APPENDIX B: PRESIDENTIAL FIRSTS

You know, important stuff like which president was the first to wear a ponytail and the first to go mountain-biking:

PRESIDENT:	George Washington
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1789–1797

George Washington became the first president to use a speechwriter when he asked Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton to help him draft his farewell address.

PRESIDENT:	John Adams
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1797–1801

• John Adams was the first to serve as president and then lose in a reelection bid.

• John Adams and his family were the first to live in the White House. When it was time for the entire federal government to move its temporary quarters in Philadelphia to the new capitol in Washington, D.C., the entire enterprise—every document and file—fit into just seven packing cases.

PRESIDENT:	Thomas Jefferson
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1801–1809

• Thomas Jefferson was subpoenaed to testify in the treason trial of Aaron Burr, and he became the first president to invoke Executive Privilege.

• Thomas Jefferson was the first president to do away with bowing and to offer his hand for a handshake instead.

PRESIDENT:	James Madison
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1809–1817

• James Madison is the only president to have led troops into battle while he was in office. He did so while the British were trying to invade Washington during the War of 1812.

• James Madison was the first president to wear trousers, while his successor, James Monroe, was the last president to wear knee breeches, buckled shoes, and three-cornered hats. Interestingly, Madison tended to push for change in government policy, while Monroe generally liked to keep things status quo.

PRESIDENT:	John Quincy Adams
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1825–1829

John Quincy Adams was the first president to ride on a train and the first to be photographed.

PRESIDENT:	Andrew Jackson
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1829–1837

• He was the first president to be born in a log cabin.

• He was the first president to have an assassination attempt made on his life.

• He is thought to be our “dueling-est” president ever.

PRESIDENT:	Martin Van Buren
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1837–1841

Martin Van Buren was the first president to be born after the Declaration of Independence was signed and the first to be a United States citizen (all previous presidents were born British subjects).

PRESIDENT:	William Henry Harrison
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1841–1841

Not only was William Henry Harrison the first to die in office, but he also was the fastest to die—only thirty-one days after taking office.

PRESIDENT:	John Tyler
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1841–1845

• Since President Harrison died after only thirty-one days in office, Tyler served the shortest term of any vice president.

• When William Henry Harrison died, John Tyler became the first VP to succeed to the office of president.

• He was the first to have a presidential veto overridden by Congress.

PRESIDENT:	Zachary Taylor
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1849–1850

Zachary Taylor was the first elected president who had never held a public office before. In fact, he had never even voted before—and he didn’t even vote for himself.

PRESIDENT:	Franklin Pierce
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1853–1857

Franklin Pierce was the first president to have a Christmas tree in the White House.

PRESIDENT:	James Buchanan
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1857–1861

James Buchanan was the first president ever to send or receive a transatlantic telegram. On the grand occasion of that first telegram, he exchanged greetings with the Queen of England.

PRESIDENT:	Abraham Lincoln
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1861–1865

• Abe is the only president ever to receive a patent—#6469. His invention? A very complex device that used chambers of air to allow heavy ships to pass over shallow and dangerous waters.

• Abraham Lincoln was the first president to have a beard. As the story goes, he was clean-shaven when he was nominated but decided to grow a beard after he got a letter from a little girl named Grace Bedell who wrote [sic]:

“I have got 4 brothers and part of them will vote for you any way and if you let your whiskers grow I will try and get the rest of them to vote for you. You would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husband’s to vote for you and then you would be president.”

• Lincoln did as she suggested and then stopped his campaign train when it passed through her hometown. When Grace and her family joined the crowd assembled around Lincoln, he called her up to the front, kissed her, and said, “You see, I let these whiskers grow for you, Grace.”

• The first child to die in the White House was Abraham Lincoln’s twelve-year-old son, Willie.

POLITICAL FIRST:

WAS CHET ARTHUR THE FIRST CANADIAN U.S. PRESIDENT??? OR NO PRESIDENT AT ALL?

Most history books count Chester A. Arthur as the twenty-first president of the United States, first elected vice president under James Garfield, then succeeding to the presidency when Garfield was assassinated.

But we’d like to suggest that perhaps Chester A. Arthur was never president at all.

Why?

Because Chet’s dad was a Baptist minister from Vermont, and he preached on both sides of the US–Canada border, and some historians believe that Chet Arthur was actually born in Canada but later assumed the identity of a stillborn brother who was born in the United States so he could enjoy the benefits of US citizenship.

This may help explain why some sources report that Chester A. Arthur was born in 1829, while others report that he was born in 1830. Or as one book, the U.S. Presidents Factbook, explains it: “Arthur’s birth date is often given as 1830, but this is incorrect—Arthur made himself a year younger when he was in his forties.”

PRESIDENT:	Rutherford B. Hayes
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1877–1881

Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to have a typewriter. He also had the first telephone installed in the White House.

PRESIDENT:	Chester Alan Arthur
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1881–1885

Chester A. Arthur was the first president to smoke cigarettes.

PRESIDENT:	Grover Cleveland
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1885–1889, 1893–1897

Grover Cleveland was the first and only president to get married in the White House.

PRESIDENT:	Benjamin Harrison
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1889–1893

Benjamin Harrison was the first president to have electricity in the White House.

PRESIDENT:	William McKinley
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1897–1901

William McKinley was the first to use the telephone as part of his campaign strategy and the first to ride in a self-propelled vehicle—the electric ambulance that took him to the hospital after he had been shot.

PRESIDENT:	Teddy Roosevelt
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1901–1909

• Teddy Roosevelt was the first vice president to succeed to the presidency and then win the office in an election on his own. He was also the youngest man ever to serve as president—when McKinley died—although JFK was the youngest man ever elected.

In spite of the fact that TR was the first president to experience advanced modes of transportation, he once blew up at his twenty-two-year-old daughter, Alice, and shouted, “The Roosevelts will remain a horse family!” when she suggested she’d like to travel by car once in a while.

• When Teddy Roosevelt made a trip to Panama to check on the progress of the Panama Canal, it was the first time a president had ever left the country while in office.

• The first Jewish cabinet member, Oscar Straus, was appointed by Teddy Roosevelt. He was the head of the newly formed Department of Commerce and Labor.

• Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to ride in a car, go underwater in a submarine, and fly in a plane, although the plane trip was after he left office. His sub ride was in the USS Plunger and lasted about an hour. His airplane trip was at the St. Louis Aviation Field in a plane built by the Wright brothers. During the course of the trip, which lasted four minutes, the average cruising altitude was fifty feet.

• TR was the first to invite an African American to the White House for dinner. His guest was botanist Booker T. Washington.

• He was the first president to win the Nobel Peace Prize. (The only other presidents to win are Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama.)

PRESIDENT:	William H. Taft
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1909–1913

• William H. Taft was the first president required to pay federal income tax on his presidential salary.

• He is the only president to have served on the Supreme Court; he was eventually named Chief Justice.

• He was the first president to start the baseball season by throwing out the first pitch. Call it nepotism: after all, his brother was part owner of the Philadelphia Athletics. (It is also rumored that Taft is responsible for the seventh-inning stretch, which grew out of an incident where he tried to get out of his seat and his three-hundred-plus-pound frame got stuck.)

PRESIDENT:	Woodrow Wilson
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1913–1921

• Wilson was the last president to ride to his inauguration in a horse-drawn carriage. He was also the first sitting president to cross the Atlantic.

• Woodrow Wilson was the first president to show a motion picture at the White House. Interestingly, the film was Birth of a Nation, which is considered by many film scholars to be one of the most important films in history because of its many technical innovations. (For instance, it was the first film to use night photography, tinting for dramatic effect, and close-up shots to reveal the intimate thoughts of a character.) On the other hand, because of its explicit and positive portrayal of the KKK, it is also the most banned film in American history.

PRESIDENT:	Warren G. Harding
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1921–1923

• Warren G. Harding was the first president to own a radio and the first to make a speech over the radio waves. He was also the first to ride to his inauguration in a car and the first to know how to drive.

• When women got the right to vote, Harding was the first president they could elect.

PRESIDENT:	FDR
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1933–1945

• The first woman to serve on a president’s cabinet was Frances Perkins, appointed by FDR to the position of secretary of labor. She was once asked if she thought being a woman was in any way a handicap. “Only in climbing trees,” she replied.

• Not only was FDR the first president to be elected for more than two terms (the tradition of seeking no more than two terms was unofficial, based on the precedent set by George Washington), but he was also the first candidate ever to win a presidential nomination after losing a bid for the vice presidency.

• Using a special switch that was set up at the White House, FDR was able to turn on the lights at Crosby Field in Cincinnati for the first night game in major league baseball history. (The Reds beat the Phillies 4-1.)

• The first bomb shelter and the first dishwasher were both installed in the White House during FDR’s term in office.

• FDR was the first president ever to appear on television and the first president to fly in an airplane while in office (Teddy Roosevelt flew earlier, but not while in office).

PRESIDENT:	Harry Truman
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1945–1953

In 1948, sixty-four-year-old Harry Truman and seventy-year-old Alben Barkley were the oldest president-vice president team in history. Despite his age, Barkley campaigned in twenty-six states, delivering as many as fifteen speeches a day.

PRESIDENT:	Dwight D. Eisenhower
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1953–1961

• Dwight Eisenhower was the first president to appear on color TV. He was also the first president to go underwater in an atomic sub.

• He was the first president to have a pilot’s license, and it was he who first used helicopters when making short trips on official business.

• Ike was the first president to hit a hole in one.

PRESIDENT:	JFK
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1961–1963

• JFK won the presidency by a mere 120,000 votes out of a total of sixty-nine million ballots cast. (This statistic actually tells only part of the story because it includes the votes cast for all minor-party candidates, as well as his Republican opponent, Richard Nixon. The number of votes that separated him from Nixon tells the true story: JFK did not win the votes of the majority of voters and could only claim one-tenth of 1 percent more popular votes than Nixon.

• JFK was the first Roman Catholic to be president. His one problem? It was difficult for him to find a priest to whom he could confess without the priest recognizing his voice.

• JFK was the first Boy Scout ever to become president.

• He was the first president to be born in the twentieth century.

PRESIDENT:	LBJ
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1963–1969

• LBJ appointed the first African American to a cabinet position. His name was Robert C. Weaver, and he was the head of the new Department of Housing and Urban Renewal.

• LBJ was the first president to be present at his predecessor’s assassination. He was also the first president to have his oath administered by a woman, the first to take his oath in an airplane, and the first to take the oath as his wife held the Bible. (His first presidential order after taking the oath was “Now, let’s get airborne.”)

• While in Australia, Johnson decided to fly back to Washington via Europe instead of over the Pacific, as he had come … and by doing so became the first president to circumnavigate the globe.

• When LBJ went to see the Washington Redskins play the Baltimore Colts in a preseason game in 1966, he became the first president to attend a professional football game while in office.

PRESIDENT:	Richard Nixon
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1969–1974

• Richard Nixon is the only person ever elected twice to both the office of vice president and the office of president. He’s also the only president ever to resign.

• Richard Nixon was the first president to have been nominated for a Grammy award; he was nominated in the category of Best Spoken Word album for a recording of a televised interview with David Frost he did after leaving the presidency.

If you were born in 1953 or 1954, you were the first in the history of the nation to vote at age eighteen … and when you went to vote for the first time, you had the choice of Richard Nixon or George McGovern.

PRESIDENT:	Gerald Ford
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1974–197

Gerald Ford was the first person to hold the office of vice president—and president—without being elected by the people; he was appointed vice president when Spiro Agnew resigned and then succeeded to the presidency when Nixon resigned.

PRESIDENT:	Jimmy Carter
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1977–1981

• Jimmy Carter appointed the first female African American cabinet member, Patricia Roberts Harris. She was head of the Department of Housing and Urban Renewal.

• Jimmy Carter was the first president born in a hospital.

• He is the first known president to go on record as having seen a UFO. The time was 1969, two years before he was elected governor of Georgia. The place: a Lion’s Club meeting in Leary, Georgia. Jimmy and ten other club members spotted the object, which Jimmy described as “bright as the moon,” “blueish at first, then reddish, luminous, not solid,” and seeming to “move toward us from a distance, stop, move partially away, return, then depart.” He also reported, in a detailed “sighting report” for the International UFO Bureau in Oklahoma City, that he had watched the object for ten to twelve minutes, that it produced no sound, and that it appeared to be about nine hundred yards away. “I’ll never make fun of people who say they’ve seen unidentified objects in the sky,” he was later heard to say. Jody Powell, Carter’s press secretary, once quipped, “I would venture to say he [Carter] probably has seen stranger and more unexplainable things than that during his time in government.”

PRESIDENT:	Ronald Reagan
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1981–1989

• The first Hispanic cabinet member was Lauro S. Cavazos, who was secretary of education under President Reagan.

• Ronald Reagan was the first actor ever elected to the presidency, the oldest man ever elected to the office, the first to have been divorced, and the first to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease.

PRESIDENT:	George H. W. Bush
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1989–1993

• George Bush was the first to use a personal computer.

• George Bush was the first president to be asked by the press if he had ever committed adultery.

PRESIDENT:	Bill Clinton
YEARS IN OFFICE:	1993–2001

• Bill Clinton was the first president to have his administration represented on the Internet, although his own namesake domain name www.billclinton.com was set up by a presumed third-party during his presidency to offer links to the Adult Chamber of Commerce, Eldorado Adult Novelties, Garlic Crabs Delivered Worldwide, and Florida Tile & Marble Installations.

• He was the first president to be both sued for sexual misconduct and forced to give a deposition while in office.

• He was the first Rhodes scholar ever elected president.

• He is the first president to be married to a US Senator.

• He is the first president to be married to the Secretary of State.

• He is the first president to be married to a presidential candidate.

PRESIDENT:	George W. Bush
YEARS IN OFFICE:	2001–present

• He was the first acting president to own an iPod.

• He was the first acting president to use the word “blog” in a speech.

• He was the first acting president ever to go mountain biking.

“Blogs”?

* * *

You may be interested to know that the first president to ever publicly say the word blog during a speech was George W. Bush.

For what it’s worth, President Bill Clinton was the first president to send an email.

Bill Clinton was also the first president to play a saxophone on a late-night TV talk show, The Arsenio Hall Show, which was one of those shows that President George Herbert Walker Bush called “weird talk shows” during the 1992 presidential campaign.

But it was Richard Nixon who really revolutionized the use of TV as a social media with viral potential when he went on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In to deliver the infamous line, “Sock it to me!”

Once You Go Mac, You’ll Never Go Back

“Lightweight, and crank it on, and you shuffle the shuffle … and if you don’t like it, you have got your little advance button. It’s pretty high-tech stuff.”

—GEORGE W. BUSH, SHOWING FOX NEWS ANCHOR BRIT HUME HOW HIS IPOD WORKS

PRESIDENT:	Barack Obama
YEARS IN OFFICE:	2009–present

• He was the first president to address the UK Parliament.

• He was the first acting president to have a Twitter account.

• He was the first acting president to have a smartphone.

• He was the first acting president to have a Blackberry while in office (and based on current Blackberry sales, he may be the last).

• He was the first acting president to have an iPad.

• His first inauguration drew a crowd of 1.8 million people, making it the largest gathering ever on the National Mall.