Richard Lederer - Presidential Trivia

When George Washington became president in 1789, other national leaders included the king of France, the czarina of Russia, the emperor of China, and the shogun of Japan. Today, no king rules France, no czar rules Russia, no emperor rules China, and no shogun rules Japan. But the office of President of the United States endures.

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; Im beginning to believe it, quipped Clarence Darrow. Very few nations have a governmental system that allows anyone to become the leader of the country, in this case, the most powerful in the world. Our presidents have been highly educated and barely schooled: Woodrow Wilson earned a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University, while Andrew Johnson never attended school but was trained as a garment maker and wore only suits that he himself had custom tailored.

Our presidents have been filthy rich and dirt poor, generals and civilians, professional politicians and utter amateurs, sober as a judge and drunk as a skunk, eloquent and barely articulate, handsome and plug-ugly. In the past century alone, the White House has been occupied by the son of a Presbyterian minister, a schoolteacher, a peanut farmer, a failed haberdasher, a former actor, and the son of a failed California lemon rancher.

The framers of the Constitution could not have envisioned the power that the president now holds to influence world and domestic affairs. Our forefathers and foremothers could not have dreamt that presidents would be the subjects and objects of so much intense interest in their philosophies, opinions, policies, and personal lives.

Historian Henry Adams, the grandson and great-grandson of presidents, wrote that the president resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek. The voyages that our American presidents have steered on the ship of state are some of the brightest adventures that any nation has experienced since the dawn of civilization. To begin our exploration of our chief executives, lets review the names of the forty-three men (Grover Cleveland, for some bizarre reason, is traditionally counted twice) who have been President of the United States:

George Washington, 17891797

John Adams, 17971801

Thomas Jefferson, 18011809

James Madison, 18091817

James Monroe, 18171825

John Quincy Adams, 18251829

Andrew Jackson, 18291837

Martin Van Buren, 18371841

William Henry Harrison, 1841

John Tyler, 18411845

James Knox Polk, 18451849

Zachary Taylor, 18491850

Millard Fillmore, 18501853

Franklin Pierce, 18531857

James Buchanan, 18571861

Abraham Lincoln, 18611865

Andrew Johnson, 18651869

Ulysses Simpson Grant, 18691877

Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 18771881

James Abram Garfield, 1881

Chester Alan Arthur, 18811885

Grover Cleveland, 18851889

Benjamin Harrison, 18891893

Grover Cleveland, 18931897

William McKinley, 18971901

Theodore Roosevelt, 19011909

William Howard Taft, 19091913

Woodrow Wilson, 19131921

Warren Gamaliel Harding, 19211923

Calvin Coolidge, 19231929

Herbert Clark Hoover, 19291933

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 19331945

Harry S. Truman, 19451953

Dwight David Eisenhower, 19531961

John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 19611963

Lyndon Baines Johnson, 19631969

Richard Milhous Nixon, 19691974

Gerald Rudolph Ford, 19741977

James Earl Carter Jr., 19771981

Ronald Wilson Reagan, 19811989

George Herbert Walker Bush, 19891993

William Jefferson Clinton, 19932001

George Walker Bush, 20012008

Barack Hussein Obama, 2009

Presidential Precedents

Who was the first president born a united states citizen?

Martin Van Buren (18371841), our eighth president, entered the earthly stage on December 5, 1782, making him the first president born after the Declaration of Independence was signed. Eight presidents were born before 1776 as British subjects George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and, after Van Buren, William Henry Harrison. To put it another way, eight of our first nine presidents were not born in the United States; they were born in the American Colonies.

Who was the first president to be impeached?

If you answered Richard Nixon, youre mistaken. President Nixon resigned before any impeachment trial. Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton were tried under the articles of impeachment. Both were acquitted (Johnson by a single vote in the Senate), but, still, they were both impeached.

Quiz

First and foremost, heres a quiz about presidential firsts. You can be certain that the answers wont be of the gotcha! type that youve just read. If you arent a fan of quizzes, you can pass Go and leap right to the fascinating answers that follow the fascinating questions in this chapter and the two that follow.

Hint: The answers to the questions are, for the most part, in the order of when each president served.

1. Who was the first president born in a log cabin?

Andrew Jackson. Although several more have claimed it, there were only five others Millard Fillmore, James Buchanan, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, and James Garfield.

2. Who was the first president to appear on a postage stamp?

The first official U.S. government adhesive postage stamps were issued on July 1, 1847. George Washington appeared on the ten-cent denomination.

3. There have been six patches in American history when no former president was alive. Who was the first president to serve during years when no former president was alive?

[chuckle, chuckle; snort, snort] George Washington. There could be no former president alive during the term of our first president.