Presidential Trivia for Election Time, part III

The third installment in a series of blog articles on presidential trivia (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4).

Portrait of Warren Harding — Warren Gamaliel Harding / By Margaret Lindsay Williams, 1923 / Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

Next week: Elections, the White House, and odd facts

The middle name of Warren G. Harding (above) was Gamaliel. He was named after the wise man on the Sanhedrin in Acts 5: 34–40. Unfortunately, Harding was not so wise, and he trusted corrupt individuals who eventually brought scandal and shame to his administration.

Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth President of the United States, was the only president born on the fourth of July, although three presidents have died on that day—John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1826 and James Monroe in 1831.

Before becoming president, Herbert Hoover never held an elected office except in college.

FDR succumbed to death, not in the presence of his wife of forty years, Eleanor, but in the company of one of his longtime mistresses, Lucy Mercer.

The S in Harry S Truman’s name did not stand for anything.

Portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower — Dwight David Eisenhower / By Ernest Hamlin Baker,1945 / Gouache on board / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; purchased with funds from Rosemary L. Frankeberger

After being supreme commander of Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe and before becoming president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower (above) was president of Columbia University.

John F. Kennedy was a best-selling author (Why England Slept) at the age of twenty-three.

Lyndon Johnson picked fruit, washed dishes, and worked as a janitor before and while earning his bachelor’s degree from Southwest State Teachers College in San Marcos, Texas.

The National Archives and Records Administration maintains a Web feature as part of its site, which describes the historic meeting between Elvis Presley and President Richard Nixon. It can be found here.

Gerald Rudolph Ford was named Leslie Lynch King at birth.

Rather than be inaugurated as James Earl Carter Jr., our thirty-ninth president chose to take the oath of office as Jimmy Carter.

Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been divorced.

George Herbert Walker Bush played baseball for Yale; in 1947 he played in the first College World Series.

Portrait of Bill Clinton — William Jefferson Clinton / By Nelson Shanks,2005/ Oil on canvas / National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of The Boeing Company, Dr. and Mrs. Ronald I. Dozoretz, Charles H. and Eleanor M. Foster, Norma Lee and Morton Funger, Sam F. and June Hamra, Frank and Marylen Mann Jacobs, S. Lee and Rosalyn H. Kling, Ambassador and Mrs. Philip Lader, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas F. McLarty III, Ruesch Family Foundation, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad, Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser, John and Laurie Sykes, Mallory and Diana Walker

Bill Clinton (above) won the 1992 presidential election against two left-handed men: George H. W. Bush and H. Ross Perot. Clinton is also left-handed.

Like father, like son: George W. Bush was in the Skull and Bones society at Yale, as was his father. He was also trained as a pilot. Although he never played in the College World Series, he eventually became part-owner of the Texas Rangers.

Sources:

Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents by Cormac O’Brien
Isaac Asimov’s Book of Facts by Isaac Asimov
American Presidents by David C. Whitney
Portraits of the Presidents by Frederick Voss