147 Fun Facts About US Presidents

Which Union general accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender in 1865 and won the presidency three years later?

Ulysses S. Grant offered generous terms at Appomattox: Lee's soldiers could go home on parole, and those who owned horses could keep them.

Which U.S. President led the country through the Civil War?

Abraham Lincoln's election in November 1860 prompted seven slave states to leave the Union before he had even taken office.

Who was the youngest person ever elected to the U.S. presidency?

John F. Kennedy was 43 when he won in 1960; Theodore Roosevelt took office younger, at 42, but only by succeeding an assassinated president, not by winning an election.

Who was the first U.S. President to serve two non-consecutive terms?

Grover Cleveland won the popular vote in 1888 but lost the Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison, then came back to beat Harrison in their 1892 rematch.

Which US President is the only person to have also served as Chief Justice?

William Howard Taft's lifelong ambition was the court, not the White House: he twice turned down a Supreme Court seat to finish his work in the Philippines, then became Chief Justice in 1921.

Who is the only U.S. President to have resigned from office?

Richard Nixon quit in August 1974 after the 'smoking gun' tape showed he had tried to use the CIA to block the FBI's Watergate investigation.

Which U.S. President was responsible for the Louisiana Purchase?

Thomas Jefferson's envoys went to Paris hoping to buy New Orleans; Napoleon offered the whole territory instead, and the deal nearly doubled the size of the country.

Who was the first U.S. President to live in the White House?

John Adams moved into the damp, unfinished house on November 1, 1800, just before the election he lost to Thomas Jefferson, and lived there only four months.

Which U.S. President was known for his policy of "Trust Busting" and conservation efforts?

Theodore Roosevelt's Justice Department sued J. P. Morgan's Northern Securities railroad trust in 1902 and won at the Supreme Court; he also protected about 230 million acres of public land.

Which U.S. President served without being elected to either the presidency or vice presidency?

Gerald Ford was appointed vice president under the 25th Amendment after Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973, then moved up to the presidency in August 1974.

The New Deal, a series of programs and reforms, was enacted under which U.S. President?

Franklin D. Roosevelt pushed the New Deal's first wave through in his first 100 days, a yardstick every president since has been measured against.

Which former U.S. President won the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize for his post-presidency human rights work?

Jimmy Carter founded the Carter Center in 1982; it has monitored elections around the world and cut Guinea worm disease from 3.5 million cases a year by more than 99 percent.

Who was the first U.S. President to be impeached by the House of Representatives?

Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868 for trying to replace Secretary of War Edwin Stanton in defiance of the Tenure of Office Act, and the Senate fell one vote short of removing him.

Which U.S. President's portrait is featured on the twenty-dollar bill?

Andrew Jackson waged war on the national bank and opposed paper money, so his place on the twenty since 1928 is often called ironic.

Who served the shortest term as U.S. President, lasting only 31 days?

William Henry Harrison gave the longest inaugural address on record, without an overcoat on a cold March day, and died a month later; his doctors blamed pneumonia.

In which state was Barack Obama born?

Hawaii had been a state for less than two years when Obama was born in Honolulu in 1961; after four boyhood years in Indonesia he returned to live with his grandparents.

Which U.S. President was shot by disappointed office-seeker Charles Guiteau in 1881?

James A. Garfield lived for 11 weeks after the shooting and died of blood poisoning; his doctors had repeatedly probed the wound with unsterilized fingers and instruments.

Who was the first U.S. President born after the Declaration of Independence?

Martin Van Buren, born in 1782, was the first president born in the new nation; raised in Dutch-speaking Kinderhook, New York, he spoke English as a second language.

Which U.S. President oversaw the end of the Korean War with an armistice agreement?

Dwight D. Eisenhower promised during the 1952 campaign to go to Korea, made the trip as president-elect, and the armistice followed in July 1953.

Which U.S. President signed the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964?

Lyndon B. Johnson told Congress that passing the bill would be the best memorial to the slain John F. Kennedy, who had proposed it, and signed it after the Senate broke a long filibuster.

On which day of the year is Presidents' Day observed in the United States?

The third Monday of February floats between the 15th and 21st, so Presidents' Day never actually lands on Washington's birthday, February 22.

Which group did most to popularise the name 'Presidents' Day' by the mid-1980s?

Retail advertisers seized on the name for their February sales, yet Congress never adopted it: in federal law the holiday is still Washington's Birthday.

Which 1968 law moved the February presidential observance to a three-day weekend from 1971?

The Uniform Monday Holiday Act moved Veterans Day to an October Monday too, a change Congress reversed in 1975, restoring November 11 from 1978.

Which of George Washington's writings is read aloud in the Senate every year to mark his birthday?

His Farewell Address has been read aloud in the Senate every year since 1896, with the two parties taking turns to supply the reader, although it warns against the spirit of party.

What name did Lyndon B. Johnson give his domestic programs, which created Medicare and Head Start?

The Great Society was launched in a 1964 speech at the University of Michigan, but by 1968 the Vietnam War had drained the money and attention it needed.

Which president was in office when the stock market crashed in October 1929?

Herbert Hoover had been president for under eight months when the market crashed; as the Depression deepened, the shacks of the homeless were nicknamed Hoovervilles.

Which decoration bearing George Washington's profile was revived on his 200th birthday in 1932?

The Purple Heart revived Washington's 1782 Badge of Military Merit, which only three soldiers are known to have received before it lapsed for 150 years.

Who was the first president to be impeached twice by the House of Representatives?

Donald Trump was impeached in December 2019 over the Ukraine phone call and again in January 2021 over the Capitol riot; the Senate acquitted him both times.

Which president took the United States into the Spanish–American War in 1898?

William McKinley asked Congress for war in April 1898 after the battleship Maine exploded in Havana harbor; the brief war brought Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines under US control.

Which home of Thomas Jefferson appears on the back of the US nickel?

Monticello was Jefferson's own design, but he died so deeply in debt that his daughter had to sell the house.

In which state are the faces of four presidents carved into Mount Rushmore?

South Dakota's state historian Doane Robinson dreamed up the carving in the 1920s and first pictured heroes of the American West; the sculptor insisted on presidents.

Who was the sculptor in charge of carving Mount Rushmore from 1927 until his death in 1941?

Gutzon Borglum meant to carve the four presidents down to the waist, but he died in March 1941 and the money ran out that October, so his son Lincoln finished them as heads.

Franklin Pierce's Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed which earlier deal limiting the spread of slavery?

The Missouri Compromise had barred slavery north of a set line since 1820; its repeal set off the violence of 'Bleeding Kansas' and helped give rise to the Republican Party.

Which crop did Jimmy Carter's family farm in Plains, Georgia, grow before he entered politics?

Peanuts: Carter gave up a career as a Navy submarine officer in 1953 to take over the family farm and warehouse after his father died.

Who was Barack Obama's vice president for all eight years of his presidency?

Joe Biden ran against Obama for the 2008 nomination, quit after finishing fifth in Iowa, and was on the ticket as his running mate by that August.

What breed was Bo, the Obama family's White House pet?

Bo, a Portuguese Water Dog, arrived in April 2009 as a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy; the breed was chosen because Malia Obama's allergies needed a low-shedding dog.

Which Democratic nominee did Dwight Eisenhower defeat in both 1952 and 1956?

Adlai Stevenson left the choice of his 1956 running mate to the convention floor, where Estes Kefauver narrowly beat Senator John F. Kennedy.

The Washington Monument was the world's tallest structure until which landmark overtook it?

The Eiffel Tower took the title in 1889; the obelisk itself stood unfinished for more than 20 years, and marble from a different quarry left a visible change of shade partway up.

Millard Fillmore was the last president from which party, which fell apart over slavery in the 1850s?

The Whig Party never elected another president; Fillmore ran once more in 1856 with the anti-immigrant Know-Nothings and carried only Maryland.

What was the nickname of the volunteer cavalry regiment Theodore Roosevelt led in Cuba in 1898?

The Rough Riders, formally the 1st US Volunteer Cavalry, charged up Kettle Hill near San Juan Heights on July 1, 1898, with Roosevelt as their colonel; the fame carried him to the New York governorship that fall.

Air Force One's call sign followed a 1953 mix-up in which the president's plane shared a flight number with what?

In 1953 President Eisenhower's plane, Air Force 8610, entered the same airspace as Eastern Air Lines Flight 8610, a commercial airliner; the unique call sign Air Force One was created to prevent a repeat.

Which president is the only one to hold a PhD?

Woodrow Wilson gave up a law practice that bored him to study history and politics at Johns Hopkins, earned his PhD in 1886, and went on to lead Princeton.

Which president was born on the Fourth of July?

Calvin Coolidge was born in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, on July 4, 1872; in 1923 his father, a notary, swore him in there by lamplight in the middle of the night.

Which state did Barack Obama represent in the US Senate before becoming president?

Illinois elected Obama to the Senate in November 2004, months after his keynote speech at the Democratic convention turned a little-known state senator into a national name.

Which president, the first VP to succeed to the office, was mocked as 'His Accidency'?

John Tyler insisted he was president in full, not an acting one, setting the precedent for every later succession; the Whigs expelled him and almost all his cabinet quit.

Which president won the Mexican–American War, then died only three months after leaving office in 1849?

James K. Polk had pledged to serve only one term and kept his word; he is thought to have died of cholera, three months after leaving office.

Which general and president was 'Old Rough and Ready', dying only 16 months into his term?

Zachary Taylor spent a sweltering July day in 1850 at an outdoor ceremony, cooled off with iced drinks and a large helping of cherries, and died of a stomach illness five days later.

A paperwork error on his appointment to which academy turned Hiram Ulysses Grant into Ulysses S. Grant?

West Point kept the name his congressman had written by mistake, and the initials U.S. soon had fellow cadets calling him Uncle Sam, then simply Sam.

Before entering politics, Ronald Reagan served twice as president of which organisation?

The Screen Actors Guild called Reagan back as its president in 1959, when it was fighting the studios for residual payments on films shown on television.

Herbert Hoover made his fortune in which profession before entering public service?

Herbert Hoover trained as a mining engineer at Stanford, graduating in its first class in 1895, and grew rich managing mines in Australia and China before running famine relief for occupied Belgium in World War I.

Abraham Lincoln's 1863 speech opening 'Four score and seven years ago' is known by what name?

The Gettysburg Address took Lincoln about two minutes and fewer than 300 words, after the day's main speaker, Edward Everett, had talked for two hours.

Which agency is responsible for protecting the president of the United States?

The Secret Service was created in 1865 to fight counterfeit money and was given the job of guarding presidents only in 1901, after a third president had been assassinated.

Under the Twenty-second Amendment, how many times can a person be elected president?

Twice has been the cap since 1951, after Franklin Roosevelt won four elections in a row; someone who serves under two years of another's term can still be elected twice more.

Besides being at least 35 and a 14-year resident, what must a US president be under the Constitution?

A natural-born citizen: the Constitution never defines the phrase and the Supreme Court has never ruled on its exact meaning, so who counts is still argued over.

On which date is a newly elected president sworn in?

January 20 replaced March 4 from 1937, after the Twentieth Amendment cut short the long lame-duck wait between the November election and the swearing-in.

What is the street address of the president's official residence in Washington, D.C.?

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW was known as the President's House or the Executive Mansion until 1901, when Theodore Roosevelt made 'the White House' its official name.

What is the call sign of the helicopter that carries the president of the United States?

Marine One traces back to a 1957 emergency: the president, on holiday in Rhode Island, was recalled urgently to Washington, and a Marine helicopter sped the first leg of the trip.

The face on the US $100 bill belongs to which Founding Father, who was never president?

Benjamin Franklin's $100 overtook the $1 in 2017 as the most numerous US note in circulation, and a large share of them are held outside the United States.

Which First Lady is credited with saving George Washington's portrait before the British burned the White House in 1814?

Dolley Madison gave the order, 'Save that picture', as the British closed in; the work of getting it off the wall fell to White House staff, among them the enslaved Paul Jennings.

Who was president of the United States on September 11, 2001?

George W. Bush was reading to schoolchildren in Florida when he was told of the attacks; the 43rd president, he is the eldest son of the 41st.

Who served as vice president under Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001?

Al Gore won about half a million more votes nationwide than his opponent in 2000 but lost the presidency after the Supreme Court ruled against the Florida recount.

What was the name of George W. Bush's Scottish terrier?

Barney starred in the White House's 'Barney Cam' holiday videos and made news in November 2008 by biting a Reuters reporter's finger.

Which animal named Billy did businessman Harvey Firestone send from Liberia to President Coolidge in 1927?

A pygmy hippopotamus: Billy lived at the National Zoo rather than the White House, and most pygmy hippos in American zoos today descend from him.

Andrew Jackson's grey parrot Poll was said to have been removed from his funeral for what reason?

Loud and persistent swearing is the story told by a clergyman at the 1845 funeral, who recalled that the parrot 'got excited and commenced swearing' and had to be carried from the house.

Supporters sent Andrew Jackson a block of what, weighing over half a ton, served at an 1837 public reception?

Cheese: the giant block was served to the public at the White House in 1837, and The West Wing later built its 'Big Block of Cheese Day' episodes on the story.

Which animal made for Jimmy Carter's fishing boat in 1979, in what the press called a 'killer' attack?

A swamp rabbit, a species that swims readily, made for Carter's boat on a pond near Plains, Georgia, in April 1979, and he shooed it away with his paddle.

What slowed the bullet that hit Theodore Roosevelt in the chest in Milwaukee in 1912?

A glasses case and a thick speech, 50 folded pages of it, slowed the bullet; Roosevelt judged that since he was not coughing blood his lung was safe, and gave the speech before going to hospital.

What kind of animal was Pauline Wayne, who grazed the White House lawn for the Tafts from 1910 to 1913?

A Holstein cow: in 1911 Pauline Wayne vanished for two days when a rail crew switched her car onto a cattle train bound for the Chicago stockyards, and she was found just in time.

Woodrow Wilson kept a flock of what on the White House lawn during World War I?

Sheep: the flock, 48 at its peak and led by a ram named Old Ike, kept the grass trimmed during the war, and its wool was sold to raise money for the Red Cross.

Hooverball, invented for Herbert Hoover's fitness, is played by throwing what over an eight-foot net?

A medicine ball of about six pounds: Hoover's doctor devised the game to keep him fit, and the officials who joined in became known as the Medicine Ball Cabinet.

Which president had electricity installed in the White House but was too afraid to touch the switches?

Benjamin Harrison had Edison's company wire the White House, but he and his wife so feared a shock that they would not touch the switches and often went to bed with the lights on.

Which university did Dwight Eisenhower lead as its president from 1948 to 1953?

Columbia University kept Eisenhower as its president even while he was in Europe commanding NATO forces: its trustees declined his offer to resign when he left in December 1950.

What was the name of the Clinton family's cat in the White House?

Socks, a black-and-white stray adopted by Chelsea Clinton in Arkansas, lived in the White House from 1993 to 2001 and was later cared for by Clinton's secretary Betty Currie.

What kind of shop did Harry Truman open in Kansas City after returning from World War I?

Truman & Jacobson, a haberdashery selling shirts, ties and hats, opened in Kansas City in 1919 with his army friend Eddie Jacobson; it failed in the 1921–22 recession and he was elected a Jackson County judge in 1922.

Barack Obama won Grammy Awards in 2006 and 2008 in which category?

Best Spoken Word Album went to Obama's readings of his own two books; in 2008 he beat two former presidents, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, who were nominated beside him.

Which Caribbean island did US forces invade on Ronald Reagan's orders in October 1983?

Operation Urgent Fury landed on Grenada on October 25, 1983, days after a coup killed Prime Minister Maurice Bishop; Reagan cited the safety of American medical students on the island.

What did Alice Roosevelt call her pet garter snake, named after a leafy vegetable and a skinny aunt?

Emily Spinach's owner so exasperated her father that he told a friend he could be president or attend to Alice, but could not possibly do both.

Which president is the only one who never married?

James Buchanan's fiancée Anne Coleman broke off their engagement and died in 1819; he never married, and his orphaned niece Harriet Lane served as White House hostess.

Whose Oval Office desk carried a sign reading 'The Buck Stops Here'?

Harry S. Truman's sign was made at the federal reformatory in El Reno, Oklahoma, and sent to him in 1945 by his friend US Marshal Fred Canfil; its reverse reads 'I'm from Missouri'.

Which state has been the birthplace of more presidents than any other?

Virginia was the birthplace of seven of the first twelve presidents but of only one since then, and he left office in 1921.

In 1972 Richard Nixon became the first sitting president to visit which country?

Nixon's February 1972 week in China ended more than two decades of estrangement since the 1949 revolution, though formal diplomatic relations only followed in 1979; Pat Nixon toured schools and factories with the press corps in tow.

What play was Abraham Lincoln watching at Ford's Theatre when he was shot?

Our American Cousin, Tom Taylor's comedy, was in its third act when John Wilkes Booth, who knew the play well, timed his shot to the laughter following the 'sockdologizing old man-trap' line.

The 1978 Camp David Accords were signed by Israel and which other country?

Egypt's Anwar Sadat and Israel's Menachem Begin signed the accords after nearly two weeks of secret talks hosted by Jimmy Carter, and the framework led to the 1979 Egypt–Israel peace treaty.

Who shot and wounded Ronald Reagan outside the Washington Hilton in March 1981?

John Hinckley Jr. fired six shots on March 30, 1981, hoping to impress the actress Jodie Foster; in 1982 a jury found him not guilty by reason of insanity.

Which president was born William Jefferson Blythe III?

Bill Clinton's father, William Blythe Jr., died in a car accident three months before his birth in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946; he formally took his stepfather Roger Clinton's surname at 15.

William McKinley was shot in 1901 at the Pan-American Exposition in which city?

At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, anarchist Leon Czolgosz fired twice as they shook hands in the Temple of Music on September 6, 1901; McKinley died of gangrene eight days later.

Who was the shortest president, standing about 5 feet 4 inches?

James Madison, the smallest of the presidents, is remembered as the Father of the Constitution, though he insisted the charter was the work of 'many heads and many hands'.

Which president's 1823 message to Congress warned Europe against new colonies in the Americas?

James Monroe's December 1823 message, largely drafted by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, went unnamed for 27 years; the phrase 'Monroe Doctrine' only came into use in 1850.

George Washington's Mount Vernon estate sits on the banks of which river?

Potomac: the riverside estate was bought in 1858 by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, a private group that still owns and runs it today.

Which former president served nine terms in the House of Representatives after leaving office?

John Quincy Adams spent his years in the House leading the fight against the gag rule on anti-slavery petitions, and suffered a fatal stroke on the House floor in 1848.

Which future president was Director of Central Intelligence in 1976-77?

George H. W. Bush ran the CIA for just under a year and offered to stay on under Jimmy Carter; in 1999 the agency's headquarters was named the George Bush Center for Intelligence.

The first White House Easter Egg Roll was held on the lawn in 1878 under which president?

Rutherford B. Hayes opened the South Lawn to egg-rollers in 1878 after Congress had banned the game on the Capitol grounds in 1876, when one rowdy roll wrecked the lawn.

FDR became the first sitting president to fly when he travelled to a 1943 conference where?

Casablanca: a Pan Am flying boat, the Dixie Clipper, carried the president across the Atlantic, and on the flight home he celebrated his 61st birthday with cake in the air.

Which territory did Andrew Johnson's administration buy in 1867, in a deal skeptics dubbed 'Seward's Folly'?

Alaska cost $7.2 million, about two cents an acre; Russia sold because it doubted it could defend the colony against its great rival, Britain.

Sarah T. Hughes, the only woman to swear in a president, did so aboard Air Force One in 1963 in which city?

Dallas: the plane was held on the ground at Love Field until Judge Hughes arrived, and the oath was taken in its crowded cabin with Jacqueline Kennedy standing alongside.

Which president signed the 1883 Pendleton Act, creating merit-based federal hiring?

Chester A. Arthur signed the Pendleton Act in January 1883, a surprise from a product of New York's patronage machine who had himself been fired as Collector of the Port of New York in 1878.

Which oil-lease bribery scandal engulfed Warren G. Harding's administration after his sudden death in 1923?

Teapot Dome sent Interior Secretary Albert Fall to prison for taking bribes over Navy oil reserves, the first cabinet member jailed for crimes committed in office.

Abraham Lincoln earned New Salem's respect in a famous match against the Clary's Grove boys' leader at which sport?

Wrestling won Lincoln a reputation for strength and courage among the frontier ruffians of New Salem. He went on to serve as a militia captain in the Black Hawk War of 1832.

Which vegetable did George H. W. Bush ban from Air Force One, saying his mother had made him eat it?

Broccoli growers answered the ban by trucking 10 tons of the vegetable to Washington. The first family donated the delivery to a local food bank.

Ronald Reagan, who turned to candy after quitting smoking, passed around a jar of which sweets at meetings?

Jelly beans became so tied to Reagan that he sent them up on the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1983, the first in space. The astronauts on board were surprised to find them.

Which singer asked Richard Nixon for a federal narcotics badge during a December 1970 White House meeting?

Elvis Presley told Nixon he could reach out to hippies to help fight the drug culture. Nixon apparently found the encounter awkward.

George Washington's dentures were ivory, brass and gold, yet legend wrongly says they were made of what?

Wood was never part of them: the sets also held animal and human teeth. By his first inauguration Washington had only one natural tooth left.

Which American food did Franklin D. Roosevelt serve King George VI during a 1939 visit to Hyde Park?

Hot dogs shared the menu with smoked turkey and strawberry shortcake at Roosevelt's New York estate. The royal couple had come south during their tour of Canada.

Which devices did Jimmy Carter place on the White House roof in 1979, only to be removed under Ronald Reagan?

Solar panels heated water for the staff kitchen until they came down during roof repairs in 1986. A Maine college later hauled them away in an old school bus and reused them.

Which famous author published the memoirs Ulysses S. Grant finished only days before dying of throat cancer?

Mark Twain, a personal friend, sent ten thousand sales agents door to door with a script he devised. Grant wrote the books to rescue his family after a Ponzi scheme bankrupted him.

Which instrument did Bill Clinton play on The Arsenio Hall Show during his 1992 presidential campaign?

Saxophone was his choice for a rendition of 'Heartbreak Hotel' on the late-night show. The appearance is credited with building his popularity among young and minority voters.

Which animal, sent to Calvin Coolidge to be cooked for a holiday dinner, became a White House pet named Rebecca?

A raccoon was not to Coolidge's taste, so Rebecca was spared and given an embroidered collar titled 'White House Raccoon'. She walked outdoors on a leash.

Thomas Jefferson designed which mountaintop home, pictured on the back of the US nickel since 1938?

Monticello occupied Jefferson for decades: he began designing it after inheriting the land at 14 and was still remodelling it through most of his presidency.

Abraham Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin in which state, leaving for Indiana in 1816?

Kentucky was home for only his first seven years. The Lincolns moved on in search of more reliable land titles.

Who shot Abraham Lincoln in April 1865 and was tracked to a farm barn twelve days later?

John Wilkes Booth was a noted actor from a prominent theatrical family. Soldiers set the barn ablaze, and one of them shot him in the neck.

Which holiday did Abraham Lincoln proclaim nationally in 1863, prompted by editor Sarah Josepha Hale's campaign?

Thanksgiving became a national fixture after Hale had lobbied for 17 years. She is better remembered as the author of 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'.

Which US coin was redesigned to carry Franklin D. Roosevelt's portrait in 1946, the year after his death?

Dime was the natural choice: Roosevelt helped found the March of Dimes to fight polio. The coin was released on what would have been his 64th birthday.

In which city was John F. Kennedy shot while riding in a presidential motorcade in November 1963?

Dallas was where the shots came from a book depository on Dealey Plaza. The gunman had found work in the building only weeks earlier.

Which volunteer programme did John F. Kennedy create by executive order in March 1961 to send Americans abroad?

Peace Corps was not Kennedy's own idea: Senator Hubert Humphrey had introduced a bill to create it in 1957, three years before Kennedy raised it in a campaign speech.

What was the name of the cocker spaniel Richard Nixon vowed to keep in a 1952 televised speech?

Checkers gave the speech its popular name. About 60 million Americans tuned in, and the outpouring of support kept Nixon on the Republican ticket.

Theodore Roosevelt made the first foreign trip by a sitting president in 1906 to inspect which project?

Panama Canal construction drew Roosevelt south aboard the USS Louisiana. He was photographed there sitting at the controls of a giant steam shovel.

What did Jimmy Carter report seeing in the sky over Leary, Georgia, in a statement filed in 1973?

A UFO, he wrote, about as bright as the moon and changing colour from white to blue to red. Two later investigators argued he had been looking at the planet Venus.

What name was given to Franklin D. Roosevelt's evening radio addresses, coined by a CBS executive in 1933?

Fireside chats invited listeners to picture Roosevelt beside the fireplace in his study. He gave them until 1944, on subjects from the banking crisis to the course of the war.

Woodrow Wilson won the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize as leading architect of which body the United States never joined?

League of Nations membership failed in the Senate, where a 49–35 vote in 1920 fell short of the two-thirds needed. Wilson had refused to allow a compromise.

Which name did Lyndon B. Johnson give his domestic programme, first using the phrase at Ohio University in 1964?

Great Society laws created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, along with food stamps and federal money for schools with low-income students.

Which animal nickname stuck to Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party after he lost the 1912 Republican nomination?

Bull Moose came from Roosevelt's own boast: after his defeat at the party convention he said he felt 'strong as a bull moose'.

Which nickname did Andrew Jackson earn for his toughness on a difficult march home to Nashville with his troops?

Old Hickory began as plain 'Hickory', after the tough tree. Jackson had refused to disband his men far from home and led them back himself.

Which Wyoming oil field gave its name to the bribery scandal that engulfed Warren G. Harding's administration?

Teapot Dome sent Interior Secretary Albert Fall to prison for taking bribes, the first cabinet member ever jailed. Nobody was convicted of paying them.

At which Berlin landmark did Ronald Reagan urge Mikhail Gorbachev to 'tear down this wall' in June 1987?

Brandenburg Gate was the backdrop for a speech drafted by Peter Robinson, who said a scouting trip had convinced him most West Berliners opposed the wall.

Which newspaper ran the mistaken headline 'Dewey Defeats Truman' after a printers' strike forced earlier deadlines?

Chicago Daily Tribune staff went to press before most states had reported results. Truman famously held up a copy two days after the election from the rear platform of his train.

Which foreign road network impressed Dwight D. Eisenhower in wartime and helped inspire America's interstate highways?

Germany's autobahns struck him as vital to national defence. So did a 1919 Army convoy he joined, which needed 62 days to cross the United States.

Andrew Jackson became a national hero by routing the British at which 1815 battle, fought after peace was signed?

New Orleans was fought 15 days after the Treaty of Ghent was signed, because word of the peace had not yet crossed the Atlantic. Congress voted Jackson a gold medal.

After a Japanese destroyer sank his boat PT-109 in 1943, John F. Kennedy scratched a rescue message onto what?

A coconut was the suggestion of an islander scout named Gasa, and Kennedy carved the message into its husk with a knife. The shell was later preserved in a paperweight.

Lyndon B. Johnson caused controversy when he was photographed lifting his beagles, Him and Her, by what?

Their ears were exactly the right place to hold a hound, former president Harry Truman insisted. He could not see what the critics were complaining about.

George H. W. Bush fainted after vomiting onto the lap of which country's prime minister at a 1992 banquet?

Japan's Kiichi Miyazawa was hosting the dinner in Tokyo, and doctors blamed acute gastroenteritis. Earlier that day Bush had lost a doubles tennis match to the emperor.

What did Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi throw at George W. Bush during a 2008 press conference in Baghdad?

His shoes both missed: Bush quickly ducked, and the second hit a US flag behind him. The journalist was grabbed by security and later jailed.

Which British monarch gave the United States the Resolute desk, built from the timbers of an abandoned Arctic ship?

Queen Victoria was returning a favour: an American whaler had found the abandoned HMS Resolute, and the United States repaired it and sent it home as a goodwill gesture.

What name did Franklin D. Roosevelt give the Maryland retreat, now Camp David, where he hosted Churchill in 1943?

Shangri-La, the fictional Himalayan paradise, was Roosevelt's choice in 1942. Eisenhower renamed the retreat in 1953 for his father and his grandson, both called David.

Which NBC reality show, billed as 'The Ultimate Job Interview', did Donald Trump host for its first 14 seasons?

The Apprentice made 'You're fired!' his catchphrase, the words that sent one contestant home each episode. British producer Mark Burnett created the show.

Joe Biden was born in which Pennsylvania city, nicknamed the Electric City for its early electric streetcars?

Scranton is also home to the paper-company branch in NBC's The Office. Biden's family left after the city fell into decline in the 1950s and his father could not find steady work.

Which sport did Barack Obama play on the varsity team at Punahou School, where he graduated in 1979?

Basketball stayed his game into adulthood, and he plays it left-handed. He had attended Punahou on a scholarship from fifth grade.

Which baseball team did George W. Bush co-own for five years before being elected governor in 1994?

Texas Rangers ownership cost him $500,000 of his own money in 1989, when he arranged for a group of investors to buy a controlling interest for $89 million.

James A. Garfield published an original proof of which famous mathematical result while an Ohio congressman in 1876?

Pythagorean theorem gets a tidy treatment in Garfield's version, which works out the area of a trapezoid in two different ways. It ran in the New-England Journal of Education.

Grover Cleveland personally hanged two convicted murderers while holding which elected office in Erie County, New York?

Sheriff Cleveland could have paid a deputy $10 to carry out each execution, but he did the job himself despite his reservations about hanging.

Grover Cleveland had a tumour secretly removed from his mouth in 1893 while aboard what, off Long Island?

A friend's yacht, the Oneida, hid the operation under the guise of a vacation cruise. Cleveland feared that news of his illness would worsen the financial panic.

Who administered the presidential oath to Calvin Coolidge at the family homestead in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, in 1923?

His father, a notary public, swore him in by the light of a kerosene lamp at 2:47 a.m. The new president then went back to bed.

Andrew Johnson, who never attended school, was apprenticed in which trade before entering Tennessee politics?

Tailor was not a trade he took to at first: bound as a boy to James Selby, he ran away after about five years, and Selby advertised a reward for his return.

Gerald Ford turned down offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers after playing centre for which university?

Michigan went undefeated and won national titles in 1932 and 1933 with Ford on the team. He took a coaching job at Yale rather than turn professional.

Which Irish-born architect won the 1792 competition to design the White House, modelling it on Ireland's Leinster House?

James Hoban grew up on an estate in County Kilkenny. Leinster House, his model for the mansion, is now the home of the Irish parliament.

Harry Truman survived a 1950 assassination attempt at which Washington residence, his home during major renovations?

Blair House is now the President's Guest House, nicknamed the world's most exclusive hotel for the dignitaries it hosts. Truman was napping upstairs when the shooting began.

Which anarchist shot William McKinley twice in the abdomen as the president shook hands with the public?

Leon Czolgosz went to the electric chair that October. Congress later made guarding the president an official duty of the Secret Service.

Which slave ship gave its name to the 1841 Supreme Court case argued by former president John Quincy Adams?

The Amistad had been seized by its captives, Mende people kidnapped in the area of Sierra Leone. The court authorized their release, and the story became a 1997 film.