet, accordion, and violin.Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection at the UCLA Library 38. A center and a linebacker on the University of Michigan football team, Gerald Ford received offers from two NFL teams when he graduated in 1935: the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers. Ford turned them down and applied to law school. Gerald R. Ford Library 40. Ronald Reagan started eating jelly beans to wean himself from pipe smoking, and never stopped. At the White House, the Herman Goelitz Candy Company provided jelly beans during Reagan's two terms in office.Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum 41. During the so-called Chichijima Incident in World War II, George H.W. Bush and his fellow pilots were shot down near Japan's Chichijima Island. But while Bush landed in the water and was soon rescued, eight others were captured by the Japanese, tortured, and killed. Some were even cannibalized. Public Domain 42. As a young man, Bill Clinton lined the back of his El Camino with AstroTurf. “You don’t want to know why,” he once said with a sly grin, “but I did.”Clinton later tried to walk back the comment, stating: "It wasn't for what everybody thought it was for when I made the comment, I'll tell you that. I'm guilty of a lot of things, but I didn't ever do that."
Public Domain 43. George W. Bush was head cheerleader at Phillips Academy during his senior year, and continued cheerleading at Yale. George W. Bush Presidential Center 44. When Barack Obama lived in Indonesia as a child, his family members owned a number of exotic pets, including snakes, a turtle, and even an ape named Tata.Public Domain 45. A satirical magazine once sent checks for 13 cents to some of the world’s richest people as a prank just to see who would cash them. Only two of the recipients did: a Saudi arms dealer and Donald Trump.Public Domain 46. Joe Biden was a star football player at Delaware’s Archmere Academy. Decades later, his coach said that he "was one of the best pass receivers I had in 16 years as a coach.”Public Domain
46 Enthralling Facts About The Presidents Of The United States View GalleryAmerica's presidents are often remembered for their stories of inspiring heroism or for their tragic failings — the great highs and great lows. But as these facts about U.S. presidents show, there are plenty of gray areas.
American presidents have had weird pets, fallen for strange pranks, and invented peculiar objects. They've died unusual deaths, established new traditions, and acted in bizarre ways. While some presidential facts are fun — like Ronald Reagan's obsession with jelly beans — others are much darker — like how George H.W. Bush narrowly avoided being cannibalized.
In the gallery above, look through some shocking, cool, and downright odd facts about U.S. presidents. And keep reading below to learn about some of the strange stories surrounding these American leaders.
Fun Presidential Facts: Dwight D. Eisenhower And The Squirrels
President Dwight D. Eisenhower is widely known for his heroism during World War II, which helped propel him to two terms in the White House. But Eisenhower also waged a different kind of war: against squirrels.
In 1954, Eisenhower was thrilled when the American Public Golf Association set up a putting green just outside the Oval Office. But the White House grounds were known for their high density of squirrels — and it didn't take long for the little creatures to interfere with Eisenhower's golf game.
Though presidents like Harry S. Truman had tolerated and even encouraged the squirrels' presence by feeding them, Eisenhower couldn't stand them. According to The Washington Post, they stole his golf tees and damaged the putting green. Infuriated, Eisenhower wanted them gone.
Herb Block FoundationA 1955 depiction of Dwight D. Eisenhower's fury over the White House squirrels.
He told his valet John Moaney: "The next time you see one of those squirrels go near my putting green, take a gun and shoot it!"
Neither Moaney nor the Secret Service thought it would be a good idea to shoot squirrels in full view of D.C. tourists. So what to do? It was eventually decided that the animals would be trapped and relocated elsewhere.
Whether or not this happened is a bit unclear. The Washington Post reports that at least one journalist sniffed around and claimed that the squirrels had actually been poisoned. But by the time President Ronald Reagan arrived in office, they were back in full force. Reagan even fed them walnuts.
The story of Eisenhower and the squirrels is a good example of a fun presidential fact — though perhaps not so much fun for the squirrels — but plenty of other facts about U.S. presidents are much darker.
Dark Presidential Facts: The Brutal Death Of William McKinley
American history abounds with grim presidential facts. And some of the most unsettling and most bizarre have to do with presidential deaths.
Take President William McKinley.
In 1901, he traveled to Buffalo, New York, to attend the Pan-American Exposition. While there, McKinley pinned a red carnation to his lapel.
History Uncovered Podcast Episode 44: The Secret Lives Of U.S. Presidents Did you know that Abraham Lincoln was a champion wrestler or that Lyndon Johnson was a fervent practical joker? These are the most fascinating facts and lesser-known stories about America's presidents.This had long been something of a tradition with him. According to the Ohio Statehouse, he'd first been given a red carnation in 1876 by his political opponent, Levi Lamborn, as they both ran for a seat in Congress. Lamborn was a horticulturist who grew a special strain of red carnations, and he offered a boutonnière to McKinley before they debated each other.
McKinley won the election, and he came to see red carnations as good luck. He started wearing them on his lapel after he won the presidential election in 1896, and kept the flowers on his desk in the Oval Office.
He was wearing one on September 6, 1901 in Buffalo, when he decided to take off his lucky flower and give it to a little girl in the crowd named Myrtle Ledger. Shortly after giving the flower to Myrtle, McKinley found himself face-to-face with a murderous anarchist named Leon Czolgosz.
Public DomainWilliam McKinley was infamously assassinated right after giving away his good luck charm.
Czolgosz had a pistol hidden under a handkerchief in his right hand. When McKinley tried to shake his left hand, Czolgosz shot him two times.
The president died eight days later on September 14th.
Presidential facts like this one are undeniably tragic, but also strangely captivating. Those who are superstitious might even wonder what would have happened if McKinley had kept his lucky flower pinned to his chest.
To learn more facts about American presidents, from the dark to the fun and everything in between, check out the gallery above.
After this look at fascinating facts about U.S. presidents, discover some of the most interesting George Washington facts and Abraham Lincoln facts. Then, check out these Donald Trump quotes you'll have to read to believe.
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