Five Random Facts about the American Presidents, Part I

I'm currently reading The American Presidents (11th Edition) by David C. Whitney, a compendium of short biographies on all the presidents.

Since I am about half way finished with the book, I thought I'd post five random notable things I've learned so far.


Andrew Jackson spent a lot of time with bullets in his body. In 1813 Thomas Hart Benton pumped a bunch of bullets into Jackson and doctors urged him to have his shattered arm amputated. Jackson refused and carried the bullets in his arm for the next 19 years, having them removed while he was president.

William Henry Harrison had the worst inauguration. W.H. Harrison caught a cold during his inaugural address and died from it a month later.

John Tyler was expelled from his party while President. He was elected as a Whig (as VP, then became Prez when W.H. Harrison died), but because he vetoed Whig legislation, all the members of his cabinet quit and two days later the party expelled him.

Grover Cleveland lived a nonchalant life between presidencies. In between GC's time as our 22nd and 24th President, he moved to New York to work as an attorney and took the street car to work.


Theodore Roosevelt stood up for the rights of women and minorities. TDR wrote his 1880s college thesis on the "Practicability of Giving Men and Women Equal Rights," and invited Booker T. Washington to eat with him at the White House, the first time in history a president had sat down to dinner with a black man, causing Roosevelt to be unwelcome in the South.