The Most Bizarre Facts About US Presidents You Never Knew
The president of the United States is generally seen as a steady hand at the helm, someone who can weather political storms and project an image of normalcy and leadership.
That said, once a country has been around for a couple of hundred years and had a few dozen leaders, there are bound to be a few bizarre stories that stem from the Oval Office. Presidents can be complicated people, and they often maintain their distinctive quirks even after they're voted into office.
George Washington's dentures weren't what you think
One of the most repeated bits of presidential trivia you'll hear is that George Washington — the first president — had dentures made of wood. This is simply false information, as wood would be a terrible material to use as false teeth.
Washington did, in fact, use dentures, but they were made of various materials, including different types of ivory and bone, human donor teeth, and various metal screws and wires to hold the whole contraption together. The fact that his dentures were often stained with wine may explain this persistent myth.
John Quincy Adams wanted to find the mole people
It's hard to fault people from the past for some kooky scientific theories, but still, some of these do invite some ridicule. John Quincy Adams, who served one term in office between 1825 and 1829, wanted to advance scientific understanding by proving that the planet was hollow.
This was actually a popular theory at the time, and Adams approved a proposed expedition that would have sent a team of explorers underground, through the hollow Earth, and into the core. Of course, the Earth is not, in fact, hollow, and this expedition never got off the ground despite presidential approval.
Hooverball could have been the next great American sport
James Naismith invented basketball out of thin air, so it's hardly unheard of for an individual person to invent an entirely new sport that then becomes enormously popular. Former president Herbert Hoover had his own idea to create a new sport — but unlike Naismith's invention, Hooverball didn't take off.
You can Google the strange rules, which used a heavy medicine ball and combined aspects of volleyball, tennis, and dodgeball. "Two teams of three players heave a six-pound leather ball back and forth across an eight-foot high net," wrote an incredulous Sports Illustrated reporter, "This cannot be accomplished graciously."
James Madison was an ice cream fanatic
In the early 19th century, ice cream existed — but because refrigeration and freezing technology was in its infancy, ice cream was a rare treat that was hard to keep cold. Rich and privileged people had no problem obtaining ice cream, though, and President Madison (along with his wife Dolly) were two of those people.
The Madisons absolutely loved ice cream, to the point that they had a custom-made ice house built on their estate in Montpelier, Virginia, just to keep ice cream cold. The Madisons often served oyster ice cream (which sounds disgusting) at government events.
Ulysses S. Grant had the need for speed
One would think that local police in D.C. would give Ulysses S. Grant a break. After all, the widely-respected Grant was not just a celebrated Civil War hero — he was also the sitting president — when a bizarre incident occurred in the 1870s.
Grant was touring the streets of Washington when he was pulled over and given a speeding ticket. This is unusual not just because the sitting president was ticketed by a police constable but also because of the fact that cars didn't exist yet. That's right — the sitting president was given a speeding ticket for going too fast on a horse.
LBJ sounds like a cheap date
Lyndon Baines Johnson and his wife, Lady Bird, were a power couple in midcentury U.S. politics. Their origin story, though, is somewhat humble. When the couple was in their courtship in the 1930s, LBJ proposed to his eventual wife with a $2.50 ring from Sears.
Lady Bird accepted his proposal, and the rest is history. The fact that the Great Depression was in full swing might help explain the cheap ring. For those keeping score, $2.50 in 1934 (the year of the proposal) would be worth around $60 in the 2020s.
Martin Van Buren was the first truly American president
Martin Van Buren was the first president to be born an American. This sounds surprising since no presidents had ever been born in England, and indeed, every president to precede Van Buren was born in North America.
Van Buren earned this distinction not necessarily because of where he was born, but when he was born. He was the first president who was born after 1776, which means he was born an American subject. Every president who came earlier was born while the United States was a British colony, which means they were born as British subjects.
Thomas Jefferson had some ferocious pets
Thomas Jefferson lived during a time when attitudes toward wild animals were quite different. The modern conservation movement didn't exist, and it was somewhat common to see rare and exotic animals put in cages for people's amusement.
This helps explain why Jefferson was so delighted to receive the gift of a pair of grizzly bear cubs during his time as president. He caged them up for safety and placed the cage on the White House lawn. As the bears grew, he correctly realized that they were potentially dangerous, so he gifted them to a museum.
Harry Truman had a personal bowling alley
Harry Truman wasn't the only president who enjoyed bowling, but he was the first president to enjoy a game of ten-pin in the White House. In 1947, as the country continued to celebrate its World War II victory, Truman received a personal bowling alley in the White House West Wing as a birthday present.
Bowling wasn't even Truman's favorite game — he preferred to pitch horseshoes on an outdoor lawn — but he still gamely used his private bowling alley. His first attempt knocked down a decent but not spectacular seven pins.
Andrew Jackson was no fan of banks
It's easy to associate Andrew Jackson with money. His portrait adorns the $20 bill, one of the most commonly seen denominations of paper currency. However, this doesn't mean that Jackson was down with banks or bankers in general.
A proposed bill by Congress to reauthorize the Second Bank of the United States in 1832 — one that would have given the bank legitimacy — was vetoed by Jackson, which led to the bank being dismantled. The whole affair became known as Jackson's Bank War.
William Henry Harrison learned the hard way that speeches should be kept short
William Henry Harrison is noteworthy for having the shortest presidency, at just 33 days. The story of why it was so short is an exercise in hubris — one that carries a couple of lessons.
Harrison's inauguration came on a damp, chilly day, but owing to vanity, he chose not to wear warm clothes. The new president wanted to make an impression, so he delivered an incredibly long speech — more than eight thousand words long and over 90 minutes. The cold weather and lack of a jacket did him no favors — he quickly fell ill and died a little over a month later.
Richard Nixon enjoyed some strange comfort foods
History hasn't been particularly kind on Richard Nixon's presidency, but even if you put his policies and scandals aside, it's hard to view him positively in light of his bizarre eating habits.
Nixon's favorite meal wasn't hamburgers or steak or anything conventional — instead, it was...cottage cheese drizzled with ketchup. Nixon's official presidential library notes that his favorite breakfast "usually consisted of cottage cheese (garnished with either ketchup and/or black pepper), fresh fruit, wheat germ, and coffee." Nixon also enjoyed yogurt so much that he had fresh yogurt flown in daily from California.
John Tyler's grandchild is still alive
How many generations have there been since the presidency of John Tyler? The tenth president was born in 1790 and died in 1862, but remarkably still has a living grandchild (as of mid-2024).
Tyler's grandchild, Harrison Ruffin Tyler, is a businessman who was born in 1928. His father (John Tyler's son) was born in 1853. This means that John Tyler was 63 when his son was born, and Tyler's son was 75 when his son was born.
Franklin Pierce passed out once, and never lived it down
It isn't uncommon to faint or lose consciousness for any number of reasons, but Franklin Pierce acquired a longstanding nickname based on one thing that happened on one occasion. Pierce, who served as president from 1853 to 1857, was known as "Fainting Frank."
The nickname stemmed from something that happened while Pierce was a brigadier general in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s. He was thrown into the pommel of his horse and was either knocked unconscious by the blow or passed out from the pain. While this was a singular event, the nickname stuck.
James Buchanan made the White House a bachelor pad
No, this doesn't mean that Buchanan filled the Oval Office with Pink Floyd posters and inflatable furniture. It means that he was quite literally a bachelor — to date, the only president who was a lifelong bachelor.
As a young man, Buchanan did enter a courtship with a wealthy heiress, Anne Caroline Coleman, but Coleman died suddenly of a Laudanum overdose at the age of 23. Buchanan claimed that he never married out of devotion to Coleman, but naturally, there were rumors — never proven — that he was particularly close with former Vice President William R. King.
You can thank Rutherford B. Hayes for Siamese cats in America
Siamese cats are one of the most beautiful and distinctive cat breeds, and they didn't exist at all in North America until the presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. In 1879, while Hayes was president, he was gifted a Siamese cat — appropriately named Siam — by the American consulate in Bangkok.
The cat had a long voyage to get to America, traveling from Hong Kong to San Francisco on a ship before being loaded onto a cross-country train to take it to the White House.
Truman never pardoned a turkey
The annual turkey pardon is a light-hearted White House tradition every Thanksgiving, and its origins are thought to lie with the presidency of Harry Truman. However, the Truman Library reports that there are no "documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records" to prove this.
The first president who definitely pardoned a turkey was JFK. The only documented interaction between Truman and the turkeys was one occasion when his family was gifted a turkey for a holiday dinner. In this case, Truman didn't offer a pardon and simply ate the bird with his loved ones.
Chester Arthur sold White House swag
Holding a yard sale is a good way to unload household clutter, but doing a yard sale at the White House feels undignified. Regardless, Chester A. Arthur — the 21st president between 1881 and 1885 — decided to hold a big yard sale on the White House lawn.
In all, Arthur offered up the contents of two dozen wagon loads of various White House clutter, including quite a few items of genuine historical value, such as clothing owned by Abraham Lincoln and John Quincy Adams. With the proceeds, Arthur hired an interior decorator to spruce up the White House.
Ulysses S. Grant had a mysterious middle initial
"Ulysses S. Grant" is a name that rolls off the tongue and has more of a ring to it than his actual birth name, Hiram Ulysses Grant. However, there's an intriguing wrinkle in that the middle initial of S doesn't actually stand for anything.
There's no mystery to uncover here — it isn't that his middle name was lost to time; it's that he never had a middle name to begin with. It seems like the "S" was added after Grant's application to West Point was misread.
William McKinley should have hung onto his lucky charm
William McKinley was gunned down by an assassin's bullet in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. A sad wrinkle to the tragedy involves McKinley's kind gesture to a little girl shortly before he was killed.
McKinley, like many politicians of the time, was a dapper dresser and was known for wearing a bright red carnation on his lapel as a good luck charm. During the event in Buffalo, as he took part in a meet-and-greet with well-wishers, McKinley unfastened the carnation and gifted it to a little girl. He was killed moments later.
James Polk wasn't a dancer
Today, it's expected that the president will take part in any number of cultural practices as part of their overall diplomatic mission — and this often involves some form of dancing. However, during James Polk's presidency between 1845 and 1849, there was no dancing in the White House.
This is because Polk's wife, Sarah Childress, was a strict Presbyterian who looked down on any form of dancing. Out of deference to his wife, Polk banned dancing in the White House — even during his inauguration ball. It's hard to imagine that being a very lively party.
Millard Fillmore wasn't a Democrat or a Republican
In the modern-day two-party system, it's hard to envision a scenario in which a third party could ever prevail in a U.S. election (Ross Perot is the closest we've seen in recent decades). But this modern-day dynamic wasn't always reflected in presidential elections.
Indeed, Millard Fillmore — the 13th president — wasn't a Republican or a Democrat but a Whig. He served as VP under Whig candidate Zachary Taylor and assumed the office after Taylor died. To this day, he's the last president who wasn't a member of either of the major parties.
Abraham Lincoln was interested in spirituality
The latter half of the 19th century saw a boom in the spiritualism movement, with people believing that they could communicate with dead relatives through the use of various mediums. It might sound too kooky for a president to embrace, but Abraham Lincoln got interested in the movement.
It wasn't Lincoln himself who was the catalyst, but rather his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. The Lincolns invited spiritualists into the White House to carry out seances. It isn't known if the president actually attended these White House seances, but it's hard to believe he didn't check in on at least a few of them.
James Garfield was a language wiz
Today, James Garfield is probably best remembered for the sad distinction of being assassinated during his time in office. That said, the 20th president was an accomplished and unique man, one with some wholly singular traits.
Garfield was ambidextrous, meaning he was as capable left-handed as he was right-handed. He was also fluent in not just English but also Latin and Greek. He combined these traits into an incredible party trick: The ability to write in Greek with one hand while simultaneously writing in Latin with the other.
Warren Harding gambled away the White House china
The legacy items in the White House don't really belong to the First Family, as they're intended to be heirlooms that stay in their place regardless of who the sitting president is. Warren Harding, president from 1921 to 1923, evidently didn't get the memo.
Harding enjoyed a weekly game of poker with friends, which is hardly unusual. What is unusual, however, is that he wagered stuff that wasn't his — in this case, the White House's set of fine china. In this case, he lost the china, which had been in the White House for decades at that point.
William Howard Taft was very particular about baths
A soothing bath is a great way to unwind for anyone, particularly the person who occupies one of the most important jobs in the world. William Howard Taft understood this, and the 27th president became well-known as somewhat of a bath (and bathtub) connoisseur.
While the story about the rotund Taft getting stuck in a bathtub is likely fiction, it's tied to his well-known affinity for baths. One true story is that Taft ordered a custom, seven-foot-long bathtub that weighed a literal ton to be constructed and loaded onto a ship for him to use on a trip to Panama.
Teddy Roosevelt had to stop getting into fights
Theodore Roosevelt was probably America's most rough-and-tumble president, as he enjoyed outdoor adventuring and pursuits that were seen as traditionally manly. One of these passions was boxing, or pugilism in general, something that Roosevelt took great delight in.
However, after becoming president, he decided that the top job in the country meant a few things — and one of these things was that it was "rather absurd for a president to appear with a black eye or a swollen nose or a cut lip." So, with a heavy heart, he stopped boxing.
James Madison was a short king
Well, "short king" might not be the most appropriate term here since the whole office of the president is a rejection of monarchs. Regardless, Madison will go down in history as the shortest president. Madison stood just five-foot-four and weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred pounds.
Of course, people were generally smaller in the early 19th century, which is when Madison was president. The average height of an American man in 1820 was around 5'6", so Madison wasn't even particularly tiny for his time period.
Gerald Ford was more than just a pretty face
By the time he became president, Gerald Ford was already in his sixties. But in his younger years, he was known for his athletic prowess and his good looks. Ford famously played college football for the Michigan Wolverines in his youth, but a lesser-known fact about the 38th president is that he was actually a part-time male model at the same time.
In 1942, he posed for the cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. In fact, Ford's dalliance with modeling is actually where he met his eventual wife.
Lincoln could have utilized elephants in the Civil War
The Civil War could have looked very different if President Lincoln had gone with an unconventional offer. During the conflict, the king of Siam (modern-day Thailand) offered Lincoln several breeding pairs of elephants to be used as beasts of burden.
While the elephants probably could have been utilized, Lincoln turned down the offer and opted for more conventional methods — trains and boats — to move heavy equipment around the battlefields. Elephants have been used in battles since antiquity, but they never made the leap to North America.
JFK received his last rites more than once
It's common knowledge that John F. Kennedy was gunned down in an assassination in 1963. The immediate aftermath included, naturally enough, a priest conferring the last rites to the dying president.
What's interesting is that this wasn't the first time JFK received his last rites. After being diagnosed with the endocrine disorder Addison's disease and falling ill, he was given his last rites during a 1947 trip to England. He was also given the sacrament in 1951 and again in 1954 in the midst of serious illnesses.
Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans
Ronald Reagan was revered by many for his steady, grandfatherly presence as commander in chief. But a look into his eating habits reveals that Reagan was very much a kid at heart.
The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library reports that he developed a jelly bean habit after using the candy as an aid to quit smoking. His favorite flavor was divisive: Black licorice. Another quirk of Reagan's culinary tastes was that he couldn't stand Brussels sprouts or tomatoes.
George H.W. Bush was a skilled athlete in his day
The first Bush to be elected into the White House graduated from Yale University in 1948 with an economics degree. While at Yale, he pursued more than just academia.
The elder Bush was, like his son, a member of the cheerleading squad. He was also captain of the Yale baseball team, playing first base for the Bulldogs in the 1940s. It was during this time that he greeted an ailing Babe Ruth before a game, pictured here.
Andrew Johnson had some odd pets
The first president to be impeached was also, most likely, the only president who befriended a family of mice in the White House. Unlike most presidents, Johnson didn't officially have any pets — but unofficially, he did dote on some white mice.
During his impeachment process, Johnson became reclusive, hanging out in the White House and greeting few visitors. It was during this time that he made contact with the mice, leaving water for the critters to drink.
William McKinley was briefly synonymous with big money
Certain figures become synonymous with amounts of money because they appear on bank notes — $100 bills are known as Benjamins for Ben Franklin, while Andrew Jackson is often associated with the $20 bills that he appears on.
Of course, the history of U.S. currency is long and strange, and certain denominations have fallen by the wayside. William McKinley was featured on the $500 bill, which was discontinued in 1969. The bills were always worth $500 by definition, but needless to say, they now sell for far more at auction.
Calvin Coolidge was one with the raccoons
Calvin Coolidge was known as Silent Cal for his dry, understated demeanor, but perhaps he should have been known as Raccoon Cal because the 30th president absolutely loved raccoons.
A live raccoon was sent to the White House for the First Family to have for dinner, but Coolidge didn't want to eat it. Instead, he and his family adopted the raccoon as a pet and named her Rebecca. It wasn't just a publicity stunt, either — the Coolidge family truly welcomed Rebecca into their family, and the animal has her own Wikipedia page.
We don't really know when George Washington was born
George Washington's birthday is generally believed to be February 22, 1732 — but it isn't known for certain if the first president was actually born on this day. The reason for this confusion is the Calendar Act that was passed by the British Parliament in 1751.
This act tweaked the calendar, adding 11 days to the calendar and creating no shortage of confusion when it came to listing past dates. This means that Washington may have actually been born on February 11.
Benjamin Harrison didn't trust electricity
We all take electricity for granted nowadays, so it's easy to forget that it was at one time a new, untested, and potentially dangerous form of technology. When the White House was first wired for electricity, the sitting president was Benjamin Harrison — and the Harrisons didn't trust the new technology one bit.
Harrison and his family chose not to tempt fate and never operated the lightswitches themselves. Instead, they'd ask servants to take on the risk and operate the switches. Weirdly, Harrison did like electricity enough that he frequently slept with the lights turned on.
John Adams' last words were fake news
The last words of John Adams were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." This was intended to be reassuring, in the sense that while Adams was on the verge of death, another noteworthy signer of the Declaration of Independence — Thomas Jefferson — was still around.
Unfortunately, Adams was dead wrong as Thomas Jefferson was already deceased at the time. Jefferson passed away about five hours before Adams, though of course there was no way for Adams to know this. Both men not only died on the same day, they also died 50 years to the day after they signed the famous document.
Theodore Roosevelt wouldn't let anything disrupt his speech
Most of us would probably want to take a moment after literally getting shot in the chest, but when this happened to Teddy Roosevelt, he was decidedly nonplussed. In 1912, during a campaign stop, Roosevelt was about to make a speech when a would-be assassin shot him in the chest.
The bullet lodged in Roosevelt's breast pocket and didn't do any damage. Roosevelt checked for blood or other damage, found none, and then coolly went on to make a speech that went on for more than an hour.
