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Presidential Minutiae: Goofy tidbits about our Presidents (no Hillary or Donald — promise)
Later tonight, we'll know who our new president is going to be (short of another hanging chad disaster).
The election season hasn't been oodles of laughs, and it's a pretty safe bet that most folks are just plain ready for it to be over.
So let's lighten things up a bit. Here's a rundown of some presidential trivia and little-known facts about each of our presidents-past.
* Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) liked to have his head rubbed with petroleum jelly while eating his breakfast in bed.
* It was so cold at the inauguration of Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877), the canaries that were supposed to sing at the inaugural ball froze to death.
* The tallest president was Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) at 6 feet 4 inches; James Madison (1809-1817) was the shortest at 5 feet 4 inches.
* Assassinated President James Garfield (1881) didn't die from the gunshot wounds; he died of blood poisoning after doctors tried to remove the bullet from his back with dirty fingers and instruments; he lingered for 80 days.
* John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) would often skinny dip in the Potomac River.
* Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) was the first president to have a Christmas tree in the White House.
* Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) approved "The Star-Spangled Banner" as the national anthem.
* James Monroe (1817-1825) was with Gen. George Washington during the terrible winter at Valley Forge and also crossed the Delaware River with Washington on Dec. 25, 1776.
* Because the Ku Klux Klan was a powerful political force at the time, Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) was encouraged to join the organization; he didn't.
* In 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) was the first president to choose a woman as a member of his cabinet, selecting Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor.
* John Adams (1797-1801) was the only one of the first five presidents to not own a slave.
* As the most powerful military man in World War II, five-star Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) oversaw the D-Day invasion in 1944, but his parents were Jehovah's Witnesses and strict pacifists.
* As a young man, Rutherford B. Hayes (1822-1893) suffered from lyssophobia, the fear of going insane.
* Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) loved wine so much, the wine bill for his first term as president was around $10,000 about $190,000 today.
* Gerald Ford (1974-1977) is the only president to have survived two assassination attempts by women.
* Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) was the target of the first presidential assassination attempt. Richard Lawrence fired a pistol at the president from a few feet away, but the gun misfired, so Lawrence pulled out another, but that gun misfired, too. The odds of both guns misfiring were judged to be 125,000 to 1.
* Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) was obsessed with poker and once bet an entire set of priceless White House china - and lost it.
* George Washington (1789-1797) had to borrow money to attend his own inauguration.
* When he was 14, Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) was hired to dig ditches six days a week, 10 hours a day; he saved the money and paid his college tuition with it years later.
* Every member of the family of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) owned a pair of stilts, including the first lady.
* Barack Obama (2009-2016) collects Spider-man and Conan the Barbarian comic books.
* Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was the first president born in a hospital.
* Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) and (1893-1897) is the only president elected to two non-consecutive terms.
* James Buchanan (1857-1861) was the only president never to marry.
* The heaviest president was William Howard Taft (1909-1913) who tipped the scales at more than 300 pounds. After becoming stuck in the White House bathtub, he ordered a new one which was big enough to hold four ordinary-sized men.
* Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) was the first president to attend a baseball game. He saw the Cincinnati Reds beat the Washington Senators 7-4 on June 6, 1892.
* John Tyler (1841-1845) had 15 children, the most of any president; his last child was born when he was 70 years old.
* Although he came from an extremely wealthy family, John F. Kennedy never carried cash; his closest friends were sometimes irritated because they always had to pick up the tab and Kennedy didn't pay them back.
* The first president born as a U.S. citizen was Martin Van Buren (1837-41); he was born Dec. 5, 1782.
* William Henry Harrison (1841) died of pneumonia 32 days after being inaugurated on a cold, wet day; he was the first president to die in office and he also delivered the longest inaugural address - almost two hours.
* Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) smoked three packs of cigarettes a day until he had a serious heart attack at age 47.
* In 1849, James K. Polk (1845-1849) was the first president in office to have his photo taken.
* Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) was the first to show a motion picture in the White House, "The Birth of Nation," a film now decried for its blatant racism.
* Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885) like to take late-night walks around Washington, D.C., sometimes at three or four in the morning.
* In 1884, Grover Cleveland's campaign slogan attacked his opponent, James Blaine of Maine with "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, The Continental Liar from the State of Maine." Blaine returned the favor with "Ma, Ma, Where's my Pa, Gone to the White House, Ha, Ha, Ha," a slam against Cleveland's acknowledgement that he had fathered a child in the 1870s with a woman in Buffalo, where Cleveland had served as sheriff of Erie County and mayor of the city.
* On July 4, 1850, Zachary Taylor (1849-1850) ate cherries, got sick and died five days later; the cherries are believed to have been covered in bacteria.
* After William McKinley (1897-1901) was shot by Leon Frank Czolgosz, the crowd began to beat Czolgosz severely; McKinley shouted, "Boys, don't let them hurt him!" McKinley died nine days later of gangrene.
* George W. Bush (2001-2009) collects autographed baseballs and owns over 250.
* Richard Nixon (1969-1974) had a bowling alley installed in the White House.
* Millard Fillmore (1850-1853) and Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) taught themselves to read.
* George H.W. Bush (1989-1993) was captain of the Yale University baseball team and played in the first two College World Series.
* In high school, Bill Clinton (1993-2001) was part of a jazz trio called Three Blind Mice.
* No president has ever been an only child.
- Sources: www.legendsofamerica.com, www.littleknownfactsshow.com, www.triviaplaying.com, news.nationalgeographic.com, www.presidentsusa.net, www.funtrivia.com, www.apples4theteacher.com