MORE TRIVIA: Did you know that one American president was elected unanimously? That another gave his 3,319-word inaugural address from memory?
We confess to being quite interested in presidential history.
George Washington, the first president, was the only one to be elected unanimously. And the impressive feat of memory is by President Franklin Pierce.
We found a lot of presidential history on The Smithsonian website, including some of the darker facts about the American Commanders in Chief.
Eight US presidents have died in office, four of natural causes and four who were assassinated. William Henry Harrison died in 1841 of pneumonia just 31 days into his term. He was the ninth president.
“Harrison gave a lengthy inaugural address — the longest in history — and opted not to wear a coat or hat, despite the inclement weather,” reads History.org. “Four weeks later he was dead from pneumonia. Harrison was succeeded by his vice president, John Tyler, who earned the nickname ‘His Accidency.’”
Tyler was the 10th vice president of the U.S., and the longest serving non-elected president.
The second Commander in Chief to pass away while serving was 12th President Zachary Taylor, who died in 1850 of a bacterial infection of the small intestine.
Warren Harding, 29th president, died in 1923 of a heart attack.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president, in 1945 died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
The four presidents who were assassinated were Abraham Lincoln in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth; James A. Garfield in 1881, shot by Charles Guiteau on July 2, and died Sept. 19, 1881; William McKinley in 1901 in Buffalo, N.Y., by Leon Czolgosz; and John F. Kennedy in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald.
One U.S. president served as vice president and as president without being elected to office.
Gerald Ford, the 40th vice president, was appointed to the position upon the resignation of Spiro Agnew. He became the 38th president in August of 1974 when President Richard Nixon resigned. He ran for re-election in 1976 and won the Republican primary, but lost to Democratic nominee Jimmy Carter. This makes Ford the only man to have been both vice president and president without being elected into office.
