48 Fun Facts About George W. Bush

George W. Bush was which number president of the United States?

The 43rd president is the son of the 41st, and the numbers stuck as family shorthand: his 2014 biography of his father is titled 41: A Portrait of My Father.

Where was Bush when an aide whispered that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center?

In a Florida classroom, he stayed in his seat while the reading lesson went on, and later wrote that he had not wanted to rattle the kids.

Bush was born in 1946 in which city?

New Haven, Connecticut, was home only because his father was a student at Yale; when George was two the family left for the oilfields of West Texas.

Bush's paternal grandfather Prescott Bush held which office?

U.S. senator from Connecticut was a second career: Prescott Bush spent decades as a Wall Street banker, then won a vacant seat in a 1952 special election in his fifties.

Bush's sister Robin died at the age of three in 1953 of what?

Leukemia was diagnosed in the spring and she died within months; George, just seven, had not been told how ill his sister was.

At Phillips Academy in Andover, Bush held which role in his senior year?

Head cheerleader at what was then an all-boys school, he was better known on campus for organizing an intramural stickball league.

Bush graduated from Yale in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in which subject?

History was his major and his grades were modest: back at Yale as president in 2001, he told the C students that they too could be president.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Bush was tapped at Yale for which secret society?

Skull and Bones swears its members to secrecy, and Bush played along: his campaign memoir says only that the society is so secret he can't say anything more.

Bush was the first U.S. president to hold which degree?

An MBA from Harvard Business School in 1975 made him the first president with one, a path he took after the University of Texas law school turned him down.

In 2006 Bush used his first veto to block wider federal funding of which research?

Embryonic stem cells were the issue: he went five and a half years without a veto, then blocked a bill to fund work on new cell lines.

Bush was suspended from flying in 1972 for failing to do what?

He did not take a scheduled physical exam, an annual must for military pilots, while working on a Senate campaign in Alabama, and he never flew for the Guard again.

Bush gave the small oil company he founded in 1977 which Spanish name?

Arbusto Energy took its name from the Spanish for bush; it later became Bush Exploration and merged with Spectrum 7 in 1984.

Bush was managing general partner of which Major League Baseball team?

The Texas Rangers made his name across the state, and when the team was sold in 1998 his small stake paid out about $15 million.

Bush lost his first race, for Congress in 1978, after his Democratic opponent painted him as what?

A Northeastern outsider was the charge: radio ads set Kent Hance's Texas schooling against Bush's Andover, Yale and Harvard, and Hance won with 53 percent.

Bush defeated which incumbent Democratic governor to win Texas in 1994?

Ann Richards had mocked his father as born with a silver foot in his mouth, and the popular governor was the favorite until the son upset her in 1994.

Which famous Bushism was never said by Bush, but came from Will Ferrell playing him on Saturday Night Live?

Strategery was invented for a sketch in October 2000, yet Bush's own advisers liked it so much that they named their White House planning team the Strategery Group.

Which of Bush's siblings was elected governor of Florida on the night of his own 1998 landslide?

Jeb won Florida that night, which meant that two years later the state that decided the presidency was governed by the winner's brother.

As governor, Bush signed a 1999 law that helped Texas become the leading U.S. producer of what?

Wind-generated electricity took off after the former oilman signed a 1999 law making Texas power retailers buy renewable energy, and the state went on to out-produce every other.

Bush presided over how many executions during his time as governor?

152 went ahead in his six years, then a record for a modern governor, and he commuted just one death sentence, after doubts that Henry Lee Lucas had committed that murder.

Bush ran for president in 2000 branding himself as what kind of conservative?

Compassionate was the label, and he acted on it fast: in his second week as president he set up a White House office to help churches and charities deliver social services.

Bush lost the 2000 New Hampshire primary to which senator?

John McCain, the Arizona maverick, won over the state's independents, but Bush hit back in South Carolina and McCain was out of the race by March.

Dick Cheney joined Bush's 2000 ticket while holding which job in the campaign?

Head of the VP search committee was the job he had offered to do, and after he had vetted the field the former defense secretary ended up on the ticket himself.

By how many votes was Bush finally declared the winner of Florida in 2000, out of about six million cast?

537 votes out of nearly six million carried all 25 of Florida's electors, which put him on 271, one more than he needed to become president.

Which body ended the 2000 Florida recount?

The U.S. Supreme Court stopped the count by five votes to four on 12 December 2000, and Al Gore conceded the next day while saying he strongly disagreed.

Before Bush, who was the last candidate to win the presidency despite losing the popular vote, back in 1888?

Benjamin Harrison took the Electoral College in 1888 while Grover Cleveland won more votes, and Cleveland got even four years later by beating him to win the White House back.

Bush's landmark 2002 education law was called what?

No Child Left Behind tied federal school money to standards and testing, and it passed with help from an unlikely ally, the liberal senator Ted Kennedy.

Three days after 9/11, Bush addressed rescue workers at Ground Zero through what?

A megaphone was handed to him on the rubble, and when a worker shouted that he couldn't hear, Bush shot back, "I can hear you," and soon so would the attackers.

In his January 2002 State of the Union, Bush labelled which three countries an "axis of evil"?

Iraq, Iran and North Korea were accused of seeking weapons of mass destruction and arming to threaten world peace; just over a year later the first of them was invaded.

Bin Laden escaped U.S. forces in December 2001 after a battle in which mountainous region?

Tora Bora's caves lie less than twenty miles from Pakistan and bin Laden knew them well; he slipped over the border and was not found for nearly a decade.

In May 2003 Bush declared major combat in Iraq over beneath a banner reading what?

Mission Accomplished hung above him on the USS Abraham Lincoln just six weeks into the war; the fighting went on for years, and Bush later admitted the banner had sent the wrong message.

Which general did Bush put in command of the 2007 troop surge in Iraq?

David Petraeus, a counter-insurgency expert, took over in early 2007 as some 20,000 extra troops arrived to patrol Iraqi cities on foot alongside local forces.

PEPFAR, announced by Bush in 2003, was a $15 billion plan to fight what?

AIDS relief is the AR in PEPFAR: the largest commitment by any nation to fight a single disease, it was credited by 2023 with saving more than 25 million lives.

The 2003 Modernization Act Bush signed created which prescription drug benefit?

Medicare Part D came with a ban on the government bargaining with drug makers over prices, which stood until a 2022 law let Medicare negotiate some of them.

Bush defeated which Massachusetts senator to win re-election in 2004?

John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, conceded the morning after the vote once Ohio was out of reach, and this time Bush had won the popular vote as well.

Which hurricane in August 2005 became a political tipping point for Bush's second term?

Katrina flooded most of New Orleans, and as relief faltered Bush told his emergency chief, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job"; ten days later the man had resigned.

Whom did Bush nominate to the Supreme Court in October 2005, only for her to withdraw?

Harriet Miers was his own White House counsel and had never been a judge; conservatives in his own party revolted, and she withdrew within a month.

Bush originally nominated John Roberts to replace whom, before switching him to chief justice?

Sandra Day O'Connor was retiring to care for her ailing husband; when Chief Justice Rehnquist died days before the hearings, Bush moved Roberts, once Rehnquist's own clerk, into the top seat.

Who threw both shoes at Bush in Baghdad in December 2008?

An Iraqi journalist shouted that this was a goodbye kiss and let fly; Bush ducked both shoes and joked afterwards, "If you want the facts, it's a size 10 shoe that he threw."

Bush married Laura Welch about three months after friends introduced them at what event?

A backyard barbecue thrown by mutual friends led to a wedding within months, and the newlyweds spent most of their first year of marriage campaigning for his run for Congress.

After marrying Laura, Bush joined her church, which belongs to which denomination?

United Methodist was the church they married in, in Midland in 1977, though he says his faith only deepened after a later talk with the evangelist Billy Graham.

Bush's twin daughters, born in 1981, are named what?

Barbara and Jenna were each named after a grandmother: Barbara Bush, the future first lady, and Jenna Welch, Laura's mother.

Bush was arrested for drunk driving in 1976 near the family's summer home in which town?

Kennebunkport, Maine, cost him a $150 fine, and the arrest stayed out of the news until it surfaced five days before the 2000 election.

Bush swore off alcohol the morning after what?

His birthday, the 40th, was toasted with friends at a Colorado hotel, and the hangover was so bad that he swore off drink that morning and says he has not touched it since.

Bush's 2010 memoir is titled what?

Decision Points is organised around the big choices of his life and presidency, from giving up drinking to sending more troops into Iraq.

Bush took up painting after reading an essay by which statesman?

Winston Churchill, his hero, had written about taking up painting as a hobby; Bush gave it a whirl in his sixties, starting with portraits of his pets and of world leaders he had known.

Bush's 2017 book of paintings of veterans is titled what?

Portraits of Courage collects his paintings of 98 wounded veterans he had come to know, men and women hurt carrying out his orders; he gave his proceeds to his presidential center.

In January 2002 Bush fainted on a White House couch while watching football, after choking on what?

A pretzel went down the wrong way and left him with a bruised cheek; the next day he joked that his mother had always told him to chew before he swallowed.

Bush joined which Democrat to lead a relief fund after the 2010 Haiti earthquake?

Bill Clinton, who had beaten his father in 1992, teamed up with him at President Obama's request, and all three announced the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund in the White House Rose Garden.