A couple days ago, I mentioned how Martin Van Buren was the first US President to be born an American citizen.
Though, his patriotism is all a facade. Van Buren is the only* US President not to have spoken English as his first language. He spoke Dutch.
*Depending on who you ask, Obama grew up speaking “Muslim”…
Martin Van Buren was the first president to be born an American citizen. The previous presidents were born English citizens as the colonies still belonged to Great Britain.
That’s why Martin Van Buren is so popular in the media as well as in history books!!!!!!!
…
A person from Nigeria is a Nigerian. A person from Niger is a Nigerien.
George W. would simply refer to them as African-Americans.
That wasn’t topical at all.
I’ve been trying to figure out why Abraham Lincoln was called “Honest.” I’ve read various explanations. Some of them seem like folk lore, intended for elementary school teachers to tell their students. For example, when young Abraham worked as a store clerk, he realized that he overcharged one of his customers by a few pennies. He then walked a bunch of miles to the person’s house and returned the pennies. He probably wanted to brag about how the penny featured an image of him…
I also read that when he worked as a lawyer, he would often help poor people for free. That doesn’t really seem honest, actually.
The last explanation is incredibly dubious and will most likely not be used by 2nd grade teachers: Abe Lincoln got the nickname “Honest Abe” for his work as a cockfight official.
In the three examples, it sounds more appropriate to call him, “Stalker Abe,” “Robin Hood Abe,” and “Creepy Abe.”
The first U.S. President ever to be photographed was John Quincy Adams. Although he wasn’t actually President at the time.
I bet he was President by the time the old-timey camera finished taking the picture.
This is fun. I was looking at a list of Presidential Pets, or First-Pets, or whatever cutesy name you want to call the animals that live at the White House. There have been some good ones. The early presidents often had horses and donkeys. Thomas Jefferson had two bear cubs. John Quincy Adams had an alligator. James Buchanan had an eagle (the pinnacle of badass pets). Benjamin Harrison apparently had opossums (the least badass pets). Calvin Coolidge pretty much had a zoo. But my favorite pets of them all were owned by John Adams. John Adams had two dogs. One was named Juno. The other one was named Satan.
I won’t even ruin this by saying anymore. The guy had a dog named SATAN! Brilliant!
President James Buchanan was the only president to have never married. He also tried to buy Cuba from Spain in order to expand slavery. To make him look like an even bigger loser, his presidency was followed by Abraham Lincoln’s. Historians consider Buchanan one of the worst, if not the worst, president ever. As of 2010, he still can’t get a wife.
What a loser.
For the first couple years of his life, Gerald Ford was named Leslie Lynch King, Jr., after his father. As it turned out, his father was an abusive douche-bag, so the future President’s mom divorced him, married a guy named Gerald Ford, and decided to rename her son after him. It’s bizarre to me how his mom treated him like a classroom gerbil that gets a new name after every school year. But at least she married a guy with an all-American sounding name. Imagine if she would have married a guy with an Arab sounding name. There would be no chance for a guy with a Middle-Eastern name to be elected President…
Although President Obama shatters the stereotypical presidential image of an old, white guy, he still perpetuates the phenotypic trend of Presidents having dark hair. Allegedly, there has only been one redheaded President in U.S. history: Thomas Jefferson (though his hair was starting to turn white by the time he took office). With society becoming a little more and more diverse with time, I don’t doubt that we will have another ginger President. I just can’t wait for the day when we have a redheaded, black President.
President William McKinley was assassinated in September 1901 by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. Originally, it was thought McKinley would survive the gunshot wounds but died six days later. He was the third of four assassinated U.S. Presidents (Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy). Although deceased, they live on in other aspects of our culture. We have Mount McKinley in Alaska, the highest mountain peak in North America. Lincoln’s legacy is perpetuated with the help of the Lincoln Memorial, U.S. currency, and a giant face on Mount Rushmore. There’s the Kennedy Space Center, JFK International Airport, and Kennedy’s image on the U.S. half-dollar. As for Garfield… well… your legacy has been trumped by a lethargic tabby cat that eats people food. Tough break.
