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Lots of great responses to our call for presidential trivia/book giveaway contest. We’re enjoying the comments so much, we’ve extended the deadline to end-of-day Monday. In case you missed the first post, here’s a recap:
The fine people at Globe Pequot have sent us three copies of Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House to give our brilliant readers. Here’s how you can win:
1. Test your ex-presidential knowledge by taking the mental_floss quiz.
2. Tell us how you did – plus give us one piece of presidential trivia.
On Tuesday, we’ll reward the three most fascinating facts with a copy of this Mr. Updegrove’s fascinating book.
Keep the fun facts coming.
Comments (27)
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I got a 60% on the presidential quiz.
Trivia: There was one president who was also a King! Appropriately enough for a King, this person was never elected to their position as either president or vice-president.
Gerald Ford was originally named Leslie Lynch King, Jr., but it was changed when he was 3 by his mother after she re-married.
posted by greymatters on 9-30-2007 at 11:12 am
My score was a dismal 60%.
Trivia: My dad was Richard Nixon’s mother’s paperboy. Too obscure?
How about this one: James Madison at 5 feet, 4 inches was the shortest president.
posted by Karan on 9-30-2007 at 1:48 pm
my score was a whopping 30%.
Trivia: Ulysses S. Grant was once had to pay a $20 fine for exceeding the Washington speed limit on his horse.
posted by Stephanie on 9-30-2007 at 7:12 pm
While stationed at Camp Pendleton, CA. President Nixon’s Western White House in San Clemente, CA was near the base. I worked in the pharmacy, which once in a while, a few of the member’s of the president’s entourage, secret service personnel would come to the pharmacy to get the president’s or Mrs. Nixon’s prescriptions filled. Once while the men were waiting for the prescriptions, they told a funny incident that happened in the White House. President Johnson, as big as he was liked a shower that had lots of water pressure so he had plumbers come in and reconfigure the showers: 2 shower heads and increased water pressure. The story goes that the first time President Nixon got in the shower, he turned on the water and the force of the increased pressure knocked him right out of the shower. He had the plumbers come back in and had the shower configured back to normal. We had a good laugh over that story.
posted by Dean Ashley on 9-30-2007 at 10:26 pm
Forgot… my score was 60%
posted by Dean Ashley on 9-30-2007 at 10:28 pm
30%.
Abraham Lincoln hated being called “Abe” or “Abraham” His friends and family called him Lincoln.
posted by Kathryn on 10-1-2007 at 5:51 am
8/10 shoulda done better.
James Garfield was said to have been able to write in Greek with his right hand and latin with his left. Simultaneously.
posted by Adam Pinson on 10-1-2007 at 7:23 am
Often depicted wearing a tall black stovepipe hat, 16th president of the United States Abraham Lincoln carried letters, bills, and notes in his hat.
Is that where the saying “keep things under your hat” comes from?
posted by bowtie on 10-1-2007 at 7:33 am
40%
Approximately 15,000 people came to hear Edward Everett, at the time the nation’s greatest orator, give a well received speech that lastest over 2 hours at the dedication of a new cemetary. As a secondary speaker, the president spoke for only about 3 minutes with dedicatory remarks for the cemetary. Yet, it is President Lincoln’s Gettysburg address that we remember.
posted by KJ on 10-1-2007 at 7:40 am
yikes…forgot my score too…40%
posted by bowtie on 10-1-2007 at 7:47 am
got an 80…must be an amazing guesser.
and…did you know the ancestry of all 43 presidents is limited to the following heritages, or some combination of the 7: Dutch, English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Swiss, or German.
posted by samantha on 10-1-2007 at 8:20 am
50%!
William Taft was once offered a contract to pitch for the Cincinnati Reds.
posted by Alison on 10-1-2007 at 8:20 am
100% on the quiz.
George Washington, the first president, was the first person to breed roses in the United States. George Washington laid out his own garden at Mount Vernon and filled it with his own selections of roses. He named one of his varieties after his mother and it is still being grown today.
Electric lights were installed in the White House during Benjamin Harrison’s term. His wife never used them because she was frightened of the switches. Due to their tremendous fear, a servant had to turn on or off the light switches for them.
posted by Asia on 10-1-2007 at 8:38 am
40%
Video of Nixon’s friendly hand shake w/ the China’s premier Zhou Enlai as he got off the plane was more than just a hand shake. Zhou Enlai and party purposely stood there making Nixon come to them to greet. Propoganda and political spins ensue.
posted by Nick on 10-1-2007 at 9:33 am
I remember reading once that William Howard Taft (who shares my last name but isn’t closely related) was so fat that he got stuck in the White House bathtub. That story is probably apocryphal, but I also know that he was the first president to have a car at the White House. And it was his wife Helen that planted the first 2 of Washington DC’s cherry trees, along with the wife of the Japanese ambassador, in 1912.
posted by RT on 10-1-2007 at 11:06 am
80% — Missed the ones about Truman and Washington.
Trivia: Gerald Ford’s daughter, Susan, held her high school prom at the White House.
posted by Doug Tudor on 10-1-2007 at 11:19 am
Score 100% (I am a presidential nerd)
President Kennedy helped get Peter Lawford kicked out of the Rat Pack by staying at the home of Republican Bing Crosby instead of the home Democrat Frank Sinatra.
Sinatra blamed fellow Rat Packer and Kennedy in-law Peter Lawford for the snub. It was actually RFK, and Hoover who advised the President to stay at the less controversial Crosby’s.
Crosby did not have alleged mob ties.
Sinatra stopped speaking to Lawford, switched parties and became good friends with Nixon VP Spiro Agnew.
posted by Johnny Carp on 10-1-2007 at 11:33 am
80%. Missed the first two, then heated up…
Teddy Roosevelt’s “Point-to-Point” marches where he would walk over, under, or through whatever was in his way, including arriving at a Predidential appointment having emerged from a pond covered neck-to-toe in the shiny oil used to keep the ducks away.
posted by D Wood on 10-1-2007 at 12:23 pm
80% for me.
At Andrew Jackson’s funeral in 1845, his pet parrot Poll had to be removed for swearing.
posted by E Campbell on 10-1-2007 at 1:29 pm
60% for me.
One of most obscure presidents in our history, 21st President Chester A. Arthur, actually has an information society named after him that specializes in obscure political trivia questions — located in New South Wales, Australia — the Chester A. Arthur Society.
posted by E Johnsen on 10-1-2007 at 2:01 pm
40%, but then again, the last US History class I took was 10 years ago. Regardless, I find it interesting that only two Presidents have refused their salary. Both independently wealthy, Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy.
posted by Ron Stites on 10-1-2007 at 2:20 pm
Second Post:
Grant, while buried you know where, died in Wilton, NY, just north of Saratoga. Sam Clemens, aka Mark Twain, told Grant he had to provide for hie family after his death. Grant was dying of throat cancer. He settled into a cottage on a hillside to write his memoirs in the hopes they would be sold after his death. The cottage is not only a National landmark but is located on the grounds of a state prison. One must pass through a checkpoint to get there.
posted by gus on 10-1-2007 at 3:15 pm
Ick. 20%. I know, horrible. History was always my worst subject.
Maybe everybody already knows this one, but when Richard Nixon was young he suffered a deep cut to his head from a wagon wheel, which is why he always parted his hair on the same side in an attempt to cover it.
posted by Larissa on 10-1-2007 at 3:54 pm
Bleh… I got 30%. I think that is the lowest test score I have ever gotten! :P
Calvin Coolidge used to have a mechanical horse and saddle that he loved to ride, especially during his cabinet meetings! Apparently, his cabinet memebers reported that he would whoop and holler while throwing his hand in the air like a real rodeo rider. Coolidge also had a mouldy cowboy hat that he was *had* to wear in order to ride the mechanical horse!
posted by Jacqui on 10-2-2007 at 12:07 am
I looked at the quiz. fugget-about-it, give me a “0%” but here’s some trivia.
Eisenhower didn’t know how to make a phone call. When he was young you picked up the phone and told the operator who you wanted. When dial phones came in, he was a busy man with secretaries and assistants, he would just say, “get So-n-so on the phone.” and the person would be there when he picked up the receiver. Shortly after he was president he was alone in a room and wanted to make a call, he had to get someone to show him how to dial a phone.
really trivial,
When Washington was a surveyor, his group surveyed the creek and its tributaries near my home. I live on a tributary, so there’s a chance that George Washington walked through my back yard, about 200 years before it was a “back yard”. (ha-ha)
posted by Tdave on 10-2-2007 at 1:02 am
President Jimmy Carter wore ladies shoes in high school
HA HA BUT TRUE
posted by Timothy Selig on 10-2-2007 at 10:08 am
I scored 80%
posted by YourDarkLord on 10-2-2007 at 1:34 pm