Because nothing says “God bless America” on Presidents Day like furniture clearances, closed banks, and embarrassing facts about the people who’ve made our nation great.
“Millard Fillmore was a founding member of the Buffalo Chapter of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.” [ClassroomHelp.com]
“Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline while he ate breakfast in bed.” [ClassroomHelp.com]
“Warren G. Harding once lost all the White House china gambling, on one hand of cards.” [Did you know?]
John Tyler’s nickname was the “accidental president.” (Ouch.) [Fun facts about our presidents]
Related posts:
- Awkward conversation starters for your hot date tonight
- Nicknames – What’s Your Story?
- Sportsplex, No Soup For You
“Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline while he ate breakfast in bed.”
Awkward? Hardly. I mean, who doesn’t love this?
“Warren G. Harding once lost all the White House china gambling, on one hand of cards.”
Rekop?
And here’s a little known one:
President George Bush is helping to finance his little venture in the middle east by making and selling necklaces out of the teeth of kittens, which are harvested en mass at the Crawford Ranch.
interesting post for a social studies teacher like myself.
other little known fact:
the kittens Bush uses to make his necklaces are all shot personally by Dick Cheney himself.
shot after tooth harvesting.
/ you know I bought one of necklaces and it fell apart in like two weeks. GD Bush can’t do anything right
Wikipedia has this gem posted:
Franklin Pierce (our 14th president) died wearing only a pair of pom-pom tassled tennis socks in a kiddie pool full of vidalia onion relish while trying to autoerotically asphyxiate himself.
@ 4 – I almost perished doing the same thing. Do not try this at home. Trust me
Thomas Jefferson thought he could own black people.
That is the best thing I will read today. Tuffy, I bow down to your useless-presidential-knowledge-eminence. I have been one-upped in the best possible way!
I scoured the ‘net for bizzare presidential ‘facts’ after seeing this post. This set seemed strange enough:
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s Secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names are composed of fifteen letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named ‘Ford.’ Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘Lincoln’ made by ‘Ford.’
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
) Marilyn Monroe.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was with (in?
Street, I am clapping! Thank you!
@ 8: that was the jacket cover for the da vinci code III: the quest of the immaculate non sequitur.
Franklin Pierce (our 14th president) died wearing only a pair of pom-pom tassled tennis socks in a kiddie pool full of vidalia onion relish while trying to autoerotically asphyxiate himself.
What strikes me odd about this, is that it states that he was trying….does that mean he didn’t succeed, and died some other way? Drowning in onion relish perhaps? Choking on pom-poms? I am more curious about this than any slightly rational human being should be…
and also: did he put on the pom-pom socks specifically as part of the vidalia onion relish masturbation scenario, or were they part of his regular ensemble and he simply neglected to remove them? what kind of a man wears pom-pom socks? doesn’t the vinegar in the relish sting a little bit? i agree, this entry poses far more questions than it answers. in truth, we may never know.
St., you are correct here. I constantly hear the kids of the street talking about this (try walking past Marco and Luca and NOT hear someone say autoerotic asphyxiation-this or autoerotic asphyxiation-that), but it think the term is inherently flawed, b/c to do it correctly means to off yourself offing yourself. I’ve never admitted to be an Englishist, so I’m at a loss here.
I bet That’s So Raven, Some.Dude, or Gownie Townie can shine some light on this.
P.S. I heard that Bush is a Kitten Huffer. Fact or fiction? You decide.
Crap! Never let me attempt that again while playing in my beer.
If you are looking for the same effect, just get some amyl nitrate. Worst you’re gonna end up with is a headache after. Unless of course you are on Viagra. Then you could die, or as the ads say, “experience a sudden drop in blood pressure”.
/knows way too much about the dark side of human sexuality.
//had a friend die from AE back in college.
Correction, those kids are outside of Five Guys, where they are trying to get an anaphylactic high from the peanut dust. I kid I kid! Tree nut allergies are real and have killed about as many people as this horrible thing I had never heard of, “the choking game”.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502968.html
You can Google news it it that link doesn’t float your brownie.
Kennedy was rumored to do something like this with prostitutes and his secret service agents, and I’m not even kidding, but it is just a rumor. And M. Monroe was dead a year before he was shot. In a Lincoln made by Ford, not in theater named Ford.
By the was that cheery, lethal punch to the back of the head somebody was talking about here has been debunked by Dan Savage as a fervid little homophobic fantasy of teenage boys. Does it really take a sex columnist to keep the Villains straight?
colfer are you referring to the infamous “donkey punch”?
I couldn’t resist researching Franklin Pierce’s death for myself, and in doing so, found this tidbit at this website that lists the causes of death for all presidents
http://www.diplom.org/manus/Presidents/faq/causes.html
“James Garfield
assassinated (Actually, Garfield was definitely killed by his doctors probing for bullet; he would have completely recovered otherwise — the doctors who thought the bullet went where in fact it did were overruled by their elders who thought otherwise, and who stuck unclean metal probes into the President’s wounds in vain attempts to locate the bullet, introducing infection and making brand new holes and paths that just confused them all the more. The metal detector they tried would have worked to find the bullet, but they didn’t think to move him off the metal bedsprings, so instead they kept poking, believing that Alexander Graham Bell’s invention was useless.)”
/shivers
@8 street that was some cool info dude.
The kitten huffing uncyclopedia content is GONE! Did we change the internet?
Odie, yes! But I do apologize for calling shen a name once.
@22 I accidently added and extra “/” in the link. I’m such a n00b.
what name, colf?
Dan’s just saying that cuz I donkey-punched him that time.
You can’t trick me into saying it again you kitty kat!
What’d you say ’bout me Colfart?
Oh, and linky-poo:
http://www.squidoo.com/kittenhuffing
i’ve been at home, sick all day and afraid to post lest my sickly-crankiness be unwittingly-unleashed on the internet (well, that and i feel close to brain dead, so i have few thoughts to actually share). but at least between this and the meat thread i’ve been amused. so, thanks friends.
Sorry you’re sick, T. Get well soon.
Don’t let crankiness stop you from posting
Silmo speaks truth. If I only posted when I thought I had something meaningful to contribute, I’d never say anything.
Hi Doof,
You’re consistently good. I often post when i am in bad mood and the suckiness is difficult to distinguish from the my normal suckiness… except, of course, that it is bitter
/gotta stop talking
thanks
i’m sure i’ll be back in force tomorrow, sick (brain-dead, cranky) or not. if only because if i watch anymore stupid tv my head may essplode. but i need something to distract myself…
good program on pbs right now about jefferson, madison, and monroe, and why they lived here…
Thanks, doof. Just switched to PBS (from Al Jazeera).
They lived here for the nightlife, that’s what I hear
woopsie 12:03 Time for bed
@28 – Thanks for posting a working link to the huffers. I must admit I was shocked to see the article posted on another site!
Anyways, here’s another odd presidential tidbit:
Presidents that get elected in a year with a “0″ at the end. (20 year increments)
1840: William Henry Harrison (died in office)
1860: Abraham Lincoln (assassinated)
1880: James A. Garfield (assassinated)
1900: William McKinley (assassinated)
1920: Warren G. Harding (died in office)
1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt (dies in office)
1960: John F. Kennedy (assassinated)
1980: Ronald Reagan (survived assassination attempt)
2000: George W. Bush ???