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13 Things You Don’t Know About Presidents (MSN)
Posted by Ed Miller
Not only were these men leaders of the United States, they were multitalented, unique, and sometimes even downright quirky. We’ve heard a lot about their contribution to United States history. But would you have guessed the following?
1. In warm weather, 6th president of the United States John Quincy Adams customarily went skinny-dipping in the Potomac River before dawn.
2. 9th U.S. president William Henry Harrison was inaugurated on a bitterly cold day and gave the longest inauguration speech ever. The new president promptly caught a cold that soon developed into pneumonia. Harrison died exactly one month into his presidential term, the shortest in U.S. history.
3. John Tyler, 10th U.S. president, fathered 15 children (more than any other president)—8 by his first wife, and 7 by his second wife. Tyler was past his seventieth birthday when his 15th child was born.
4. 15th U.S. president James Buchanan is the only unmarried man ever to be elected president. Buchanan was engaged to be married once; however, his fiancée died suddenly after breaking off the engagement, and he remained a bachelor all his life.
5. Often depicted wearing a tall black stovepipe hat, 16th president of the United States Abraham Lincoln carried letters, bills, and notes in his hat.
6. 17th U.S. president Andrew Johnson never attended school. His future wife, Eliza McCardle, taught him to write at the age of 17. (Bonus fact about Andrew Johnson: He only wore suits that he custom-tailored himself.)
7. Both ambidextrous and multilingual, 20th president of the United States James Garfield could write Greek with one hand while writing Latin with the other.
8. Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th president of the United States, underwent a secret operation aboard a yacht to remove his cancerous upper jaw in 1893.
9. The teddy bear derived from 26th U.S. president Theodore (“Teddy”) Roosevelt’s refusal to shoot a bear with her cub while on a hunting trip in Mississippi.
10. William Taft, 27th president of the United States, weighed more than 300 pounds and had a special oversized bathtub installed in the White House.
11. Warren Harding, 29th U.S. president, played poker at least twice a week, and once gambled away an entire set of White House china. His advisors were nicknamed the “Poker Cabinet” because they joined the president in his poker games.
12. Herbert Hoover, 31st U.S. president, published more than 16 books, including one called Fishing for Fun-And to Wash Your Soul.
13. 32nd president of the United States Franklin D. Roosevelt was related, either by blood or by marriage, to 11 former presidents.