Happy Presidents’ Day from Minnesota Monitor!

Today is Presidents’ Day, the day we celebrate mattress liquidation sales, used car blowouts, and the 41 great men who have served as our nation’s presidents, plus that one idiot. In celebration of this least holy of American holidays, let’s take a look at some of the fascinating facts about our nation’s leaders.

• As noted above, though George W. Bush is America’s 43rd president, he’s only the 42nd man to hold the job. Grover Cleveland was elected to two nonconsecutive terms, making him both our nation’s 22nd and 24th president.
• Cleveland also holds the distinction of being the only president other than Franklin D. Roosevelt to win a plurality of the popular vote in three presidential elections. Cleveland beat Benjamin Harrison with 48.6 percent of the vote to 47.8 percent, but Harrison won a 204-197 win in the Electoral College.
• Three presidents have been elected after winning the electoral vote but not winning the popular vote in the modern era of the Electoral College. Rutherford B. Hayes won in 1876, defeating Samuel Tilden after the striking of the “corrupt bargain,” which ended reconstruction. Cleveland lost to Harrison in 1888, and George W. Bush defeated Al Gore in 2000.
• Benjamin Harrison and George W. Bush are also part of two of four families to produce multiple presidents. Bush, of course, was preceded by his father, George H.W. Bush, who was the 41st president of the United States.
• Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, and the man who served the shortest term — just one month, from March 4 to April 4, 1841, when he died of pneumonia.
• John Quincy Adams, the nation’s sixth president, was the son of revolutionary hero John Adams, the nation’s second president.
• Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president, was the cousin of the 32nd president of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
• Franklin Roosevelt was the longest-serving president. He won four terms, but served just over twelve years, dying a few months into his fourth term.
• Barring a change in the Constitution, Franklin Roosevelt will hold that record forever; the Constitution was amended to prevent presidents from serving more than two terms, primarily because of Franklin Roosevelt’s tenure.
• Four presidents have been assassinated: Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy.
• Six presidents survived assassination attempts: Andrew Jackson, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan.
• Only two presidents are buried in Arlington National Cemetary: John F. Kennedy and William Taft.
  
• William Taft is the only president to also serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. As such, he swore in Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.

• Taft is not the only president to continue to serve his country after leaving office; John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives after losing a reelection bid, and served in that position for 17 years.
• James Buchanan is the only president never to marry. Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been divorced.
• The oldest elected president was Ronald Reagan, who was 73 when he was reelected in 1984. The youngest was John F. Kennedy, who was 43 when he was elected in 1960. The youngest president to ascend to the office was Teddy Roosevelt, who was 42 when he took office after the assassination of William McKinley.
  
• All 42 people to serve as president have been white, and all 42 have been male. That may change in 2009; Barack Obama would be the first African-American president if elected, and Hillary Clinton would be the first female president. Clinton would also add a fifth family to have produced multiple presidents.
  
• John McCain can make history as well; at age 72, if elected, he would be the oldest person elected to the presidency for the first time, eclipsing Reagan, who was 69 when elected in 1980.