Presidential Trivia

To further illuminate each item in every top ten list, Thomas Flagel offers accompanying trivia. Here are just a few examples of the fun facts inserted throughout The History Buff’s Guide to the Presidents:

• In the last four years of the Woodrow Wilson presidency, the United States federal government spent more money than it had in the previous 128 years combined.

• Proof that Americans are unpredicatble when it comes to foreign policy, Jack Kennedy's approval rating hit a peak of 83 percent immediately after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.

• In 2000, Al Gore lost his home state of Tennessee. Not since Woodrow Wilson in 1916 had a candidate been defeated in his native state and managed to win the presidency. 

• The 1796 election marked the highest number of candidates ever to receive electoral votes – thirteen. Among them were outgoing President George Washington, Boston Tea Party rabble-rouser Samuel Adams, Anglophile John Jay, and future vice presidents Aaron Burr and George Clinton. 

• In 1884, Republican James Blaine, who ran against Grover Cleveland in 1884, was the only presidential candidate ever to win Illinois, Ohio, and Pennsylvania and still lose the election.

• When he finalized his plans to assassinate President James Garfield, Charles Guiteau purchased an expensive, ornate revolver for the shooting, assuming that it would be prominently displayed in a museum one day. The weapon has since been lost. 

• Before becoming president, Gerald Ford was a member of the Warren Commission that investigated the John F. Kennedy murder.

• Richard Nixon and Jimmy Hoffa started their careers the same way – working as stock boys in a grocery store.

• Among George W. Bush’s fellow Methodists are U.S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, and Hillary Rodham Clinton.