Blog from October 17, 2020 (Presidents on our Mind)

October 17, 2020 (Saturday)

Only a little more than two weeks remain until the election. Many people have already voted or are in the process of voting by mail. Many others are voting absentee in person. Still more are planning to vote on election day. It seems like a good time to revive interest in memorizing a list of all the presidents. Try it. You’ll be ever so proud of yourself for doing so.

Fun facts about the presidents:
George Washington was the only American president to be unanimously elected.

Chester A. Arthur was nicknamed “Elegant Arthur” because of his fashion sense.

Benjamin Harrison was the first president to have a Christmas tree in the White House (1889). (Benjamin was the grandson of William E. Harrison, president in 1841 for only one month before his death).

John F. Kennedy was the first president to hold a press conference on television.

The Presidential Election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was one of only two elections that resulted in the House of Representatives deciding who would be President of the United States. The other one was between John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, and Andrew Jackson. Adams was elected (1824). The two ran against each other again in 1828 and Jackson won.

William McKinley was the first president to campaign by telephone.

The White House first got a telephone in 1877. Fifty-two years later, somebody finally thought to put one in the Oval Office.

Franklin Pierce gave his 3,319-word inaugural address in 1853 from memory, without the aid of notes. A single spaced document of this many words on letter-sized paper would be about 7 pages long. He was 49 years old.

Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to call his residence in Washington, D.C. the “White House.” Prior to his term, it had been called the Executive Mansion or the President’s House.

James Madison was the shortest and lightest president at 5 feet, 4 inches and about 100 pounds.

Read these and many more fun facts here

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ONE MORE TIME FOR THE PRESIDENTS:

I memorized the names of presidents and vice presidents with dates. Then I wrote a blog about each one that appeared every Tuesday. The last one was on August 4, 2020. I recently ran across a video of Dakota Fanning reciting the names of all the presidents.

At age 23 she did an adult version in 2017 for Vanity Fair. A tiny bit slower so you can catch the names. Click here to see and hear.

If you would like to read about each president, click here for a list with paintings and photos (from Aug 4 blog)

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BLOGS ABOUT PRESIDENTS

In case you would like to review any of my blogs about the presidents, just click on a name:

1. George Washington
2. John Adams
3. Thomas Jefferson
4. James Madison
5. James Monroe
6. John Quincy Adams
7. Andrew Jackson
8. Martin Van Buren
9. William H. Harrison
10. John Tyler
11. James K. Polk
12. Zachary Taylor
13. Millard Fillmore
14. Franklin Pierce
15. James Buchanan
16. Abraham Lincoln
17. Andrew Johnson
18. Ulysses S. Grant
19. Rutherford B. Hayes
20. James Garfield
21. Chester A. Arthur
22. Grover Cleveland
23. Benjamin Harrison
24. Grover Cleveland
25. William McKinley
26. Theodore Roosevelt
27. William Howard Taft
28 Woodrow Wilson
29. Warren Harding
30. Calvin Coolidge
31. Herbert Hoover
32. Franklin Roosevelt
33. Harry Truman
34. Dwight Eisenhower
35.John F. Kennedy
36. Lyndon Johnson
37 Richard Nixon
38. Gerald Ford
39. Jimmy Carter
40. Ronald Reagan
41. George H.W. Bush
42. Bill Clinton
43. George W. Bush
44. Barack Obama
45. Donald Trump