ASPPA Connect on Hiatus Feb. 15, and POTUS Facts

ASPPA Connect will not appear on Monday, Feb. 15, in observance of Presidents Day. It will reappear on Wednesday, Feb. 17.

There are interesting facts and circumstances concerning the 44 men who have served as president. Following are some of them.

• George Washington (1789-97) was the only president who did not live in the White House.

• The first president who was not a Revolutionary War veteran was the 8th president, Martin Van Buren (1837-41).

• Seven presidents were born in log cabins: Andrew Jackson (1767), Zachary Taylor (1784), Millard Fillmore (1800), James Buchanan (1791), Abraham Lincoln (1809), Ulysses S. Grant (1822) and James Garfield (1831).

• Grandchildren of the 9th president, John Tyler (1841-45) — who was born in 1790 — are still alive! Tyler married a second time late in life, and his son Lyon Gardiner Tyler was born in 1853; Lyon’s sons Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Jr. and Harrison Ruffin Tyler were born in 1924 and 1928, respectively, and are alive today.

• John Tyler was expelled from his party, the Whigs, while in office.

• James K. Polk (1845-49) was the first president to be photographed.

• James Buchanan (1857-61) is the only president who never married.

• Five presidents — George Washington, James Madison (1809-17), James K. Polk, James Buchanan and Warren Harding (1921-23) — did not father children.

• There was no First Lady during four presidencies — those of Thomas Jefferson (1801-09), James Monroe (1817-25), Andrew Jackson (1829-37) and James Buchanan — and they had someone other than a wife who served as White House Hostess (the first three were widowers while in office, and James Buchanan never married).

• Nine presidents failed in their re-election bids: John Adams (1800), John Quincy Adams (1828), Martin Van Buren (1840), Grover Cleveland (1888), William Howard Taft (1912), Herbert Hoover (1932), Gerald Ford (1976), Jimmy Carter (1980) and George H.W. Bush (1992).

• Two presidents — Andrew Johnson (1865-69) and Bill Clinton (1993-2001) — were impeached by the House, but since the Senate did not vote to convict, were not removed from office (Johnson scraped by, missing conviction and removal by one vote).

• One grandson of a president followed in Grandpa’s footsteps — Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893), grandson of William Henry Harrison (1841).

• Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09) was the first president to travel outside the United States (he went to Panama to see the construction of the canal).

• Calvin Coolidge’s father, a judge, administered the oath of office to him upon Coolidge’s learning of Warren G. Harding’s death in 1923.

• Franklin Delano Roosevelt> (1933-45) was the first president to ride in an airplane.

• The last president who did not attend college was Harry S. Truman (1945-53).

• Richard Nixon (1969-74) is the only president who resigned from office.

• The White House was not known by that name until Teddy Roosevelt (1901-09) used the term. Before that it was known as the Executive Mansion.