Happy President's Day

In honor of President's Day, here are some interesting facts that you may not know about our Commander-in-Chiefs.

1. Contrary to popular belief, George Washington’s teeth were not actually made out of wood. They were actually constructed of bone, hippopotamus ivory, human teeth, screws, lead, and gold metal wire.
2. John Adams was the first president to live in the White House. It was not yet completed and he only spent the last four months of his presidency there.
3. Thomas Jefferson loved ice cream. He brought a recipe for vanilla ice cream home from France which is now in the Library of Congress.
4. James Madison was the last surviving signer of the U.S. Constitution at the time of his death, June 18, 1836.
5. Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia, was named for James Monroe after his work to create a home for freed slaves there.
6. John Quincy Adams was known to take a swim in the Potomac River every morning, while in the buff.
7. Andrew Jackson was born in the remote Waxhaws wilderness, which is located near the border between North and South Carolina. To this day, both states have historical markers claiming they are the true location of Jackson’s birthplace.
8. Martin Van Buren had two tiger cubs as pets.
9. William Henry Harrison was the first president to die in office. He only served for 30 days after contracting pneumonia at his inauguration.
10. John Tyler was given the nickname ‘His Accidency’ because he was not elected president and simply ‘accidently’ fell into the role.
11. James Polk was a firm supporter in manifest destiny, the belief that the United States was destined to expand across the continent. By time he left office, the nation had extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
12. Zachary Taylor was nominated to be president by his party without his knowledge. They sent him a notification by mail, without postage paid, for which Taylor refused to pay. He didn’t find out about his nomination for weeks.
13. Millard Fillmore loved books. During an 1821 fire at the Library of Congress, Fillmore personally rushed to help fight the blaze. He also signed a bill to fund the replacement of all the destroyed books.
14. Franklin Pierce is sometimes noted as the most obscure president.
15. James Buchanan was the only president who was never married. He had an assistant who served as his “first lady.”
16. Abraham Lincoln’s cat, Tabby, ate at the White House table with the President and his family.
17. Andrew Johnson worked as a tailor’s apprentice and made all of his own suits, even while President.
18. Ulysses S. Grant was born Hiram but after a form error at West Point, he started going by his middle name and the S came from his mother’s name ‘Simpson.’ He tried to change it, but it was declared a legal document that couldn’t be changed.
19. Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president with a telephone in the White House. His first phone call was to Alexander Graham Bell.
20. James A. Garfield was ambidextrous. More impressively, he could write Latin with one hand while writing Greek with the other. At the same time.
21. Chester A. Arthur had the nickname ‘Elegant Arthur’ due to his impeccable wardrobe. He also owned over 80 pairs of pants.
22. Grover Cleveland is the only president to ever serve office for two inconsecutive terms.
23. Benjamin Harrison was the first president to have electricity in the White House. However, he and his family were so afraid of being electrocuted that they had their staff turn on and off the lights for them.
24. William McKinley wore a red carnation on his lapel for good luck. While greeting people in 1901, he gave the flower to a little girl and was shot by an assassin shortly after. He died 8 days later.
25. Theodore Roosevelt was the first American to win a Noble Peace Prize.
26. William H. Taft was the largest president in history. He once got stuck in the bathtub and had to ask for help. He lost 70 pounds after leaving office.
27. Woodrow Wilson was the first President to have a PhD. He received his degree in Political Science from John Hopkins.
28. Warren Harding liked to gamble and hosted weekly poker games at the White House. During one game, he bet the White House china and lost.
29. Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline while he ate breakfast in bed.
30. Herbert Hoover’s son had two pet alligators, which where occasionally permitted to run loose throughout the White House.
31. There are 125,000 photos of Franklin D. Roosevelt in his Presidential Library and only two show him in a wheel-chair. The press was asked to not photograph him while he was in his wheel-chair and they complied.
32. The ‘S’ in Harry S. Truman doesn’t stand for anything.
33. Dwight D. Eisenhower installed a putting green at the White House and played more than 800 rounds while in office.
34. John F. Kennedy was obsessed with James Bond and even attempted to write his own spy novel which featured Lyndon B. Johnson as the head of an attempted coup d-etat in America.
35. Lyndon B. Johnson liked to give electric toothbrushes as gifts to his friends so they would “think of me the first thing in the morning and the last at night.”
36. Richard Nixon could play 5 instruments, including the piano, saxophone, clarinet, accordion, and violin. However, he could not read sheet music.
37. Gerald Ford is the only man to hold both the office of president and vice president without being elected by the public. He was appointed to the office of vice president by the senate after VP Spiro Agnew resigned after a tax evasion scandal and then as president once Richard Nixon resigned following Watergate.
38. Jimmy Carter once filed a report about a UFO spotting.
39. Ronald Reagan lost the hearing in one ear after an accident on a movie set during his time as an actor.
40. George H.W. Bush celebrated his 75^th, 80^th, 85^th, and 90^th birthday by going skydiving.
41. Bill Clinton became an expert on chickens after flubbing a question about chickens & free trade during his Rhodes scholarship interview.
42. George W. Bush is the only President that has ever completed a 26.2 mile marathon.
43. Barack Obama had the nickname ‘O’Bomber’ in high school because of his basketball ability.

Just a reminder that our branches are closed today in honor of the holiday.

Facts pulled from Mashable.com. Wikipedia, Biography.com, History.com, Huffington Post, Mental Floss, Yahoo.com