Unknown America Page 12

  * McKinley was the first President to ride in a self propelled vehicle. It was an electric ambulance that took him to the hospital after he had been shot inside the Temple of Music on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley was shaking hands with the public when he was shot by Leon Czolgosz. After Czolgosz shot McKinley, the crowd subdued him and began to beat him severely. The wounded McKinley shouted “Boys Don’t let them hurt him!”

  McKinley died eight days later and Czolgosz was executed for the crime on October 29, 1901.

  Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) Teddy bears were so named because Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a small bear cub while hunting. The incident was reported in the news which inspired a toy manufacturer to come out with the stuffed animal named in his honor.

  * Contrary to popular belief Teddy Roosevelt and not John Kennedy was the youngest US President. He was 42 when he became Chief Executive following the assassination of William McKinley. However in fairness to popular belief, Kennedy was the youngest “elected” President, capturing the office at 43.

  * Roosevelt was shot by a would be assassin during his second run for the Presidency while giving a speech in Milwaukee Wisconsin. He was shot by anarchist William Schrenk. Schrenk claimed his motive was that any man looking for a third term ought to be shot. Roosevelt went on to finish the speech with the bullet still lodged in his chest. Saying to the audience:

  “I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot. I give you my word, I do not care a rap about being shot, not a rap.”

  William Howard Taft (1909-1913) Taft was a big ole boy. The largest President, Taft came in at a hefty 325 pounds. He was dubbed “Big Bill” and often got stuck in the White house bath tub. His own advisers had to sometimes pull him from the tub.

  * Taft is the only former President to serve on the Supreme Court. Though he’s best remembered for his one-term stint, Taft became Chief Justice in 1921. Once famously declaring “I don’t remember that I was ever President.”

  * He debuted baseball's Presidential pitch. It was Hall of Famer Walter Johnson that managed to snag a low-flying ball Taft lobbed from the stands at the start of a 1910 Washington Senators game. Over a century later, this opening day tradition is still going strong.

  Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) Wilson was the first President to show a movie in the White House: “Birth of a Nation,” which has become the most banned film in American History. What makes “Birth’’ most offensive is its depiction of it's black characters performed by white actors in black face — during Reconstruction. Made by D.W. Griffith, Birth of a Nation depicts defeated Southerners being terrorized by illiterate, corrupt and uncouth former slaves under the influence of white northern carpetbaggers.

  * An avid golfer, Wilson was known to paint his golf balls black during the winter months so he could continue play in the snow.

  * The 1912 election wasn’t a popular landslide. Wilson won easily in the Electoral College against the divided Taft and Roosevelt factions, but his 42% popular vote total was the third-lowest winning tally in history. (Roosevelt ran against the popular Taft under the Bull Moose Party banner. Some Progressive Republicans who we're not happy with Taft's nomination, encouraged Roosevelt to run. It is also widely known that Taft did not favor a Central US bank whereas Wilson could be compelled to accept the idea. Roosevelt sifted votes off Taft, Wilson won and in 1913 we get the Federal Reserve Act passed paving the way for a Centralized US Bank know commonly as the Federal Reserve)

  * Wilson is the only US President buried in Washington, DC. The 28th President is buried in a sarcophagus at the Washington National Cathedral. William Howard Taft and John F. Kennedy are at Arlington, Virginia.

  Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) Genetic analysis has proved that President Warren G Harding fathered a child out of wedlock with long rumored mistress Nan Britton. Britton set off quite the scandal when she went public with her tale of the tryst in the White House boldly publishing her story in a 1927 best-selling memoir called “The President's Daughter.” But historians have long questioned the claim and Harding defenders have vilified her as a liar for nearly 90 years. However based on DNA from Britton's grandson and descendants of Harding, the results are 99.9% accurate. The child born of their union, Elizabeth Ann Blaesing is the only known offspring of the 29th President.

  * He was the first President to talk on radio.

  * Harding had the biggest feet of any President. He wore size 19 shoes.

  Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) Calvin Coolidge was the only US President to be sworn in by his own father. On the night of August 2, 1923, Warren Harding died in San Francisco. Coolidge was staying at his fathers home in Vermont when the news of Harding's death reached the East Coast. Coolidge was awakened by his father and after being told the news, the elder Coolidge, who happened to be a Notary Public, administered the Oath of Office to his son, by the light of a kerosine lamp in the front parlor.

  * Coolidge was a real prankster. On occasion he would press all the buttons on the Presidents desk and hide behind his door until his staff ran into the Oval Office. He would then pop out from behind the door and say that he was just trying to see if everyone was working.

  * Coolidge was considered by many to be hyper shy and perhaps stand-offish, even somewhat eccentric. He enjoyed riding a mechanical horse as much as he could while acting like he was a cowboy. He often walked around with a raccoon that was perched behind his neck.

  * But he was quite witty. His wit was described as “sharp and cold as a frost-etching on a windowpane.” At a dinner party, a woman sitting next to him tried to make a wager with the President, telling Coolidge she bet she could get more than two words out of him. Coolidge famously responded: “You lose.”

  * As the story goes... President Coolidge and his wife Grace both visited a government farm on separate tours. During her tour the First Lady went to the chicken yard and showed some interest in a prize rooster. The farmhand told her the rooster could mate several times a day. Mrs. Coolidge said, “Tell that to the President when he comes by.” When the President arrived for his tour the farmhand told him what the First Lady had said. Coolidge asked, “Same hen every time?” The farmhand responded, “Oh no Mr. President a different hen every time.”

  To which the President replied, “Tell that to Mrs. Coolidge.”

  Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) Hoover was the first President born west of the Mississippi River.

  * He was also member of Stanford University’s inaugural class. In 1891, Hoover enrolled in the new university. While he failed Stanford’s entrance examination, the professor who administered the test admired his “remarkable keenness” and admitted him conditionally.

  * Before Hoover became President, he appeared in the first television broadcast in American history. While serving as secretary of commerce under Calvin Coolidge, Hoover’s voice and image were transmitted live over telephone wires in the first American demonstration of television on April 7, 1927

  * Hoover never held elective office until he won the 1928 presidential campaign. Before becoming the 31st president, Hoover had been appointed to his previous government positions.

  Franklin Roosevelt (1933-1945) Roosevelt was distantly related to both his wife and 10 other presidents.

  * An only child with maternal roots dating back to the Mayflower, Roosevelt attended Harvard College, where he began courting another Roosevelt, Anna Eleanor, his fifth cousin once removed. When the couple married in 1905, Theodore Roosevelt took a break from his White House duties to give Eleanor away in lieu of her deceased father. Theodore was reported as saying to young FDR at the wedding, “Well, Franklin, there’s nothing like keeping the name in the family.” Though Theodore was his closest relative to head the country, FDR claimed to have traced his family tree to 10 other presidents as well.

  * Roosevelt tried to increase the size of the Supreme Court.

  Fed up with the Supreme Court striking down several New Deal laws, in e
arly 1937, Roosevelt proposed expanding the court from nine to as many as 15 justices. Known as the Judicial Procedure Reform Bill, this so-called “court-packing” plan was a plan critics claimed a separation of powers violation. Although FDR’s fellow Democrats held large majorities in both houses of Congress, they balked at supporting his agenda.

  In losing the battle though Roosevelt won the war. Never again would the Supreme Court invalidate a piece of New Deal legislation and by the time of his death, seven of the nine justices were his appointees.

  Harry S Truman (1945-1953) The letter “S” in Truman's full name does not stand for anything. As such it is grammatically correct to spell his full name without a period after it.

  * Because the Ku Klux Klan was a powerful political force at this time, Truman was encouraged to join the organization. According to some accounts he was inducted though he was never active. Other accounts claim that he gave the KKK a $10 membership fee, but demanded it back. He was never initiated.

  * Truman was a very accomplished pianist. As a child, he woke at 5 am every morning, practicing piano for two hours. At first, his mother taught him, but she eventually sent him to a more experienced teacher. At the age of 15, he abruptly quit his lessons, but he continued to play piano throughout his life.

  In 1946 Truman wrote to his wife that he thought the White House was haunted. In the letter Truman penned: “The damned place is haunted, sure as shootin'… You and Margie had better come back and protect me before some of these ghosts carry me off.” But while Truman was certain the people's house was a hotbed of para-normal behavior, what likely had Truman so spooked was the constant creaking, popping, and moaning of a crumbling building that was 140 years old and containing numerous additions that had been added over the years. It was for this reason in 1949 the Truman's moved out, taking up residence across the street at Blair House while the White House was taken down to it's bones and completely restored. The Truman's moved back in – on March 27, 1952 bringing with them another first for the White House, television.

  Dwight David Eisenhower (1953-1961) His birth name was actually David Dwight Eisenhower. His parents originally gave him the same first name as his father—David. However, the future president’s mother, Ida, soon had second thoughts. She didn’t want her boy mistakenly called David Eisenhower Jr. or deal with the confusion of having two Davids in the house, so she transposed his name to Dwight David Eisenhower. His original birth name, however, remained inked in the family Bible and was printed in his high school yearbook.

  * Eisenhower detested squirrels, at least around the White House. The reason? In the spring of 1954, the American Public Golf Association installed an outdoor putting green just steps away the Oval Office. To the dismay of Eisenhower, who like Wilson was an avid golfer, squirrels we're continually digging up the putting green to bury their acorns and walnuts. Eisenhower was reported to have said to Secret Service agent John Moaney, “The next time you see one of those squirrels go near my putting green, take a gun and shoot it.” The Secret Service however wisely decided against bringing superior force to bear and instead groundskeepers trapped the squirrels and released them into Rock Creek Park.

  John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) During his time in office, both as a congressman and later as President, JFK donated his entire salary to various charities.

  * He and Jackie Kennedy actually had four children. In addition to Caroline and John Jr., the Kennedy's had two other children. In 1956, Jackie gave birth to a stillborn girl whom the couple intended to name Arabella, and on August 7, 1963, Patrick Bouvier Kennedy was born five-and-a-half weeks early. The baby weighed under five pounds and died two days later from a pulmonary disease. The bodies of the two children were removed from Massachusetts in 1963 and are buried next to their father in Arlington National Cemetery.

  * Kennedy received last rites at least three times before serving as President. Kennedy suffered from poor health his entire life and fearing imminent death, America’s first Catholic president received the sacramental last rites of the church on three occasions. Once during a trip to England in 1947. During the trip Kennedy fell ill and was given perhaps a year to live after being diagnosed with Addison’s disease, a rare disorder of the adrenal glands. He received the sacrament again in 1951 after suffering from an extremely high fever while traveling in Asia. And a final time in 1954 after he slipped into a coma from an infection after surgery to address his chronic back problems. (Some Kennedy biographers claim the number of last rites should actually be 5 times. Including when Kennedy was 2 years old and contracted Scarlet Fever and another time during World War II while he served on PT 109. Although Kennedy was in fact ill these two other times, it is not known with certainty if last rites were administered).

  Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) Lyndon Johnson affectionately called the many women he slept with his “harem.” He even had a buzzer system installed that rang inside the oval office so that the Secret Service could warn him when his wife Lady Bird was coming.

  * Johnson won election to the US Senate in 1948 after winning a Democratic primary by 87 of the 988,000 votes cast. During those years in Texas there were so few Republicans, winning the Primary all but assured a victory in the General election. Allegations of voter fraud on both sides are still debated to this day. The margin of victory for Johnson was so thin it became known as the Landslide Lyndon incident.

  Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974) Lee Harvey Oswald may have actually planned to assassinate Nixon instead of JFK. In the early morning of November 22, 1963, Richard Nixon rode through Dallas to Love Field to fly home after attending a Pepsi Cola board meeting. Nixon saw the preparations for the motorcade that hours later would carry John F. Kennedy, the man who defeated him for the presidency three years prior.

  After Nixon landed in New York, he learned that Kennedy had been assassinated. But here is where the story takes an odd twist; The wife of Lee Harvey Oswald – Marina - testified to the Warren Commission that in April 1963 Oswald read a local newspaper report, tucked a pistol in his belt, and told her, “Nixon is coming,” “I want to go and have a look.”

  After locking him in a bathroom, Marina convinced him to turn over his gun. The account was puzzling, since Nixon was not in Dallas in April 1963. Is it possible Oswald had no idea Kennedy would be in town the same day and any politician of note would do and Nixon was originally his target of convenience in 63?

  History will never know.

  * Nixon was a Quaker. Nixon’s mother, Hannah, was very devout in her faith and instilled her beliefs in her husband and children. After the failure of his father’s lemon grove in 1922 Nixon's family moved to the nearby Quaker community of Whittier. As a boy, Nixon went to Quaker meetings four times on Sundays and played the piano at church services. He enrolled at Whittier College, a Quaker institution, and attended mandatory chapel for hours every day.

  Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977) Gerald Ford was adopted. His birth name was Leslie Lynch King Jr.

  * Ford is the only person to serve as both Vice President and President without being elected to either office. The first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment, following the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew on October 10, 1973. He became President upon Richard Nixon's departure on August 9, 1974. Before being named VP, Ford served 13 terms in the House of Representatives.

  * Ford could have played in the NFL. He won a scholarship to the University of Michigan, which he attended from 1931 to 1935. The university’s football team, the Wolverines, won national championships in 1932 and 1933. In 1934 (his senior year) Ford was named the team’s most valuable player. Upon graduation, Ford received offers from the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but he turned them down to take a position as head boxing coach and assistant football coach at Yale University, where he hoped to study law.

  Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) Jimmy Carter was the first President to be born in a hospital.

  * He is also the first known President to go on
record as having seen a UFO.

  * Carter was the first Southerner elected to the Presidency following the Civil War. During his administration he pardoned and restored the US Citizenship of Jefferson Davis who was the President of the Confederate States of America.

  * Carter was a “dark horse” presidential candidate in 1976. The future President was tied for 12th in early polling, well behind former Alabama Governor George Wallace and former nominee Hubert Humphrey. He used his image as a Washington outsider to defeat Gerald Ford in the general election.

  Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) Reagan won the “Most Nearly Perfect Male Figure” award from the University of California in 1940.

  Second time is the Charm

  Ronald Reagan is the only US President to be elected after having been divorced. His first wife was Actress Jane Wyman who he married in 1940 and divorced in 1949, and is best remembered as Angela Channing in the 1980s prime time soap opera Falcon Crest.

  * During the Hollywood Red Scare of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Reagan was active in film industry politics as chairman of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

  He became an FBI informer in 1947, providing the Feds with the names of actors suspected of being Communist Party members or sympathizers. The names of the people that Reagan informed upon are redacted in his FBI file, but they were probably already known to the FBI from the testimony of former Communists, who were its main source of information about party membership in the film community.