Did You Know: Presidential Trivia

Did you know that President...

1. John Adams got lost and wandered around for hours before finally finding his way to the White House. Why won't men ask for directions?)

2. James Monroe was shot in the shoulder during the Revolutionary War; the bullet was never removed.

3. Martin Van Buren was given two tiger cubs by a Sultan; he planned to keep them for himself at the White House, but Congress made him give them to a zoo. (Imagine what they would have done to the White House?)

4. James Polk had gallstone surgery without anesthesia. (Ouch!)

5. While in office Franklin Pierce was arrested for running an old lady over with his horse; he got off on lack of evidence. (I wonder what that did to his popularity?)

6. Richard Nixon used money won from gambling to fund his first political campaign. (Can't say I'm surprised over that one.)

7. When FDR was a child Grover Cleveland told him to never become president. (Obviously he didn't listen.)

8. William Taft was so overweight that he got stuck in his White House bathtub. (That's embarrassing.)

9. JFK could speak 350 words per minute. (He was a silver tongue devil.)

10. Barack Obama collects Spiderman and Conan the Barbarian comic books. (I would never have guessed that.)

11. James Buchanan was forced to sleep in a hallway when the Prince of Wales visited the White House; the Prince had too many servants with him. (Talk about needing to "downsize.")

12. Having already been shocked once, Benjamin Harrison slept with the lights on because he feared touching the lightswitch. (There goes our tax money.)

References: Farmer's Almanac 2011 and the internet.