• Some fun facts on this President’s Day! Be sure to share:
  • The only president to be unanimously elected was George Washington. He also refused to accept his presidential salary, which was $25,000 a year.
  • Grover Cleveland was the only president in history to hold the job of a hangman. He was once the sheriff of Erie County, New York, and twice had to spring the trap at a hanging. And a bonus fact? Cleveland stands as the only president to be elected to two nonconsecutive terms. He was the 22nd and 24th
  • James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were once arrested together for taking a carriage ride in the countryside of Vermont on a Sunday, which violated the laws of that state.
  • Martin Van Buren was the first to be a United States citizen. All previous presidents were born British subjects.
  • Dwight David Eisenhower was the only president to serve in both WWI and WWII.
  • Herbert Hoover gave his White House servants strict orders to hide from him whenever he passed by. Those who failed to do so were at risk of being fired.
  • Because the KKK was a powerful political force, Harry Truman was encouraged to join the organization. According to some accounts, he was inducted, though he was “never active.” Other accounts claim that though he gave the KKK a $10 membership fee, he demanded it back and was never inducted or initiated.
  • John Quincy Adams would often skinny dip in the Potomac River.
  • Our 29th president Warren G. Harding had a serious affair with White House secretary, Nan Britton. And according to legend, they often “had relations” in a White House closet. On one occasion, Secret Service agents reportedly had to stop his wife from beating down the closet door. Even more scandalous, Britton had been denounced as a “degenerate” for suggestions that Harding had gotten her pregnant. Many years later, it was proven true.
  • Three presidents died on July 4th: Thomas Jefferson (1826), John Adams (1826), and James Monroe (1831). Calvin Coolidge is the only president to have been born on the Fourth (1872).
  • Andrew Jackson was reportedly involved in over 100 duels, most to defend the honor of his wife, Rachel. He had a bullet in his chest from an 1806 duel and another bullet in his arm from a barroom fight in 1813 with Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton.
  • Tipping the scales at 325 pounds, William Howard Taft was dubbed “Big Bill,” and was the largest president in American history. He often got stuck in the White House bathtub – and his advisors had to sometimes pull him out.

More about: