45 Odd Facts About U.S. Presidents

Did you know the United States had a president named Leslie? That isn't the oddest thing about him.

It turns out that Presidents are also human, which means they are also deeply weird. Here are 45 strange tidbits of trivia all about the people who have taken up residence in the White House.

1. Gerald Ford was a model.

Gerald Ford—birth name Leslie Lynch King, Jr.—was a model for Cosmopolitan, appearing in a cover illustration he posed for in 1942. He also met his wife through modeling.

2. Herbert Hoover invented his own sport.

Watch out, Calvin Coolidge Ball. To stay fit, Herbert Hoover and his personal physician invented their own sport: Hooverball. The game was a sort of cross between volleyball, tennis, and dodgeball, except much more terrifying, because it was played with a medicine ball.

3. Herbert Hoover managed the football team at Stanford.

Speaking of Hoover and sports: young Herbert was manager of the football team at Stanford, but he was a little bit Holden Caulfield about the gig. At the first Stanford-Cal game in 1892, for instance, he forgot to bring the game ball.

4. Theodore Roosevelt didn’t think a black eye seemed presidential.

Noted pugilist TR said he cut back on boxing in the White House because it was "rather absurd for a president to appear with a black eye or a swollen nose or a cut lip."

5. Theodore Roosevelt had a lot of pets.

The president and his kids kept a menagerie: There were horses, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, a lizard, a badger, a snake named Emily Spinach, and a bear named Jonathan Edwards, among others.

6. Theodore Roosevelt had a lock of Abe Lincoln's hair.

Incidentally, during his inauguration, Teddy Roosevelt wore a ring that contained a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair, which may be the 14th weirdest thing about him.

7. Theodore Roosevelt viewed Abe Lincoln's funeral procession.

In 1865, TR watched Abraham Lincoln's funeral procession in New York City, and apparently it left quite an impression. Enough to make Teddy want some of Lincoln's hair and to call the man his "great hero."

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8. Abraham Lincoln's hair was incredibly versatile.

Speaking of Lincoln's hair: it was amazing. Stately, bed-tossed, shaggy, neatly trimmed. He pulled off dozens of looks with what one reporter called "wild Republican hair."

9. Ulysses S. Grant was given a speeding ticket ... while he was president.

In 1872, sitting president Ulysses S. Grant was pulled over and fined $20 for exceeding the Washington speed limit ... on a horse.

10. Bill Clinton is kind of a brony.

When Bill Clinton appeared on Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!, he aced the three questions about My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.

11. Bill Clinton's cat had its own video game.

The Clintons' cat almost had his own Super Nintendo game called Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill. The release didn't go through, but, fortunately, a Kickstarter campaign made the game a reality in 2018.

12. Richard Nixon proposed to his wife the day they met.

Pro tip: that is not a good idea. Then he obsessively pursued Pat for two years until she finally said yes. (Also not a good idea.)

13. Richard Nixon drove his future wife on dates with other guys.

But it gets weirder than that, because to spend time with Pat in the interim, Nixon acted as her chauffeur, driving her on dates with other guys ... which is not creepy at all.

14. Richard Nixon's favorite snack was cottage cheese with ketchup.

He also had yogurt flown in from California every day.

15. Warren Harding bet white house china on a poker game.

It was a priceless set. And he lost. Not the only example of corruption in his administration.

16. George H.W. Bush thought about naming Clint Eastwood as his running mate.

Ultimately, Bush chose Dan Quayle. If he had picked Eastwood, he would have elevated the mayor of a small town in California to the second highest position in the federal government—not to mention that Bush would have had a movie star as his VP.

17. Martin Van Buren wrote an autobiography without mentioning his wife.

They had six children together. Sadly, she died at 35 of tuberculosis before he became president. He never remarried.

18. Lyndon Johnson issued the first Medicare card to Harry Truman.

This is a presidential twofer: President Truman was the first to call for federal medical insurance that would take care of those at retiree age, so President Johnson made it a symbolic act to sign the bill creating Medicare at the Truman Library, awarding the 81-year-old Truman the first card.

19. The bowling alley in the White House was a birthday present for Truman.

Speaking of Truman: For his birthday in 1947, Harry's pals had a bowling alley installed in the White House ... but he hadn't bowled since he was 19 years old.

20. Harry Truman never pardoned a turkey.

Contrary to popular belief, Truman never granted clemency to a turkey. Several history sites claim that Truman was the first president to pardon a Thanksgiving Day turkey, but the Truman Library can't find any "documents, speeches, newspaper clippings, photographs, or other contemporary records" tying him to the custom. According to their research, the one time President Truman was given a live turkey for the holidays, his family did what people expected them to do: eat it.

21. The first turkey pardon was by JFK.

So, who was the first president to give a bird a pass? John F. Kennedy. In 1963, Kennedy announced he wouldn't eat the turkey he'd been given. Instead, he sent it to a farm upstate where it had plenty of space to run and play and gobble and contemplate what its country had done for it.

22. Rutherford B. Hayes was the first to host an Easter egg roll.

It was fairly impromptu. Denied access to the grounds of the United States Capitol in 1878, children went to the White House instead, and Hayes instructed his security detail to let them in.

23. Gerald Ford was the first president to host a prom.

It was for his daughter Susan's school. Nothing says "not embarrassing" like having the Secret Service chaperone your high school dance.

24. LBJ sold muzak to the White House.

Johnson owned a franchise of the easy listening music in Austin and sold the tunes to Eisenhower's White House years before he'd sit in the Oval Office himself.

25. Before he was president, Grover Cleveland was president.

Hats off to #22 and #24, the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.

26. Before he was president, Grover Cleveland was a hangman.

As sheriff of Erie County, Cleveland personally carried out two hanging sentences to save his district money.

27. William Faulkner turned down an invitation from JFK.

The great William Faulkner once refused an invitation from President Kennedy's White House. "Why that's a hundred miles away," Faulkner explained. "That's a long way to go just to eat."

28. Calvin Coolidge really didn't like talking.

His nickname, Silent Cal, was well-earned. Upon hearing the news of the notoriously quiet Calvin Coolidge's death, Dorothy Parker reportedly asked, "How can they tell?"

29. There was an assassination attempt on FDR'S life.

In 1933, a would-be-assassin shot at Franklin Delano Roosevelt five times while Roosevelt was giving a speech. Five people were hit. None of them were Roosevelt.

30. Ronald Reagan wrote about Drew Barrymore in his diary.

An excerpt from Ronald Reagan's diary from October 17, 1984 reads: "Little Drew Barrymore—the child in E.T.—was one of the children [I met]. She's a nice little person."

31. Reagan absolutely dominated in the electoral college.

If you combine the electoral college results of the 1980 and 1984 elections, Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale 1014-62.

32. Ronald Reagan was offered a role in Back To The Future III.

Reagan was a mild punch line in the first Back to the Future, which he screened at the White House. So director Robert Zemeckis liked the idea of him playing a small role as the 1885 mayor of Hill Valley. They got Reagan's former agent (who was then head of Universal Studios) to reach out to offer him the part.

33. Ronald Reagan quoted the franchise in a state of the union address.

In his 1986 address, Reagan name-checked the Michael J. Fox sci-fi comedy and delivered the "Where we're going we don't need roads," line. How hip is that?

34. Reagan also convinced Mr. T to play Santa.

Which is how we got a great photo of Nancy Reagan sitting on Mr. T's lap.

35. Harry S. Truman's middle name is S.

Just S. His middle name was a compromise initial denoting both grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.

36. David Beckham gave Barack Obama a pair of underwear.

Fifty pairs of boxer briefs to be exact.

37. Ludacris made headphones exclusively for Barack Obama.

They had the presidential seal on the sides and everything.

38. Barack Obama turned down a pet donkey.

Not from Ludacris. The Colombian village of Turbaco prepared a donkey to give to the president during a visit, but Obama diplomatically declined.

39. John Adams had a great name for his dog.

John and Abigail Adams had a dog named Satan. Their other dog was Juno.

40. Benjamin Harrison had pet possums.

They were named Mr. Reciprocity and Mr. Protection in reference to a Republican party slogan of the era.

41. Teddy Roosevelt's children had guinea pigs.

Dr. Johnson, Bishop Doane, Fighting Bob Evans, and Father O'Grady ... those are some intense guinea pig names. They also owned dogs, cats, kangaroo rats, and a badger.

42. Jimmy Carter wrote a children's book.

The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer is about a young boy growing up in poverty who meets an unusual deep-sea creature.

43. Dwight Eisenhower named Camp David after his grandson.

Before then, the presidential retreat was called "Shangri-La." Ike renamed it in 1953 to honor his then-five-year-old grandson, Dwight David.

44. Bill Clinton's first job was selling comic books.

At the age of 13, Bill Clinton went to work at a grocery store and convinced the owner to let him sell comic books. He made $100.

45. Andrew Johnson made his own suits.

Andrew Johnson was a tailor in Tennessee before launching his political career, and old habits die hard. Even after he became president, he made his own clothing.

Watch our full video of of odd facts about the U.S. presidents below.