President's Day

• George Washington owned several hound dogs. Their names included Sweet Lips, Vulcan, and Drunkard.
• John Quincy Adams regularly skinny dipped in the Potomac River. A female reporter once stole his discarded clothing and didn't return it until the president agreed to give her an interview. 
• Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair, among other things.  
• James Monroe became an officer in Washington's Army at the age of 18.
• Grover Cleveland had an artificial jaw, which was installed after a piece of his original jaw that had a cancerous lesion was removed. The operation was a secret at the time. 
• Ulysses S. Grant was actually born Hiram Ulysses Grant. He changed his name to Ulysses Simpson Grant upon entering West Point. 
• Jimmy Carter was the first president born in a hospital.
• John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on the 4th of July, 1826. James Monroe followed suit in 1831. Calvin Coolidge was the only president to be born on that day.
• William Henry Harrison was only president for 31 days, he died of pneumonia.
• Theodore Roosevelt was the first American to win a Nobel Prize. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906. 
• Gerald Ford held his daughter's high school prom at the White House.

Visiting America's national parks is a great way to learn about the lives and legacies of our presidents. You can find a park near you here. 

 

"There is nothing so American as our national parks.... The fundamental idea behind the parks...is that the country belongs to the people, that it is in process of making for the enrichment of the lives of all of us." -Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1936).