[Nfbf-l] presidential firsts

[Sherri]

This was really interesting. Thought with inauguration day coming up, you might appreciate the following trivia.

January Feature

Presidential Precedents 

(and other trivia)

By Kathryn Moore on TheAmericanPresident.US 

With the start of a new year, and every four years, another presidential inauguration, let us look at how each president made history in his own way.

George Washington: First to be inaugurated president, and at his swearing-in, he added the phrase, "So help me, God," then he kissed the bible. He later became the first president immortalized on a postage stamp (in 1847).

Shortest inaugural speech (135 words).

John Adams: First president elected as a political party (Federalist) candidate. First president to be defeated for re-election. First to live in the White House.

Thomas Jefferson: First president to be inaugurated in Washington, DC. First to add territory to the U.S. through treaty (Louisiana Purchase).

James Madison: First president to have previously served as a congressman (from Virginia). First wartime president during War of 1812.

James Monroe: First president who ever previously served in two cabinet positions -- Secretary of State and Secretary of War. He did this under President Madison at the time of the War of 1812. Also was first president to ride a steamboat and to wear long pants rather than knee breeches.

John Quincy Adams: First presidential son to become president. He would be the only president to serve in the House of Representatives after his presidency.

Andrew Jackson: Only president to have previously killed a man in a duel. First president of the "common man" and his inauguration reception nearly destroyed the White House. Fearing possible personal injury, Jackson fled through a back door to escape the hordes of visitors.

Martin Van Buren: First president to be born an American citizen. The rest had been born as British subjects. 

William Henry Harrison: First president to die in office. He was president for only 31 days. Longest inaugural speech (10,000 words). 

John Tyler: First vice president to move up on death of president. First to have his veto overridden. He was the first whose wife died while he was president and then he became the first president to marry while in office. 

James K. Polk: First president whose inauguration was covered by telegraph. First president not to seek re-election. 

Zachary Taylor: President whose death allowed the passage of the Compromise of 1850. He died 16 months into his term from possible gastroenteritis after eating milk and cherries on July 4. His eldest daughter Sarah was the bride of future Confederate president Jefferson Davis, but she died of malaria after only three months of marriage. 

Millard Fillmore: His wife Abigail was the first to set up a library in the White House. 

Franklin Pierce: First president to "affirm" rather than swear the oath of office. He placed his hand upon a law book rather than a bible. He was the first to give his inaugural speech without notes. He was the youngest president up to that time at age 48. 

James Buchanan: Only president never to have married.

Abraham Lincoln: First president born outside the original 13 states. He was born in Kentucky. He was the first president slain by an assassin.

Andrew Johnson: First president to be impeached. He remained president by a single vote.

Ulysses S. Grant: First military commander since George Washington to be awarded title "General of the Army of the United States." First former president to visit Russia, Japan, Thailand, Egypt, and meet Queen Victoria. First presidential memoirs, which were published after his death by friend, Mark Twain.

Rutherford B. Hayes: First president to visit the west coast (California) while in office. He and his wife banned alcoholic drinks from the White House, giving her the title "Lemonade Lucy." They also started the annual Easter egg roll on the White House lawn.

James A. Garfield: First left-handed president but taught himself to be ambidextrous; sometimes he astounded friends by writing Latin with one hand and Greek with the other. Only president to have been serving in House of Representatives when he won election as president. Second president to be assassinated.

Chester A. Arthur: First president to be sworn in at his New York City home. This happened upon the death of President Garfield who had been shot two months earlier and died September 19, 1881. (Arthur was sworn in again two days later by the Chief Justice when Arthur returned to Washington.)

Grover Cleveland: Only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. Only president to wed in the White House. He wed twenty-one-year-old Frances Folsom on June 2, 1886, and the Marine Band with John Philip Sousa conducting, provided the music. The president was forty-nine.

Benjamin Harrison: First president to install electricity in the White House, but he was afraid to touch the switches so he ordered the staff to do so. Last president to have a beard. Only grandson of a former president (William Henry Harrison) to become president. 

William McKinley: Last Civil War veteran elected president. First inauguration recorded by a movie camera. First president to ride in an automobile. Third president to be assassinated. 

Theodore Roosevelt: Youngest president at the age of forty-three. First president to ride in an airplane and a submarine. First president to travel overseas while in office; he visited Panama to inspect the building of the Panama Canal. First president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. 

William H. Taft: First president to be accompanied by his wife on ride to capitol for his swearing-in ceremony. First president to have an official White House automobile. First president to throw the first pitch to start the baseball season. Only president to serve later on the U.S. Supreme Court as its chief justice. 

Woodrow Wilson: First president to cross the Atlantic Ocean while in office. He traveled to France where he helped negotiate the Treaty of Versailles after World War I. First president to be buried in Washington, DC.

Second to win Nobel Peace Prize. 

Warren G. Harding: First newspaper publisher to be elected president. First to have election results broadcast over the radio. He was also the first president to speak on the radio. First president to visit Alaska and Canada. 

Calvin Coolidge: Only president to be sworn in by his father. (Harding had died and when Coolidge was notified while visiting his father in Vermont, John Coolidge, the local justice of the peace, swore in his son.) First president to light the national Christmas tree. 

Herbert Hoover: First president born west of the Mississippi River (Iowa). First president to have a telephone in his office. 

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Only president elected to four terms (although he died 3 months into his last term). First president inaugurated on January 20 with the change made by the 20th amendment. Only president who had suffered from polio and required a wheelchair. First president to appear on television. First to appoint a woman to a cabinet position (Frances Perkins, Secretary of Labor). First to have a presidential plane. 

Harry S. Truman: First president to take office during a war (World War II). First to have his inauguration televised. First president to have a television in the White House. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower: First president to preside over 50 states (Alaska was added in 1959; Hawaii in 1960). First president who had a pilot's license and first to use a helicopter. Only president to win an Emmy award in recognition of his use of television. Only president who served in both World Wars. 

John F. Kennedy: First president to be born in the twentieth century and only Catholic president. First former Boy Scout to become president. First president who had served on active duty in the U.S. Navy. First president to hold a news conference. Only president to appoint his brother to a cabinet position (Robert, Attorney General). 

Lyndon B. Johnson: Only vice president to be an eyewitness to president's assassination. Only president sworn in by a woman and on an airplane (Judge Sarah Hughes swore him in aboard Air Force One in Dallas, Texas). First president to appoint an African American to the Supreme Court (Thurgood Marshall). 

Richard M. Nixon: First president to travel to China. First president to visit all 50 states. Only president to resign from office (August 9, 1974).

Gerald R. Ford: Only president to take office who was not elected as either president or vice president (had been appointed vice president by President Nixon after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned). Only president to have been recruited in college by two professional football teams -- Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.

Jimmy Carter: First president elected from the Deep South after the Civil War First president born in a hospital. First president to send his mother overseas on a diplomatic mission. Third to win Nobel Peace Prize (20 years after his presidency). 

Ronald Reagan: Only president to have previously been a movie actor. First president to have been divorced and a former labor union president. Oldest president in U.S. history -- when he left office in 1989, he was 77 years old. First president to appoint a woman to the Supreme Court (Sandra Day O'Connor). Coldest inauguration day on record: 7º F.

George H. W. Bush: Was youngest Navy pilot in World War II. Last president to have had previous combat experience. Only president who also served as head of the CIA.

William J. Clinton: First inauguration broadcast live on the internet. Only president to have been a Rhodes scholar. First Democratic president to win re-election since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

George W. Bush: Only president whose election was determined by a U.S. Supreme Court decision. Only president who formerly owned part of a baseball team (Texas Rangers). Only president to have graduated from Harvard with an M.B.A.

Barack H. Obama: First African American elected president. Fourth to win Nobel Peace Prize.

Sherri Brun
flmom2006 at gmail.com
"Don't give up something you want forever for something you want only for now!"