1Warren G. Harding
During the campaign of 1920, President Warren G. Harding was accused of making up a word: "normalcy." When asked if he instead meant "normality," Harding responded "I have looked for 'normality' in my dictionary and I do not find it there. 'Normalcy', however, I did find, and it is a good word."
2. In Ulysses S. Grant's name, the S didn't stand for anything. He felt that it made his name seem more distinguished.
3. Donald Trump tried to stop the building of an offshore wind-farm in Scotland because it would "ruin the view" of his golf course.
4. Grover Cleveland served on two non-consecutive terms as President. People get confused about the number of men that served as US Presidents (44) vs the number of Presidential Administrations (45).
5. Eisenhower visited Taiwan in 1960 and an estimated 650,000 people packed into the Presidential Plaza to hear the American president. He lauded President Chiang for his courage and tireless effort in leading the nation in the struggle against inhuman tyranny
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6Calvin Coolidge
In 1927, Calvin Coolidge walked outside of his vacation home to waiting reporters, handed them a slip of paper that said, "I do not choose to run for President in nineteen-twenty-eight.", took no questions, and went back inside.
7. President Warren Harding wrote steamy, erotic letters to his mistress Carrie Phillips. Even though he asked her to burn these letters, she kept many of them and they are on display at the Library of Congress.
8. Contrary to popular belief, President William H. Taft who weighed in excess of 350 lb did not get stuck in a White House bathtub. The White House got a tub that was so big a President couldn’t possibly get stuck. A Manhattan company specially crafted the largest solid porcelain tub ever made for an individual.
9. Rutherford B. Hayes was the first US President to oppose the Spoils System of giving federal jobs to political supporters, wanting instead to pick them by merit according to an examination.
10. President William McKinley wore a red carnation in his lapel at all times as a good luck charm. During a public meeting in his second term, he took out the flower from his lapel and gave it to a 12-year-old girl. Minutes later, he was shot. He died a week later.
11Calvin Coolidge
Calvin Coolidge once awoke to a burglar in his hotel room. He talked the burglar out of robbing him, loaned him $32, and told him how to leave without being arrested.
12. Before he became President, Grover Cleveland had an affair with a woman which resulted in her becoming pregnant, and in order to cover up the scandal, he had her committed and her child sent to an orphanage.
13. U.S President Jimmy Carter helped to reduce the Guinea Worm Disease cases from 3.5 million to 126. This disease is now at the brink of extinction.
14. Theodore Roosevelt openly despised the nickname "Teddy", and was quick to correct anyone who called him it. He preferred those working closely with him to refer to him as Colonel or Theodore.
15. John F. Kennedy's main funeral honor Guard were all Irish soldiers flown to the United States at the request of Jacqueline Kennedy who stated that JFK had been enthralled and impressed by how the Irish military honored their dead on his visit to Ireland.
16Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon possessed 3,700 hours of taped conversations while he was in the White House. Very few people have listened to more than a few hours of them. The tapes "go a long way toward showing Nixon’s underappreciated geopolitical genius and how he became the victim of his own emotionalism."
17. President Harry S. Truman's middle name is just the letter S.
18. Ulysses S. Grant was also planned to be assassinated along with Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth but he did not attend the play at Ford Theater because their wives were not on good terms.
19. The 20th President of the US, James A. Garfield, contributed an original proof of the Pythagorean Theorem before he became president. He came up with it during a discussion with other members of Congress, and it was published in the New England Journal of Education.
20. President Franklin D. Roosevelt thought every American should own an acre of land so that they could be self-sustaining in case of catastrophe.
21Grover Cleveland
President Grover Cleveland developed mouth cancer during his second term. Fearing news of this might cause financial panic, he underwent secret surgery on his friend’s yacht off the coast of Long Island, under the cover story of being on a 4-day fishing trip.
22. US President Benjamin Harrison had electric lights installed in the White House, but would sleep with the lights on because he was too afraid to touch the switches.
23. In the 1896 U.S. election, William McKinley won despite the fact that he campaigned from the front porch of his home in Ohio while his opponent traveled extensively by railway speaking at over 600 events.
24. Theodore Roosevelt was the first U.S. President to fly in a plane - and he nearly fell out. He described it as 'the bulliest experience I ever had.'
25. Woodrow Wilson personally rejected a proposal put forward by Japan during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that would have confirmed the racial and ethnic equality of all people.
