100 Interesting Facts about US Presidents – Part 2

The 27th Amendment, which forbids Congress from raising their own pay during their term, was proposed by James Madison in 1789 and wasn't ratified until 1992.

2. President James Madison was only 5 feet 4 inches tall and weighed less than 100 pounds.

3. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison both claimed to have written numbers 49-58 and 62-63 of the Federalist Papers. In 1964, a computer analysis of the text revealed that Madison was indeed the author of all 12 of those essays, despite Hamilton's claim to the contrary.

4. James Madison had two Vice Presidents die on him while he was President.

5. James Monroe, 5th US President ran for re-election unopposed in 1820 with 1 electoral vote short of a unanimous decision.

President James Monroe preferred to be addressed as “Colonel Monroe” throughout his career even as President

7. Teddy Roosevelt and John Quincy Adams are the only two US Presidents that did not use a Bible at their swearing-in ceremonies.

8. Abraham Lincoln is the only U.S. president who never joined a church and at one time seen as atheist

9. John Quincy Adams was the first American president to grant a woman reporter an interview (Anne Royall) and did so because she sat on his clothes while he bathed nude in the Potomac River.

10. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes (1841-1935) lived long enough to shake hands with both John Quincy Adams and John F. Kennedy.

The 6th President of the United States, John Quincy Adams, was accused of being a pimp.

12. President John Quincy Adams owned an alligator which he kept in the White House.

13. In 1824, US Presidential election, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson each picked John C Calhoun to be their running mate.

14. John Quincy Adams once approved an expedition to the center of the Earth to prove that the planet was hollow.

15. John Quincy Adams is the only president in history to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives after leaving the presidency.

The very first attempted assassination of a United States president was stopped when the President, Andrew Jackson, beat his assailant brutally with his cane before being stopped by a nearby congressman.

17. Andrew Jackson killed a man in a duel for insulting his wife. Jackson let the opponent shoot first, who hit Jackson in the chest. Then Jackson took his sweet time to aim. People called it too cold-blooded &, as a result, Jackson became a social outcast.

18. There is belief that James Buchanan may have been the first gay President of the United States. Never married, Buchanan had a close relationship with another man for many years which he referred to as a "communion". Andrew Jackson once called the pair "Miss Nancy and Aunt Fancy".

19. Junaluska, a Cherokee leader who saved Andrew Jackson's life. Jackson later sent the Cherokee on the Trail of Tears from NC to OK, which killed up to 1/3 of them en route. Junaluska survived, escaped twice, walked hundreds of mountainous miles home, and lived well into old age as a Chief.

20. After a tornado in 1998, 1000+ trees were toppled at The Hermitage, a plantation built by President Andrew Jackson. Using wood from the fallen trees, the Gibson Guitar Corporation produced 200 limited edition "Old Hickory" guitars.

Andrew Jackson's pet parrot was thrown out of Jackson's funeral for cursing too much.

22. 1835 was the only time in U.S. history when the country was debt free when Andrew Jackson paid off what he called "The National Curse". It lasted exactly one year.

23. President Andrew Jackson once had a block of cheddar cheese delivered to the white house that was four feet in diameter and two feet thick, weighed nearly 1400 pounds. He invited 10,000 visitors to the White House to eat it and it was gone within two hours.

24. Andrew Jackson carried a locket with a picture of his deceased wife, Rachel Jackson, and propped it up in front of his bed every night so that she would be the last thing he saw when falling asleep and the first thing when he woke up.

25. When President Andrew Jackson was in school, he organized a dance in which he invited 2 of the town prostitutes in order to make all the proper attendees feel uncomfortable.