See also: Most Popular Conspiracy Theories in US History Interesting Fun Facts about America To spare them the trouble of digging them up, we have gone ahead and gathered all these’strange but true’ details about the United States of America. Many Americans would probably be amazed by a few details in their own state. Had both the highest and lowest approval ratings in U.S.It is safe to say they would most likely be proud of many things but horrified at others.
The only president to have been a Rhodes Scholar Met Babe Ruth when the Yankee visited Yale in 1948 … and his wife Roslyn are the only First Couple to have lived in public housingĬredited with saving 77 lives as a lifeguard Worked as a male model for a time, even appearing on the cover of Cosmopolitan Played football at Whittier College in California and wore #29 Taught fifth, sixth and seventh grades at a mostly Mexican-American school in Cotulla, Texas, where he also helped organized after-school sports Last president not to have graduated collegeįirst president to have a poet at his inauguration-Robert Frost Served hot dogs to King George VI at a picnic at his home in Hyde Park, New York Loved to fish and wrote a book about it, called Fishing for Fun-And to Wash Your Soul Owned a dog named Laddie Boy, who had his own chair at Cabinet meetingsįirst president to appear in a motion picture with sound Only president buried in Washington, D.C. Member of the Skull and Bones secret society while a student at Yale More closely related to Eleanor Roosevelt than Franklin Delano Roosevelt The last Civil War veteran to become president there is a monument to him at Antietam, where he served food and coffee to troops Had a secret surgery onboard the presidential yacht to remove a tumor from his jaw Reputation as a fancy dresser, spent lavishly on clothesĭaughter Ruth is namesake of the Baby Ruth candy bar Worked his way up from janitor to president of Hiram College Wounded in battle five times during the Civil War Surprise nomination for presidency is source of the term “dark horse”Ĭorpse was exhumed in the 1990s to see if he had been poisoned he had notįirst president born after George Washington diedĭidn’t learn to read or write until adulthoodįinished writing his memoirs five days before he died Hated England so much he refused to cross into Canada for a better view of Niagara Falls Told Lewis and Clark to keep an eye out for wooly mammoths while exploring the Westįirst president to wear pants instead of breechesīorn in a small town on the border of the Carolinas both states claim him Thought the president should be referred to as “His Highness” Loved exotic animals, paid to see an elephant Here, below, for your President’s Day pleasure, he has boiled each one down to just a few words:
Twenty-three of Rafferty’s presidential essays have been published so far in publications like Brevity, Cobalt, Juked, Parcel and Waxwing.
#FUN FACTS ABOUT US PRESIDENTS MOVIE#
He penned his essay on Ronald Reagan as a movie script, Franklin Pierce gets a diagnosis, James Monroe a comic strip, Thomas Jefferson a prayer, Grover Cleveland a palindrome and so on. “It was a way to conceive of the presidents … as human beings who had existed and had lives and loves and flaws and complications that made them into real people,” said Rafferty, who stretched his artistic talent through genres. He also authored 2016’s Hallow This Ground, inspired by monuments and memorials around the world. He plans to turn the collection, now 46 strong – one essay for each leader and a conclusion – into a book called Execute the Office, which is currently being considered for publication. He decided to write his own essay about each one, from George Washington to current President Donald J. That gave him, he reasoned, a month to read a biography about each of the United States’ commanders in chief before the next one took office. “There were about 44 months until the next presidential election there had been 44 presidents,” Rafferty, who grew up in Kansas, told host Sarah McConnell on a recent episode of the With Good Reason radio show called “ Getting to Know the Presidents.” Associate Professor of English Colin Rafferty has written an essay on each of the 45 United States presidents. He felt he had a lot of catching up to do. When Associate Professor of English Colin Rafferty moved to Virginia a decade ago, he found himself suddenly surrounded by presidential history.