10 Fun Facts About George H. W. Bush

George Bush, the 41st President of the United States

1. George Herbert Walker Bush was born in Massachusetts in 1924, but grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut.  His father, Prescott Bush, was a prominent banker who entered politics and became a U.S. Senator in the 1950's.

2. Attending high school at the prestigious Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, Bush was a standout student and athlete, lettering in both baseball and soccer.  After graduating in the spring of 1942, Bush immediately joined the Navy's air service where, at just 18 years of age, he was the Navy's youngest aviator at the time of his enlistment.

3. As a naval aviator, Bush saw action in World War II in the Pacific theater, serving in the Battle of the Philippine Sea, which was one of the largest aerial battles of the war.  Stationed aboard the USS San Jacinto, Bush flew a total of 58 combat missions in torpedo bombers and received multiple medals and citations, including the Distinguished Flying Cross.

4. After returning from the war in 1945, Bush married Barbara Pierce and they eventually had six children.  Following his marriage, he began attending Yale, where he graduated in less than three years, earning a degree in economics.  He captained the Yale baseball team during his time there, and played in two College World Series.

5. After graduating from Yale, Bush began working for an oil company in Texas, and by 1951 had started his own oil exploration company.  A few years later, he helped start another oil company, Zapata Petroleum Corporation, and became the company's president.  By the early 1960's, Bush was a millionaire and had begun getting involved in local politics in Texas, serving in Houston as the chairman of the Harris County Republican Party.

6. In 1964, Bush ran for his first public office, attempting to win a seat in the U.S. Senate, like his father before him.  He lost badly to the incumbent Democrat, but won election to the U.S. House of Representatives two years later, becoming the first Republican to represent the Houston district in Washington.  He served two terms in the House before trying again in 1970 for the U.S. Senate.  He was again defeated and instead took an appointment by president Richard Nixon to become an ambassador to the United Nations.  Later, after serving as the director of the CIA for a year under Gerald Ford, Bush temporarily retired from politics in 1977, returning to Houston to serve as a bank chairman and to teach part-time at Rice University.

7. During the 1980 presidential primary season, Bush ran for the Republican nomination.  He gained a lot of momentum and national attention when he won the season's first contest in Iowa, defeating the presumed front-runner, Ronald Reagan, by a slim margin.  Reagan, however, surged back in the following weeks, and Bush eventually dropped out of the race.  After Reagan won the nomination later that year at the party's national convention, he named Bush as his running mate.

8. Bush served as vice-president under Reagan for the next 8 years, before running for president again in 1988 after Reagan's two terms were finished.  This time, he easily won the Republican nomination, and, following a bitter campaign against Democrat Michael Dukakis, won the presidency by a comfortable margin.  He became the first sitting vice-president since Martin Van Buren to be elected to the presidency (a span of more than 150 years).

9. Bush's presidency was primarily notable for the first Gulf War, in which the U.S. drove Iraqi forces out of oil-rich Kuwait, which Iraq had invaded in the summer of 1990.  Though the military operation was successful, Bush's popularity began to wane in the last half of his term, as people felt he had not finished the job with Iraq, leaving Saddam Hussein in power.  He was also widely criticized for breaking a prominent campaign promise about raising taxes.  Faced with an uphill battle for reelection in 1992 against a young, charismatic Bill Clinton, and a prominent third party candidate in fellow Texan Ross Perot, Bush lost his reelection bid.  To date, it was the last time a sitting president failed to win reelection.

10. After his presidency, Bush retired to his home in Houston, and in the years since, he has seen his oldest son, George W. Bush, serve two terms as president, as well as another son, Jeb Bush, serve as governor of Florida.  In 1999, he and his wife Barbara became the longest-married presidential couple in history, surpassing John and Abigail Adams.  Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn are roughly 18 months behind them.  The Bushes spend their time between their homes in Maine and Texas.    

10 Fun Facts About Woodrow Wilson

Woodrow Wilson, the 28th President of the United States

1. Born in Staunton, Virginia, in 1856, Thomas Woodrow Wilson was a child during the Civil War.  His father's parents had lived in Ohio and his grandfather had published an anti-slavery newspaper, but his father, a prominent presbyterian minister, had taken his family to Virginia in the early 1850's, owned slaves, and supported the Confederacy during the war.  Wilson grew up in Augusta, Georgia, where his father served as the minister of the First Presbyterian Church.

 

2. Though he was largely home-taught, and struggled learning to read as a child, possibly due to dyslexia, Wilson was a good student and eventually attended Princeton.  He later studied law at University of Virginia and though he did not graduate, he later passed the bar and briefly worked as a lawyer in Georgia.  In 1883, he began attending Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a Ph.D. in history and political science.

 

3. While attending graduate school, Wilson married Ellen Axson and together they had three daughters.  Shortly after their marriage, Wilson finished his studies and began teaching at Bryn-Mawr College. 

4. In 1890, Wilson began teaching law and political science at Princeton and quickly gained prominence, becoming president of the university in 1902.  He held this position until 1910, at which point he decided to leave academia and enter politics.  

5. Elected governor of New Jersey in 1910, Wilson quickly gained national prominence and decided to run for president in 1912.  After a heated Democratic National Convention, Wilson won the nomination on the 46th ballot, outmaneuvering Speaker of the House Champ Clark of Missouri.  In the general election, Wilson benefited from a split in the Republican party and won the White House with just 42% of the popular vote, but a landslide in electoral votes.  

6. Wilson was one of only two Democrats who served as president between 1861 and 1933, and was the first Southerner in the White House since Andrew Johnson left office in 1869.  

7. In 1914, Wilson's wife died, making him only the third (and, to date, last) president to be widowed while in office (John Tyler and Benjamin Harrison were the others).  Wilson remarried the following year to a local widow named Edith Galt.  

8. In 1915, Wilson became the first president to attend a World Series game, throwing out the first pitch of Game 2 between the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies.  

9. Narrowly winning reelection in 1916 against a progressive Republican, Wilson led the United States into World War One the following year.  Much of his second term was spent fighting with Congress for ratification of the Treaty of Versailles and America's entry into the League of Nations. Wilson had been one of the founders of the League of Nations, but Congressional Republicans blocked America's entry into the League because they feared it limited America's power to declare war independently.  

 

10. The fight over the League of Nations took its toll on Wilson's health, and for the last two years of his term, he was disabled by a series of strokes.  As there was, at that time, no clear constitutional precedent for what to do if a president became unable to perform his duties, Wilson's wife effectively led in his place.  The 25th amendment, adopted in 1967, finally addressed this issue directly.  Wilson died in 1924.    

10 Fun Facts About John Tyler

John Tyler, the 10th President of the United States

1. Born in March of 1790 in Virginia, about a year into George Washington's first term as president, John Tyler was the first U.S. president born after the adoption of the Constitution.  His father, also named John, was a friend of Thomas Jefferson, a prominent slave-owning politician and judge, and served as Virginia's governor in the early 1800's.  The house Tyler was born in, which was built by his father in the mid 1770's, still stands in Charles City County, Virginia, and is known as Greenway Plantation.

2. After attending the College of William and Mary, Tyler studied law and was admitted to the bar at only 19 years of age, opening a practice in Richmond.  He was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates just two years later at age 21 and served until 1816, when he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives.  In 1813, Tyler married Letitia Christian.  Together they had seven children.  When Letitia died during Tyler's presidency, he remarried in 1844 to Julia Gardner, the first president to marry while in office.  She was 30 years younger than him and together they, too, had seven children.  Tyler's 14 children are the most by any president.    

3. While serving in the House of Representatives, Tyler distinguished himself as independently-minded, a firm opponent of federalism and the national banking system, supporting the notion of states' rights and a limited federal government.  He was one of the main opponents to the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which limited slavery to only southern states.

4. After briefly leaving politics in the early 1820's, Tyler served two 1-year terms as Virginia's governor, starting in 1826.  During this time, he delivered the funeral address for his father's old friend Thomas Jefferson, who died in July of 1826.  In early 1827, he resigned as Virginia's governor to accept appointment to the U.S. Senate.

5. Choosing what he believed was the lesser of two evils, Tyler sided with Andrew Jackson over John Quincy Adams in the contentious presidential election of 1828 and thus allied himself with Jackson's new party, the Democrats.  It was an uneasy alliance, however, and during Jackson's second term, the independently-minded Tyler broke with the new party and joined into an equally uneasy alliance with the emerging Whig Party of Henry Clay.  This angered the Democrats of Virginia, who managed to force Tyler into resignation from the Senate in 1836.

6. Tyler was nominated by the Virginia Whigs for the vice-presidency in 1836, running together with Tennessee Whig Hugh L. White.  They placed third in the final voting, and Tyler returned to private life.  In 1838, however, he re-entered the Virginia House of Delegates as a Whig, where he was unanimously elected Speaker.  Two years later, he supported Henry Clay for the Whig nomination for presidency.  However, Ohioan William Henry Harrison was nominated instead, and Tyler was nominated again for the vice-presidency.  Though now representing Ohio, Harrison had been born at a sprawling plantation in Virginia just down the road from where Tyler was born.  "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too" won the election in a landslide and swept into office in 1841.  

7. Just one month after assuming office, Harrison became the first president to die in office.  Though the Constitution stipulated that the vice-president would assume the powers of the presidency upon a sitting president's death, it was unclear whether the vice-president would actually become the president or serve merely as the "acting president."  Tyler immediately asserted that he was, in fact, the new president, and took the presidential oath of office to confirm that fact.  After several months of debate, both the House and Senate confirmed that Tyler was, in fact, the 10th president of the United States.  Despite that, many continued to think of his presidency as illegitimate, and his detractors began referring to him as "His Accidency."

8. By the end of his first summer in office, Tyler had completely alienated the Whigs by vetoing two banking bills the Whig-controlled Congress had passed.  All but one of his cabinet members resigned in protest, hoping to force Tyler, himself, to resign.  When he refused, the Whigs officially expelled Tyler from the party - making him the only genuinely "independent" president since the advent of the 2-party system.  During his contentious term in office, he had more Supreme Court nominations and more cabinet nominations rejected than any other president in U.S. history.

9. Tyler was forced to form an independent third party in order to run for re-election in 1844, but after realizing that his chances for winning were slim, he dropped out of the race in August.  Democrat James K. Polk went on to win a slim victory over Henry Clay.  Tyler retired to his plantation in Virginia, named Sherwood Forest, where he spent his final years farming.

10. When the secession crisis broke out in 1861 following the election of Abraham Lincoln, the elderly Tyler took part in attempts to solve the crisis.  When those attempts failed and the Civil War finally broke out, Tyler (along with fellow ex-president Franklin Pierce) sided with the Confederacy.  Elected to the new Confederate House of Representatives, Tyler died on his way to the opening session in January of 1862.  Because he fathered children late in life, Tyler is the earliest U.S. president who still has grandchildren alive today - both were born in the 1920's.  One still owns and maintains Sherwood Forest in Charles City County, Virginia.     

10 Fun Facts About James Madison

James Madison, the 4th President of the United States

1. The oldest of twelve children, James Madison was born in 1751 in Virginia, the son of a prominent and wealthy plantation owner.  Called "Jemmie" by those who knew him, Madison's parents provided him with a classical education from a very young age, and Madison was fluent in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.

2. Graduating in 1771 from Princeton University, Madison studied law and theology for another year before returning to his home in Virginia and becoming active in politics.   He became closely allied with Thomas Jefferson and served in the Virginia state legislature in the late 1770's, where he helped author Virginia's laws on religious freedom.  He also served in the Continental Congress during the 1780's.

3. Madison was instrumental in arranging for the Constitutional Convention of 1787, and his so-called "Virginia Plan," which he wrote shortly before the start of the convention, became the basis for the U.S. Constitution.  Among other things, Madison's plan called for three branches of government - executive, legislative, and judicial - two houses of congress, and a system of checks and balances among the branches.

4. Following the Constitutional Convention, Madison played a key role in ensuring its ratification by the states by helping to the author the so-called "Federalist Papers."  These papers were actually a series of articles published in major newspapers addressing questions about the Constitution and how it would work if put into place.

5. After the Constitution was ratified and the new government put into place in early 1789, Madison was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served until 1797.  During his first few months in office, Madison proposed a slate of amendments to the Constitution which became the Bill of Rights.

6. Madison did not marry until the mid-1790's, when he was 43 years old.  His wife, Dolley Payne Todd, was a widow whose first husband and youngest son had died in a Yellow Fever epidemic.  James and Dolley married in 1794.  Despite the fact that Dolley was only in her early 20's at the time of the marriage, and already had given birth twice, she and James never had children.  Dolley's sister was married to a nephew of George Washington.

7. Madison briefly retired from politics at the end of Washington's second term in office, returning to oversee the affairs of his plantation.  When his friend and political colleague Thomas Jefferson became president in 1801, however, Madison returned to Washington, D.C., and became Jefferson's Secretary of State.  In that position, he was instrumental in securing the Louisiana Purchase from France and maintaining neutrality in the Napoleonic Wars that were raging in Europe.

8. Madison was the obvious choice to succeed Jefferson to the presidency in 1808.  With the old Federalist Party of Washington and Adams in ruins, Madison won easily, winning nearly 65% of the popular vote.  His presidency was marked primarily by a growing economy, unity in politics, and the War of 1812, in which Madison and his cabinet was forced to flee Washington from the invading British.  Madison's vice-presidents did not fare well: his first, George Clinton, died in office in 1812, while his second, Elbridge Gerry, died in office in 1814.

9. Madison left office in 1817 and retired to his plantation of Montpelier.  His plantation, however, was in decline and Madison suffered financial troubles for the remainder of his life.  He also became obsessed with his own legacy, going so far as to edit and modify letters, papers, and diaries from earlier in his life, worried about how future generations might view him.

10. Almost 80 years old in 1829, Madison served as a representative to a Virginia convention aimed at amending Virginia's constitution.  It would be his last official duty in politics, though he would continue to publish political papers and support certain causes.  A slave-owner his whole life, he became a supporter of the movement to provide a homeland in Africa for former slaves.  He died at age 85 in 1836, the last of the Founding Fathers.

10 Fun Facts About John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams, the 6th President of the United States

1. John Quincy Adams was born in Massachusetts in 1767, the son of John and Abigail Adams.  His namesake and maternal great-grandfather was John Quincy, a colonial British politician and military officer.  Adams' middle name was pronounced "Quinzy."

2. Adams spent much of his childhood in Europe with his father, earning a degree from Leiden University, in the Netherlands, when he was only 14 years old.  After his return to the United States in the mid-1780's, he studied law at Harvard and opened a practice in Boston in 1791.  He was fluent in most of the languages of Europe.

3. Though he initially resisted the urge to follow his father into a life of public service, he reluctantly agreed to serve in several overseas diplomatic posts during the Washington administration, and following those services, he remained in politics for the rest of his life.  Under Washington, he served first as the minister to the Netherlands, and later to Portugal.  During his father's administration in the late 1790's, he served as minister to Prussia.

4. While serving in his father's administration, Adams married Louisa Catherine Johnson.  Louisa's father was an American diplomat in London, and her mother was British.  Louisa and her siblings were all born in Great Britain, making Louisa Adams the only First Lady in U.S. history who was born and raised in a foreign country.  Together they had four children; in 1848, their youngest son, Charles Francis Adams, would run for vice-president with former president Martin Van Buren on the ticket of the Free Soil Party.

5. After his father lost his re-election bid to Thomas Jefferson in 1800, Adams returned from Europe and began practicing law again.  He ran for Congress in 1802 and lost.  Following this, however, the Massachusetts legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate (direct election, by popular vote, of U.S. Senators would not occur until the 17th Amendment was passed in the early 20th century).  Following his term in the Senate, Adams returned again to diplomacy, serving under James Madison as the minister to Russia and later Great Britain.

6. In 1817, Adams became Secretary of State for James Monroe, serving until 1825.  In that office, Adams was instrumental in obtaining Florida from the Spanish, establishing the modern border between Canada and the United States (in the Treaty of 1818), and authoring the influential Monroe Doctrine, which asserted U.S. interests in North and South America against European influence.

7. Adams was nominated for president in 1824, running against three other candidates in an election that is among the most controversial in U.S. history.  When the votes were counted, Andrew Jackson had the most popular votes and electoral votes, but not enough electoral votes to win the presidency (the Constitution requires the winning candidate to have a clear majority of the electoral votes).  As a result, the election was sent to the House of Representatives for a Constitutionally-required run-off election.  Speaker of the House Henry Clay was an opponent of Andrew Jackson and used his influence to sway the House to support Adams.  They elected him on the first ballot and Adams immediately rewarded Clay by making him the new Secretary of State.

8. Andrew Jackson was, needless to say, displeased with the result of the House run-off and accused Adams and Clay of corruption and backroom dealing.  With virtually no electoral mandate to speak of, and the enmity of Jackson's supporters in Congress, Adams' presidency was doomed almost from the start.  He served only one term before being decisively defeated in a rematch against Jackson in 1828.  The two men had become such bitter enemies that Jackson refused to pay the traditional courtesy call to Adams in the final weeks of Adams' term, and Adams did not attend Jackson's inauguration.  

9. Following his term as president, Adams became a respected elder statesman and, in 1830, was elected to the House of Representatives, serving 17 years.  He is the only U.S. president to serve in the House after his presidency.  In 1843, he had a series of photographs taken, making him the earliest-serving president to be photographed.  During his last term in Congress, he served alongside Illinois representative Abraham Lincoln, making him possibly the only man in U.S. history who personally knew George Washington and the other prominent Founding Fathers and Abraham Lincoln.  

10. Adams collapsed on the floor of Congress during a debate in February 1848 of an apparent stroke.  He died two days later in a room inside the Capitol building.  He was buried next to his parents in Quincy, Massachusetts. 

10 Fun Facts About Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States

1. Andrew Jackson was born in the Carolina colony in March of 1767 to Irish-born parents who had only emigrated to the colonies a few years earlier.  Born in a log cabin, he was the first of a string of 19th century presidents to have such humble beginnings.  His two older brothers were both born in Ireland.  Jackson's father died in an accident just a few weeks before he was born.  Because the border between North and South Carolina was not yet firmly established at the time of his birth, it is unclear exactly which state he was born in.

 

2. As a young teenager, Jackson served as a courier for the American forces in the Revolutionary War.  His oldest brother, Hugh, died in battle in 1779, and later both Andrew and his second brother, Robert, were captured by the British and held as prisoners of war.  Both contracted smallpox and Robert succumbed to the disease in 1781.  Shortly after his brother's death, Jackson was freed and his mother began serving as a nurse to American prisoners.  She came down with cholera as a result of this and died in November of 1781, leaving Jackson the only survivor of his family at age 14.  He would become the last president who was a veteran of the Revolutionary War.

 

3. Having no formal education, Jackson studied law in the 1780's and was admitted to the bar at the age of 20.  He began practicing law in the North Carolina town of Jonesborough, which is now in the eastern part of Tennessee.  In the 1790's he served as a delegate to the Tennessee constitutional convention, and when Tennessee was accepted as a state in 1796, he served as its first representative to the U.S. House.  He later served briefly as a U.S. Senator before being named to the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1798. 

 

4. Around 1790, Jackson began living with a married woman named Rachel Robards.  They were married shortly thereafter, even though Rachel was still not divorced from her first husband.  Eventually the divorce went through and the Jacksons remarried to make it legal, but this incident would later lead to charges of bigamy during his presidential career.  The couple never had children of their own, but they adopted three sons, two of whom were Indian.  They also became the guardians of several nieces and nephews after Rachel's brother died.  Later, four more children came under their roof after the death of a family friend.

 

4. In the early 1800's, Jackson began serving with the Tennessee militia and was elected Major General of the militia in 1802.  After leaving the Tennessee Supreme Court in 1804, he devoted himself full-time to his plantation, his business ventures, and his military career.  He became a wealthy slaveholder, land speculator, and horse breeder, and in 1804 built the Hermitage near Nashville, which would be his family home for the remainder of his life.  In 1806, after warring publicly with a rival attorney, Jackson killed the man in a duel and took a bullet to the chest for his efforts.  Lodged near his heart, the bullet was never removed.  This, and other duels and public brawls, gained Jackson a reputation as a quarrelsome and violent person.

 

5. During the War of 1812, Jackson first distinguished himself by leading American troops against Indian attacks in Georgia and Alabama, after which he successfully defeated the invading British armies at New Orleans in January of 1815.  Despite this battle taking place after the peace treaty ending the war had been signed (but before news of the treaty reached North America), Jackson became an instant celebrity.  It was during this time that he acquired his nickname, "Old Hickory." Jackson remained a prominent military figure after the war, winning more battles against Native American tribes throughout the South, and serving for a time in the early 1820's and the military governor of Florida. 

 

6. In 1822, Jackson re-entered politics, being elected to serve again as a U.S. Senator from Tennessee.  He was nominated for president in 1824, running against three other candidates.  Jackson won the popular vote and the electoral vote, but did not win enough electoral votes to gain the presidency (the Constitution requires a candidate to win a clear majority of the electoral votes; since there were four candidates splitting the votes, Jackson - despite winning the most overall - did not have a majority).  The election was thus thrown to the House of Representatives, which elected John Quincy Adams after a lengthy and contentious debate that lasted until February of 1825 - less than a month before the inauguration.  Jackson, who had reasonably expected to win the House run-off, was enraged and vowed to run again in 1828.

 

7. In order to solidify his chances in 1828, Jackson resigned from the Senate in 1825, and began forming a coalition of supporters that would eventually coalesce into the Democratic Party.  During the 1828 election, Jackson's opponents frequently referred to him as "the Jackass," and while it was meant as a slur, Jackson - ever the shrewd politician - turned it into his official campaign symbol.  After Jackson's departure from mainstream politics, the image fell out of use, but was revived again in the 1870's and has become the familiar mascot of the Democratic Party.

 

8. Jackson defeated Adams in the rematch of 1828, and went on to serve two prominent terms in the White House.  He turned the office into a powerful one that took the lead on issues facing the country, both domestic and foreign.  Among his actions in office were opposing the national banking system and overseeing its dismantling (Jackson would probably turn over in his grave if he knew his face was on federal currency), paying off the national debt (the only time in U.S. history this has occurred), and instituting what became known as the "patronage system" in federal politics - appointing party loyalists to prominent federal positions.  This system became heavily corrupted over the years and was finally ended in the 1880's.  

 

9. Jackson's wife Rachel died two weeks after his election to the presidency in 1828.  As a result, his wife's niece served throughout Jackson's term as hostess of the White House (the title "First Lady" did not enter widespread use until the latter part of the 19th century). This niece's husband, Andrew Jackson Donelson, would later run for vice-president in the 1850's on the anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic platform of the American Party.  During the last few years of Jackson's presidency, his daughter-in-law also served as White House hostess, marking the only time in U.S. history that two women have served traditional First Lady roles.  In 1832, his first vice-president, John C. Calhoun, resigned over a scandal involving the wives of Jackson's cabinet, the first time a vice-president had ever resigned from office.   

 

10. Jackson died of tuberculosis and chronic heart failure in Tennessee in 1845.  In 1835, he had become the first sitting president to experience an assassination attempt.  An unemployed British immigrant fired shots from two pistols at him as the president was leaving a Washington funeral.  Both pistols misfired and the assassin was captured by onlookers.  He was eventually committed to an insane asylum after telling investigators that he was King Richard III of England - who had been dead for 250 years.  Jackson lived long enough to become the second earliest president to be photographed.  The other was his political nemesis John Quincy Adams, who outlived him by three years.     

10 Fun Facts About Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States

1. William Jefferson Clinton was born in August of 1942 in Hope, Arkansas.  At birth, his name was William Jefferson Blythe III, named for his biological father, who died in a car accident three months before his son was born.  Clinton's mother later remarried, and he eventually took his stepfather's name.  Despite this, Clinton's stepfather was an abusive alcoholic who died of cancer in 1967.

2. Deciding as a teenager that he wanted to be a politician, Clinton earned an undergraduate degree from Georgetown University, and later studied at Oxford before earning a law degree from Yale.  At Yale he met Hillary Rodham, a fellow law student, and they were married in 1975.  They have one child, Chelsea, who was a teenager during her father's time in office.

3. Clinton's first foray into politics occurred in 1972, when he helped coordinate the Dallas office of Democrat George McGovern's presidential bid.  While working on the McGovern campaign, Clinton met Steven Spielberg, who was, at the time, a little known TV director.  The two have remained friends ever since.

4. Clinton ran for Congress in 1974, but was defeated by the Republican incumbent.  Two years later, he was elected Attorney General for Arkansas in an uncontested election.  Only two more years after that, he was elected governor.  At the age of 32, he was the youngest governor in the nation, and the second youngest elected in the 20th century.  He lost his re-election bid in 1980, but won again in 1982 and kept the office until his presidential bid in 1992.

5. Clinton considered a White House run in 1988.  This was in the middle of one of his terms as governor, and the idea was floated that if he resigned as governor to run for president, Hillary might run to replace him as governor of Arkansas.  The idea was eventually dropped, and Clinton gave his support to Democrat Michael Dukakis.  He also delivered the opening night address of the Democratic National Convention that year, as one of the party's rising stars.

6. In 1992, Clinton ran for president against six other contenders, including the popular California governor, Jerry Brown.  Despite a slow start in the primaries, Clinton began attracting attention late in the primary season and ended up winning the nomination.  In the general election, he faced George H.W. Bush, who had seen his popularity during the Gulf War evaporate under a broken pledge not to raise taxes and a weak economy.  In addition to this, the Republican ticket was largely split by a major third party run from Texas billionaire Ross Perot.  Perot ended up winning almost 20% of the popular vote.  Clinton won the election with 43% of the popular vote, the lowest total for a winning candidate since 1912, and the second lowest since 1860.

7. Clinton's time as president was a successful one for the country, though Clinton himself remained consistently under scrutiny from his political enemies.  Despite this, he managed to pass a significant amount of popular legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the North American Free Trade Act, the Brady Bill regarding gun control, bills on immigration reform and welfare reform, a balanced budget bill, and Don't Ask/Don't Tell, which effectively allowed gays to serve in the military.  He attempted to pass a major bill overhauling healthcare early in his presidency, but this measure was defeated in Congress.  In 1994, the Clinton administration launched the first White House website.

8. Despite legislative success and a booming economy, the last few years of Clinton's presidency were marred by the revelation of an affair with a White House intern, which Clinton lied about while under oath.  This led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives, the first such action taken by the U.S. House since the 1860's.  The Senate, despite having a significant Republican majority, acquitted him of the charges.

9. Unlike most presidents, whose approval ratings tend to drop over time, particularly during their second term, Clinton's actually improved significantly during his second term, and he left the White House with an approval rating between 65 and 70%, the highest for any president upon leaving office.  His peak approval rating, about 75%, actually came right in the middle of the impeachment proceedings against him in late 1998 and early 1999.

10. Having taken the White House as one of America's youngest presidents, Clinton has had a prominent post-presidential career, writing a best-selling memoir and devoting his time to charity work with other former presidents.  He has also remained active in politics, supporting his wife in her own presidential run in 2008 and through her term as Secretary of State under Barack Obama.  Clinton has won two Grammy awards for spoken word albums, and although he was the first president to win a Grammy, both Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have since won the award as well.  Hillary Clinton has also won a Grammy.  Clinton's vice-president, Al Gore, has controversially won both an Oscar and a Nobel Prize.  

10 Fun Facts About Calvin Coolidge

Calvin Coolidge, the 30th President of the United States

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1. John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., was born in Vermont in 1872, the only U.S. president born on the Fourth of July.  His father was a successful farmer and small business owner, and later served in both the Vermont House of Representatives and state Senate.  His mother died when he was 12 years old.  After attending Amherst College and then studying law, he opened his own law practice in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1898.

2. In 1905, Coolidge married Grace Anna Goodhue.  They had first met several years earlier after Grace caught site of Calvin shaving in front of a window in nothing but long underwear and a hat.  The hat, apparently, was worn to keep hair out of his face while he shaved.  Together they had two sons.  At the age of 16, and while his father was president, the younger son, Calvin, developed a blister on his foot after playing tennis and died a week later from sepsis.  The elder son, John, became a successful businessman and died in 2000.

3. Coolidge enter local politics in the early 1900's, holding several locally-elected offices.  It was during this time that he suffered the only electoral defeat of his career - a seat on the Northampton school board.  In 1906, he won a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives as a Republican, later served as the mayor of Northampton, then served in the Massachusetts Senate, where he eventually became Senate president.

4. Following his time in the Massachusetts Senate, Coolidge served several terms as lieutenant governor to Samuel McCall before being elected governor himself in 1918.  Coolidge was a moderate Republican: fiscally conservative, but supporting women's suffrage and opposing prohibition.  He gained national prominence among Republicans in 1919 when he helped put down a strike, with subsequent riots, in Boston involving police officers who were attempting to unionize.

5. At the 1920 Republican National Convention, Coolidge was discussed as a possible presidential candidate, but ended up coming in 6th on the balloting.  However, his name was brought up again during the balloting for vice-president, and he unexpectedly won the nomination to be Warren G. Harding's running mate.

6. It was during his time as vice-president that Coolidge earned the nickname "Silent Cal."  Though he was known for being an eloquent public speaker, in private he was withdrawn and quiet, typically deferring to his wife, who was equally known for her outgoing personality.  His tendency to withdraw from social situations intensified after the death of his son in 1924.

7. President Harding died suddenly in August of 1923, while Coolidge happened to be visiting his father in Vermont.  By that time, his father was a notary public, so in the presence of gathered reporters around 2:30 in the morning, he administered the oath of office to his son, after which the unexcitable Coolidge went back to bed.  There was some concern over whether a state notary public had the authority to administer the oath, so it was re-administered after Coolidge returned to Washington.

8. After finishing Harding's term, Coolidge was easily nominated for president in 1924, and despite a third-party candidate who effectively split the Republican Party, Coolidge still won in a landslide, thanks largely to a booming, post-war economy.  His inaugural speech that year was the first in history to be broadcast on the radio.  Though he had been associated with the Progressive faction of the Republican Party early in his career, as president he moved toward the right, embracing low taxes, deregulation of industry, decreased government spending, and famously stating that "the chief business of the American people is business."  His Secretary of Commerce was Herbert Hoover.  

9. Coolidge opted not to run for re-election in 1928, noting that it would mean he would be president for ten years, and ten years was simply too much.  He had very famously butted heads with his own vice-president, Charles Dawes, on numerous occasions, and when the 1928 Republican Nation Convention considered putting Dawes on the ticket with Herbert Hoover, Coolidge intervened and stated that he would take such a move as a personal insult.  The convention honored his wishes and chose Charles Curtis instead.  Dawes would later win a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to rebuild Europe following World War I.

10. In his retirement, Coolidge wrote his memoirs and also wrote a syndicated newspaper column in the early 1930's.  Like his old running mate before him, Warren G. Harding, Coolidge died unexpectedly of a heart attack in January of 1933.  He was buried in a simple plot in the town cemetery of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where he was born.

10 Fun Facts About Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th President of the United States

1. Hiram Ulysses Grant was born near Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1822.  Growing up in rural Georgetown, Ohio, he entered West Point in 1839.  His mother's maiden name was Simpson, and on his admittance papers to West Point, his name was mistakenly listed as Ulysses S. Grant (with the initial standing for his mother's maiden name).  Rather than correct the mistake, Grant decided to keep it, recognizing its patriotic implications.

2. Grant was a poor student who frequently got in trouble at West Point for refusing to attend required church services.  He excelled in horsemanship, but upon graduation he was overlooked for the cavalry appointed to the 4th U.S. Infantry.

3. Grant served with distinction during the Mexican War of 1846-48, and upon returning home in 1848, married his longtime girlfriend, Julia Boggs Dent - who was a sister to Grant's West Point roommate.  Grant's parents disapproved of the match because Julia's parents were slaveholders; they subsequently refused to attend the wedding.  The Grants had four children, three boys and a girl.

4. Now a captain, Grant remained in the military until 1854, at which time he abruptly resigned due, in part, to continual drinking problems that threatened his position.  Stationed in California at the time, he returned to his wife and children in Missouri, where he took over his father-in-law's farm in St. Louis.  Unable to produce much income, he briefly became a bill-collector before accepting a job with his father's tanning business in Galena, Illinois.  The Grants and their four children settled there in 1860.

5. Upon the outbreak of the Civil War a year later, Grant - being the only military professional in the area - was asked to assist in raising volunteers for the war effort.  Invigorated by the opportunity to do something other than farm or sell leather goods, Grant obliged.  He also began applying for reinstatement into the regular Army.  These applications, however, were ignored, and instead Grant was given command of the 21st Illinois Volunteers.  He was promoted to the rank of colonel, thanks to a recommendation from U.S. Congressman Elihu Washburne, who happened to be from Galena.

6. By February of 1862, Grant had led his regiment in a series of bold and successful battles along the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers.  News of his successes spread across the nation and Abraham Lincoln promoted him to Major General.

7. In March of 1864, after continued success, Grant was elevated to Commanding General of the U.S. Army.  In 1866, Congress created a new rank for him, called General of the Army, and he became the first 4-star general.  That same rank would later be used for the 5-star generals of the World War II era.

8. Following the disastrous presidency of Andrew Johnson, Grant was unanimously nominated by the Republicans for the 1868 presidential election.  His popularity as a general helped him win in a landslide.  At age 46, he was the youngest man (at the time) ever elected to the presidency, and the first person to be elected president while both of his parents were still living.

9. Grant served two terms in the White House, and his presidency was marked by a return to stability following the war and Reconstruction Era, but marred by numerous scandals involving his cabinet and other appointees.  Following his presidency, Grant and his wife embarked on a high profile publicity tour around the world that lasted more than two years.  Upon his return, Grant ran for president again in 1880, but narrowly failed to win the Republican nomination, which instead went to James A. Garfield.

10. His trip around the world, as well as several failed business ventures, left Grant virtually destitute, with only his military pension as income (his pension had been forfeited when he became president, but an act of Congress restored it). As a result, at the behest of his friend Mark Twain, he decided to write his memoirs as a way to make money; Twain functioned as the publisher.  He finished the 2-volume work just a few days before his death of throat cancer in 1884.  The book became an immediate bestseller.  Grant was buried in New York, in what would prove to be the biggest mausoleum in the United States - Grant's Tomb.

10 Fun Facts About William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft, the 27th President of the United States

1. William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1857.  His father, Alphonso Taft, was a prominent lawyer who later served as both Attorney General and Secretary of War under Ulysses S. Grant.

2. Like his father before him, Taft attended Yale, graduating second in his class, then returned to Cincinnati in 1878 to study law.  He met Nellie Herron the following year, and they were married in 1886.  Nellie's father was a law partner of president Rutherford B. Hayes.  Nellie suffered a stroke just a few months after her husband became president and she never fully recovered.

3. Taft rose in prominence very quickly after being admitted to the Ohio bar in 1880.  He served first as an Assistant Prosecutor in Cincinnati, and by 1887, at only 30 years of age, he was elected as a judge to the Ohio Superior Court in Cincinnati.  Three years later, Benjamin Harrison appointed him as Solicitor General of the United States, arguing cases before the U.S. Supreme Court.

4. Following his term as Solicitor General, Taft was appointed in 1892 as a judge to the Cincinnati-based 6th Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals.  During his time as a circuit judge, his old law school was merged with the University of Cincinnati to become UC's College of Law, and Taft served as its first dean and taught Constitutional Law there.

5. Taft's lifelong ambition had been to serve as a justice for the U.S. Supreme Court, and everything he had done in his career up to that time had been in preparation for this goal.  However, in 1900, William McKinley asked him to take part in organizing a government for the Philippines, which had just been ceded to the United States as a result of the Spanish-American war.  Taft reluctantly agreed, becoming Governor-General of the new territory in 1901.

6. Following McKinley's death in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt offered to nominate Taft to the Supreme Court, and although this was Taft's undoubted ambition, he declined the offer because he felt that his job was not yet done in the Philippines.  Instead, Taft became Secretary of War in 1904, a position which would allow him to continue his work in building the Philippines.  He again turned down an offer for the Supreme Court in 1906.

7. Although he regretted his decision, Roosevelt had promised, in 1904, not to run for re-election in 1908.  Since Taft had become such a prominent figure in Roosevelt's cabinet by this time, it was apparent to everyone that he was the logical choice of the Republican party for the 1908 presidential election.  Though Taft still wanted ultimately to serve on the Supreme Court, he accepted the nomination at the urging of numerous friends and companions, including his wife.  The extremely popular Roosevelt heartily supported his campaign and Taft won easily, taking 66% of the electoral vote.

8. During his time in the White House, Taft departed from many of the progressive standards established by his predecessor, and by 1912, Roosevelt was so disgusted with his former protege that he decided to challenge Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination.  Twelve states held primaries that year, and Roosevelt won nine of them, while Taft won only one (the others went to a third candidate).  Despite this, Taft managed to outmaneuver Roosevelt at the national convention, and ultimately won the nomination.  Roosevelt, however, formed his own party, the Progressive Party, and ran on that ticket.  With the Republican votes thus split, Democrat Woodrow Wilson won easily.  Roosevelt, on the Progressive Party ticket, won more of the percentage vote, and more of the electoral vote, than Taft on the Republican ticket, making Taft's defeat the worst in U.S. history of an incumbent president.  It is also the only time since the advent of the 2-party system that one of the major parties has come in third in an election.

9. Following his presidency, Taft taught law at Yale, and vigorously opposed the prohibition movement, which had been gaining steam for some time.  In 1921, when the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court died, president Warren G. Harding nominated ex-president Taft to succeed him.  His nomination was easily ratified by the Senate, and thus Taft became the first and only person in U.S. history to lead both the Executive and Judicial branches of the U.S. government.

10. Taft is most commonly remembered today for his corpulence.  While president, he famously became stuck in a White House bathtub and rescuers had to use butter to help free him.  He is known to have suffered from sleep apnea due to his weight, and there are numerous contemporary reports of his prodigious appetite and his flatulence problem.  He retired from the Supreme Court in 1930 and died several weeks later.  He and John F. Kennedy are the only two presidents buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

The Emancipation Proclamation: 150th Anniversary

The first page of the handwritten Emancipation Proclamation

As we approach the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, I thought a little background might be useful in understanding this important milestone in U.S. History.  I have divided the following information up into numbered sections, simply for ease of reading.

ONE

The Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln in late 1862, scheduled to take effect on January 1, 1863.  As an executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation was not a law, but an order issued under the Constitutional powers of the president.  It sought to free slaves in areas that were then in rebellion, and made a precedent for using those freed slaves as soldiers in the Union cause.

TWO

Although Lincoln privately asserted that he personally wished to see an end to all slavery, his public position on slavery was never an abolitionist one.  On the contrary, he expressed his belief that the federal government did not have the legal right to outlaw slavery in the states, and said, instead, that his only goal was to keep slavery from spreading outside those states where it already existed.

In his first inauguration speech, in 1860, he stated emphatically: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists.  I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

THREE

Despite misconceptions to the contrary, the Emancipation Proclamation did not actually outlaw slavery, or free all the slaves.  It only freed those people who were slaves in territories that were in rebellion against the United States as of January 1, 1863.  As such, the Union slave states of Kentucky, Delaware, Maryland, and Missouri were exempted from the order, and their slaves would not be freed until they did it themselves (Maryland in 1864 and Missouri in early 1865) or until after the war and Lincoln's death, with the passage of the 13th Amendment in December, 1865 (Kentucky and Delaware).

It also did not affect slaves in regions of the Confederacy that had already come back under U.S. control (such as Tennessee, parts of Virginia, and the area around New Orleans).  Overall, nearly a million slaves (about 25% of the total) were exempted from the proclamation, and thus legally remained in slavery.

FOUR

In light of Lincoln's insistence that he had no intention of ending slavery, why did he change his mind and issue the Emancipation Proclamation?  Quite simply, it served two political purposes: first to threaten the Confederacy, then to punish it.

The proclamation was issued in September, 1862, and stated that any area still in rebellion as of January 1, 1863, would have its slaves permanently and irrevocably freed.  As such, it served as a threat.  The threat didn't work, however; no states or territories within the Confederacy returned to the Union.

As such, when January 1 rolled around, it became a punishment: you have rebelled against the United States, so you will be punished by having your slaves freed as our armies move through and subdue your territories.  Since slaves were legally only property, they could be confiscated as part of the normal course of a war.

It's interesting to speculate about what might have happened if the states of the Confederacy had actually bowed to the threat of emancipation.  What if the rebellious southern states had put down their weapons and returned to the fold before the January 1 deadline?  Slavery certainly wouldn't still exist now, in the 21st century, but it may have carried on for several more decades than it actually did.

FIVE

Despite this, there can be no question that Lincoln's true motivation was not threats or punishments at all, but actually ending slavery.  There is also virtually no doubt that he never expected the "threat" to work; he surely didn't expect the rebellious states to drop their weapons and hang their heads in submission.  He had always publicly stated his opposition to abolition, on Constitutional grounds, but the war gave him an opportunity to get around the normal limits of the Constitution and ultimately end what he viewed as the immoral institution of slavery.

SIX

So how, exactly, did Lincoln achieve this?  After all, he had said himself, just two years earlier at his inauguration, that he had no legal right to free slaves.  So how did he justify his actions?

There is positively no question that the U.S. Constitution, in 1862, did not give the federal government the right to interfere with slavery in the states.  The 10th Amendment states that any power not expressly given to the federal government in the Constitution automatically becomes a right of the individual states.  Therefore, since the power to control slavery isn't given in the Constitution to the federal government, it must by default be a state's right.  This is why Lincoln, and most everyone else, never embraced abolition as a legal right of the federal government.  It was unquestionably a state's right.

But because the South had rebelled and was now at war with the Union, Lincoln could use the excuse of hastening the war's end by taking actions aimed at ruining the economy of the enemy - in this case ending slavery.  Many people throughout the Union, and particularly in Congress, had argued that ending slavery would decimate the South's economy and thus bring an end to the war.

This, then, is how Lincoln justified the Emancipation Proclamation from a legal standpoint.  He argued that hastening an end to the war through economic ruin was necessary to preserve the Union.  He further argued that since the president is the commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, he has the Constitutional right and responsibility to do whatever he deems necessary to achieve a military victory, particularly when it affects the very preservation of the Union.  Remember that the Constitution charges the president with the duty to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution, and Lincoln saw preserving the Union as his primary duty as a wartime president.

SEVEN

One argument that Lincoln could not make, and which no doubt caused him more than a few nights of fret, was that he had the right to end slavery because the Confederacy was not part of the United States.

Normally, if a country is at war with another country, and intends to overtake and rebuild that opposing country, setting up military rule and suspending the old civil laws is typically fair game.  This is what the Allies did in Germany in World War II, and what numerous other nations have done in wars throughout history.

So Lincoln might have argued that he had the Constitutional right to free Confederate slaves simply because the Confederacy was a foreign nation that the United States was at war with.  Anything goes, as it were.

Lincoln would no doubt have loved to make this argument.  But he couldn't, because he had spent the first two years of his presidency arguing vociferously that secession was not legal to begin with, the Confederacy was not a legal or legitimate nation, and the states comprising the Confederacy were still part of the "perpetual union" of the United States.  This, in fact, had been his entire justification for waging war against the southern states in the first place: they had seceded illegally, were thus in open rebellion against the Union, and the federal government thus had the right and responsibility to subdue them and bring them back into the fold.    

With that in mind, he couldn't now turn around and claim that he had the right to free the slaves based on the fact that the Confederacy was a foreign nation and the U.S. was not obligated to recognize its laws.  That would have been a "flip-flop" and it wouldn't have sat very well with his supporters, his generals, or his soldiers dying in the fields to preserve the Union.

EIGHT

It's probably fair to say that the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional.  That may sound shocking to a lot of people, but it was a common perception and criticism at the time.  Anti-war sentiment was very common throughout the North, especially in the first few years of the war.  Many people believed that the best way to end slavery in the United States was simply to let the slave states secede and go their merry way; that slaves weren't worth fighting a war over; that as long as slavery didn't expand from those states where it already existed, it wasn't a big deal.

Today we imagine a Union united behind the cause of freeing the slaves, but the fact is that the primary impetus for Union soldiers to fight wasn't freeing slaves; it was preserving the Union.  With the exception of the abolitionists, who represented just a small percentage of the whole Union population, most people didn't really have a problem with slavery continuing in the South.  Most people figured it would eventually die out on its own, and there were even political movements to give federal aid to states that voluntary repealed their own slavery laws.

So there were many critics of the Emancipation Proclamation when it was enacted, and some of their criticisms, from a purely Constitutional point of view, were probably valid.  No one, of course, questions the ethical and moral rightness of the document.  But if we look, for a moment, at the Emancipation Proclamation the way a Supreme Court justice might look at it, we're forced to accept the possibility that the entire thing was unconstitutional.

I've already provided Lincoln's own justification for issuing the proclamation.  If that passage sounded like a lot of legal mumbo jumbo and hair-splitting, that's because it basically is.  The Constitution makes the president the commander-in-chief of the military, but it also assumes that the president will be commanding the military against foreign enemies, not internal ones.  And aside from giving the president this broad power, the Constitution is mute on what, exactly, the president can do as commander-in-chief.  Hire and fire generals, certainly.  Make military decisions during times of war, absolutely.  But the actual power of waging war and conducting war belongs to Congress, not the president.  It is highly questionable whether Lincoln, in his capacity as commander-in-chief, actually had the constitutional right to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.  His justification was, in my opinion, on very shaky legal ground, and probably overstepped his constitutional powers.

NINE

Even if we accept that Lincoln had the legal power to issue the proclamation, as part of his wartime powers, there is almost no question whatsoever that the wording of the proclamation itself was unconstitutional.

The key phrase comes in the very beginning of the text: "[Beginning January 1, 1863], all persons held as slaves [within the Confederacy] shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free."

In other words, the proclamation isn't vague at all: as of January 1, 1863, slaves held in any territories rebelling against the Union will not just be freed, but will be forever free.

The problem here is that even by Lincoln's own justification, this proclamation was issued as part of the presidential war powers.  As such, it could only be understood to be in effect as long as the war continued.  Once the war ended, the order could no longer be in effect - meaning that the proclamation didn't actually have the legal authority to declare slaves freed under its powers as "forever" free.

The fact is that if so much of the country had not been focused on waging and winning the existing war, it is a very good possibility that the Emancipation Proclamation might have been challenged in court, and it is difficult to say with any degree of certainty that it would have been upheld as legal.

TEN

In the end, the Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important executive orders ever issued by any president.  It was radical, it was provocative, and it might even have been unconstitutional.  But it undoubtedly gave a new focus to the war and a new expectation of the war's outcome and ultimate purpose.

Yet, at the same time, it was in many ways very limited.  It did not end slavery.  It left nearly 25% of existing slaves in servitude.  It did not make the practice of slavery illegal.  It did not have any authority beyond the war itself, or upon any part of the U.S. not currently in rebellion as of January 1, 1863.  Upon its initial implementation, it hardly affected any slaves at all - the slaves that would eventually be freed by it would not be freed until the Union armies reached them, which in many cases would be many months, and even years, later.  As one critic has cynically pointed out, the only slaves it freed were those in areas not controlled by the Union - in other words, the enemy is not allowed to have slaves, but we'll keep our own.

Despite this, it is hard to underestimate the importance of this provocative historical document, and the impact is has played on racial issues in the United States for the 150 years since it was enacted.

This photograph was taken in early October, 1862, just a few weeks after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued, to take effect the following January.

10 Fun Facts About Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States

1. Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky, about 40 miles south of Louisville, in 1809.  Named for his paternal grandfather, who had been murdered in an Indian attack about 20 years before his birth, Lincoln's maternal grandfather's name is not known.  His mother, Nancy Hanks, was born out of wedlock (possibly even the result of rape), and her maiden name was not her father's name, but her mother's.  The actor Tom Hanks is a distant relative.

2. Despite the common belief (made famous during his 1860 presidential campaign) that Lincoln was born into virtual poverty, his father was a large landowner and, according to a number of historians, among the richest individuals in LaRue County, Kentucky, at the time of Lincoln's birth.

3. When Lincoln was still a boy, the family moved to Indiana, partly as a result of land disputes in Kentucky, and partly because of the family's strict opposition to slavery, which was legal in Kentucky.  His mother died a few years later, in 1818.  His father remarried, but in 1820 the family moved to Illinois, due to an outbreak of the same disease that had killed his mother two years earlier.

4. Lincoln is known to have been taught as a child by a series of traveling instructors, but otherwise had no formal education.  An avid reader, he was admitted to the Illinois bar in 1836 as a completely self-taught lawyer.

5. Lincoln's love life was complicated: according to his step-mother, he "never took much interest" in girls as a young man, and isn't known to have been romantically involved with any woman until his late 20's.  At that time, he was involved with a woman named Ann Rutledge, and when she died in 1835, he was evidently crushed.  Not long after, he became involved with a woman named Mary Owen, but broke off their relationship because she got too fat.  In his early 30's, Lincoln met and got engaged to Mary Todd, but called it off shortly before their January, 1841, marriage.  A year or so later, they rekindled their relationship, and were finally married in late 1842.  A number of writers and historians, going as far back as Carl Sandburg in 1926 (whose Lincoln biography won a Pulitzer Prize), have questioned Lincoln's sexual orientation, suggesting he may have been gay or at least bisexual.  Others have dismissed these theories as unlikely and supported only by circumstantial evidence.

6. The Lincolns had four children, but only one lived to adulthood.  Lincoln's sister had died in the 1820's giving birth to a stillborn child, and since Lincoln himself only had one son who lived to give him grandchildren, he had very few descendants.  His last descendant, a great-grandson named Robert, died in 1985 in Virginia.

7. In addition to his law practice, Lincoln served as a member of the Illinois General Assembly throughout the 1830's and 40's, then served one term as a U.S. Congressman from 1846 to 1848, where he took a firm anti-war stance regarding the Mexican-American War that was being waged by president James K. Polk.

8. After leaving Congress in 1848, Lincoln spent the 1850's making himself famous as a lawyer and public speaker, and while he lost bids for U.S. Senate in both 1854 and 1858, the speeches he gave in those campaigns made him a national figure and a rising star in the new anti-slavery Republican party.  He was nominated for president in 1860 and won by defeating three other candidates who effectively split the Democratic vote three ways.  Although Lincoln was not an abolitionist, and had on numerous occasions stated that his only goal was to keep slavery from expanding to new territories, the slave states of the South seceded after his victory, certain that his election spelled doom for their rights to own slaves.

9. After the start of the Civil War, which began shortly after Lincoln took office, Lincoln did eventually free the slaves, in his now famous Emancipation Proclamation.  Many people questioned if he actually had the legal right to do this; Lincoln defended the move by saying it fell under his authority as head of the military.  He argued that, because the South was in rebellion, he had the right, as commander-in-chief, to suspend their civil laws.  Despite misconceptions to the contrary, the Emancipation Proclamation only affected states and territories that were, as of January 1, 1863, still in rebellion to the Union.  Thus, Kentucky and three other border slave-states were excluded, and their slaves were not freed until the 13th Amendment was passed in 1865.

10. Lincoln was assassinated in Washington, D.C., on April 14, 1865, just weeks after the war officially ended.  His assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was chased down and shot to death about a month later.  Several months after that, four people were hanged for conspiring with Booth, including the first woman ever executed under federal law in U.S. history.

10 Fun Facts About James Buchanan

James Buchanan, the 15th President of the United States

1. James Buchanan was born in a Pennsylvania log cabin in 1791, one of eleven children born to his parents. His father, also named James, was an immigrant from Ireland and was a well-respected businessman and farmer. Buchanan attended Dickinson College in the early 1800's, and after being expelled for bad behavior (which included heavy drinking, "cigar smoking," and practical jokes), he was later allowed to return and eventually graduated with honors in 1809.

2. Buchanan studied law after graduating from college and became a member of the Federalist party. He served in the defense of Baltimore during the War of 1812, and was also active in the Freemasons.

3. Following the end of the war, Buchanan served at term in the Pennsylvania legislature, then moved on to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served from 1821 to 1831. Following the collapse of the Federalist party in the 1820's, Buchanan joined the new Jacksonian party, which would eventually come to be known as the Democratic party. After serving a brief stint as the U.S. Minister to Russia, he returned to the States to fill a vacancy in the U.S. Senate in 1834. He remained in the Senate until 1845, when he resigned to become Secretary of State under James K. Polk.

4. During his tenure as Secretary of State, he turned down an offer to become a justice for the U.S. Supreme Court, and instead focused his attention on negotiating the Oregon Treaty with Great Britain, which ultimately settled a long-standing dispute regarding territorial ownership in the Pacific Northwest. The present border between the state of Washington in the U.S., and British Columbia in Canada, was established by this treaty. To date, Buchanan is the last Secretary of State who eventually became president.

5. Following his tenure as Secretary of State, Buchanan returned to diplomacy, serving as the U.S. Minister to Great Britain. Because he was overseas for much of the early 1850's, he was not involved in the divisive political debates that occurred during that time, most notably the highly controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act. This set the stage to make him a solid compromise candidate for the 1856 presidential election.

6. Though he did not expressly seek the nomination of the Democrats in 1856, he knew his name was being floated by a number of high-ranking officials in the party, and when the nomination was finally cemented at the convention, Buchanan accepted. He faced two opponents in the general election: former president Millard Filmore, now running as a member of the extremist Know Nothing party, and John C. Fremont, running as the first presidential candidate of the new Republican party. The Know Nothings and Republicans split their vote, and Buchanan won the election, marking the last time (to date) that a Democrat has won the presidency following directly on the heels of another Democratic president (in this case, Franklin Pierce).

7. Buchanan is the only president in U.S. history who never married. His neice, Harriet Lane, whom he had adopted at age 11 following the deaths of her parents, served as White House hostess during Buchanan's presidency.

8. Buchanan's presidency was marked by immense partisan strife over the issue of slavery. Buchanan attempted to take a middle ground approach in an effort to appease both sides, but the result was that both sides felt alienated and viewed Buchanan's leadership as weak and vascillating. He had promised not to run for re-election, and he kept true to that promise in 1860, retiring to his home in rural Pennsylvania. On his last day in office, Lincoln's inauguration day, Buchanan famously told him: "If you are as happy in entering the White House as I shall feel upon leaving it, you are a happy man."

9. Much speculation has been made about Buchanan's sexual orientation, with the majority of modern experts convinced he was unquestionably gay. He had been engaged early in life, but his fiancee broke off the engagement due to neglect, dying very shortly thereafter. Following this, Buchanan vowed to never marry, and instead lived for many years in Washington with Alabama Senator William Rufus King, who became vice-president under Franklin Pierce. Rumors abounded about their relationship, and they were jokingly referred to by other congressmen as "Buchanan and his wife." Following both men's deaths, their personal correspondence to one another was destroyed by their surviving family members, leading to even more speculation about the nature of their relationship.

10. Buchanan died in 1868 of respiratory failure, having published his memoirs a few years earlier - the first president to do so. In those memoirs he defends himself and his choices in office, particularly his highly criticized choice to do essentially nothing about the seccession of the southern states following the 1860 election of Abraham Lincoln. He predicted that history would vindicate him, but to this day, he is generally ranked by historians among the worst of U.S. presidents.

10 Fun Facts About George W. Bush

George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States

1. George W. Bush was born in the summer of 1946 in New Haven, Connecticut.  His father, the future 41st president, was an ex-Navy pilot and current student at Yale University when his first child was born.  His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a successful businessman who would later serve in the U.S. Senate.  The oldest of six children, one of Bush's younger sisters died of leukemia at the age of three.

2. Following his father's graduation from Yale in 1948, the Bush family relocated to Midland, Texas, where the elder Bush got involved in the oil business.  George W. Bush attended public schools in the Midland area until the family moved again, in 1959, to Houston.  In high school, Bush was sent to Massachusetts to attend the prestigious Phillips Academy boarding school.  In the 1960's, Bush attended Yale, graduating with a degree in History, then earned an MBA from Harvard, the only president to have earned such a degree.

3. In 1977, Bush met and married Laura Welch, a school teacher who had also worked as a librarian in the Houston Public Library system.  She gave birth to fraternal twin daughters in 1981, their only children.  When Laura was still in high school, she ran a stop sign two days after her 17th birthday and caused a collision in which a passenger in the other car was killed.  She was not charged with any crimes, and has since stated that the episode caused her to lose her religious faith for a very long time.

4. Shortly after marrying, Bush made his first foray into politics, running for a seat in the House of Representatives from Texas.  Following his defeat by Democrat Kent Hance, Bush left politics and instead went into the oil business like his father before him, creating and overseeing a number of oil exploration companies.

5. In 1988, when his father ran for, and eventually won, the presidency, Bush served as one of his father's primary campaign advisers.  After the successful run, Bush returned to his business interests and became a managing partner in the Texas Rangers baseball team.  When he sold his shares in the team nine years later, he made more than 14 million dollars over his initial investment.

6. After serving again as a campaign adviser for his father's failed bid at re-election in 1992, Bush, who was now widely known and recognized, entered politics again, running for Texas governor in 1994.  He faced a strong incumbent in Ann Richards, but Bush defeated her easily by a margin of more than 7%.  A popular governor in Texas, he won reelection in 1998 with nearly 70% of the popular vote, and became the first Texas governor in history to be elected to two consecutive 4-year terms.  During his second term, he controversially declared June 10, 2000, to be "Jesus Day" in Texas, a day when Texans were encouraged to help those in need.

7. Throwing his name into the hat for the 2000 presidential election, Bush very quickly moved to the head of the pack of potential Republican nominees, and it came down to a race between Bush and Senate icon John McCain.  The primary was a nasty business, with both candidates accused of running a smear campaign, and in the end Bush came out ahead, winning his party's nomination.  One of the accusations of smearing leveled by McCain's camp was a rumor that McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter was actually a black child that he had fathered out of wedlock.

8. The general election proved to be no less divisive.  Polls throughout the year showed both Bush and Democratic candidate Al Gore neck and neck, and in the end, Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won more of the electoral vote, and thus won the presidency.  The electoral vote count was contested based on problems with vote-counting in Florida, leaving the results in limbo until early December when the Supreme Court reversed a decision by the Florida Supreme Court and put a halt to all recounts, effectively giving Bush Florida, and thus the presidency.

9. Bush's time as president was one of increasing political cynicism in the U.S., and increasing political instability abroad.  He won reelection in 2004 over Democratic challenger John Kerry, but many saw the election as one deciding between the lesser of two evils.  Following the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Bush enjoyed the highest approval rating of any president since polling began, but by the end of his second term, his approval rating had plummeted and he actually attained the highest disapproval rating of any president - 71%.  This was largely due to the global economic collapse that occurred during the final few months of Bush's second term as president.  Bush was applauded by his supporters for his leadership in the War on Terror, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his educational reforms, but criticized by his foes for blurring the lines of Church and State, not responding adequately to the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, and for turning a large government surplus into a large national debt.

10. In retirement, Bush has kept a low profile, rarely appearing in public and staying almost entirely out of the political arena.  He and his wife purchased a home in the Dallas area, and Bush published his memoirs in 2010.   He was forced to cancel a speaking engagement in Switzerland in 2011 due to increasing pressure on the Swiss government by human rights groups to arrest him for human rights violations if he ever enters the country.  These accusations are related to his administration's use of torture on suspected terrorists.  In 2010, he teamed up with former president Bill Clinton to raise funds for earthquake victims in Haiti.