In a recent post, I raised the issue of Americans’ fixation with presidents, who are the subjects of intense public curiosity. Consistent with that theme, I recently happened upon a compilation of Presidential Trivia by Richard Lederer. Here, for those who enjoy demonstrating their mastery of the inconsequential, are a few choice items. (The answers appear beneath the fold.)
1. Who was the first president to attend a baseball game?
2. Who was the first president to refer officially to the Executive Mansion as the White House?
3. Who were the only two sitting senators to be elected president?
4. Who was the only president to serve in the House of Representatives after his presidency?
5. Who was the only president to serve in the Senate after his presidency?
6. Who was the only president to be named a sworn enemy of the United States?
7. Who was the only president who had a career in modeling?
8. To how many other presidents have genealogists determined that Franklin Delano Roosevelt was related?
1. Benjamin Harrison watched the Cincinnati Reds beat the Washington Senators, 7-4, on June 6, 1892.
2. Theodore Roosevelt declared by presidential proclamation that the Executive Mansion should henceforth be known as the White House.
3. Warren G. Harding and John F. Kennedy.
4. John Quincy Adams.
5. Andrew Johnson, who served only four months before dying of a stroke.
6. John Tyler joined the Confederacy 20 years after the completion of his term and was declared a sworn enemy of the United States. He was also the only president who wasn’t a U.S. citizen when he died; he died as a citizen of the Confederate States of America, and his coffin was draped with a Confederate flag.
7. Gerald Ford appeared in a Look magazine pictorial and on the cover of Cosmopolitan.
8. Eleven (George Washington, John Adams, James Madison, John Quincy Adams, Marvin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses S. Grant, Benjamin Harrison, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft).