Most schools are off these two days or even the week but it's doubtful if any of the kids much less their parents are taking this as an opportunity to learn more about these two presidents so as a public service I hereby offer the following obscure information about each.
Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was a licensed bartender.
Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert, was saved from a train accident by Edwin Booth, brother of his father's killer, John Wilkes Booth.
Lincoln was the first major leader in the U.S. to feel that women should be allowed to vote.
Abe Lincoln is enshrined in the Wrestling Hall of Fame, having lost just once in 300 matches.
assassinated.
Lincoln's dog, Fido, was also assassinated.
Abraham Lincoln, Walt Disney, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Steve Jobs, all of them had no college degree.
Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day.
Abraham Lincoln dreamt of his assassination before it happened.
A secret message was engraved inside Abraham Lincoln's pocket watch by a jeweler, and it was not discovered until 2009.
An 11-Year-Old Girl Convinced Abraham Lincoln to Grow His Beard.
Abraham Lincoln has no confirmed living descendants. The last one, a great-grandson, died in 1985.
Robert Todd Lincoln, first son of Abraham Lincoln, was present or nearby the assassinations of his father, James Garfield, and William McKinley.
Poisoned milk killed Abraham Lincoln's mother when he was 9 years old.
Abraham Lincoln was the tallest U.S. President at 6-foot-4.
Abraham Lincoln was the first U.S. President born outside of the original 13 colonies.
Abraham Lincoln was the first U.S. President to be photographed at his inauguration
Washington
1. He didn't have a middle name.
2. He was not born on February 22,
1732.
3.That's his real hair, not a wig.
It looks white because he powdered
it.
4. He was made an honorary citizen
of France.
5. For a time, he was a
non-president Commander-in-Chief (but didn't do much).
6. Nobody will ever rank higher than
him in the U.S. Military.
In 1976 Washington was posthumously
awarded the highest rank in the U.S. military, EVER.
When Washington died, he was a
lieutenant general. But as the centuries passed, this three-star
rank did not seem commensurate with
what he had accomplished. After all, Washington did more
than defeat the British in battle.
Along the way he established the framework for how American
soldiers should organize themselves,
how they should behave, and how they should relate to civilian
leaders. Almost every big decision
he made set a precedent. He was the father of the US military as
well as the US itself.
So, a law was passed to make
Washington the highest ranking U.S. officer of all time: General of the Armies
of the
United States. Nobody will ever
outrank him.
7. He had quite the salary.
According to the Christian Science Monitor, in 1789, his
presidential salary was 2 percent of the total U.S. budget.
8. Even so, he had some cash flow
problems.
He actually had to borrow money to attend his own first
inauguration.
9. He was one of the sickest
presidents in U.S. history.
Throughout his life, he suffered from a laundry list of ailments : diphtheria, tuberculosis, smallpox, dysentery, malaria,
quinsy (tonsillitis), carbuncle,
pneumonia, and epiglottitis—to name a few.
10. He may or may not have died as a
result of medical malpractice.
On the day he died, Washington was
treated with four rounds of bloodletting, which removed 5 pints of blood from
his body. It seems that it proved to
be too much. From the New York Times:
On Washington's fateful day, Albin
Rawlins, one of his overseers and a bloodletter, was summoned.
Washington bared his arm. The
overseer had brought his lancet and made an incision. Washington
said, ''Don't be afraid.'' That day,
Rawlins drew 12 ounces of blood, then 18 ounces, another 18
ounces and a final 32 ounces into a
porcelain bleeding bowl.
After the fourth bloodletting, the
patient improved slightly and was able to swallow. By about 10 p.m.,
his condition deteriorated, but he
was still rational enough to whisper burial instructions to Col. Tobias
Lear, his secretary.
At 10:20 p.m., Dr. James Craik, 69,
an Edinburgh-trained physician who had served with Washington
in the French and Indian Wars,
closed Washington's eyes. Another Edinburgh-trained physician, Dr.
Gustavus Richard Brown, 52, was also
present. The third physician, Dr. Elisha Cullen Dick, 37, who
had been appointed coroner the
previous year, stopped the clock in Washington's bedroom at that
moment.
11. He Might Have Been Infertile.
It is well-known that Washington had
no children of his own. In 2007, John K. Amory of the University of Washington
School of Medicine proposed that
Washington was infertile. Armory goes through a
number of possible reasons for
Washington’s infertility, including
an infection caused by his tuberculosis. “Classic studies of soldiers with
tuberculous pleurisy during World
War II demonstrated that two thirds developed chronic organ tuberculosis within
5
years of their initial infection.
Infection of the epididymis or testes is seen in 20% of these individuals and
frequently
results in infertility.”
12. Washington’s body was almost
buried in the Capitol.
He requested that he be buried at
Mount Vernon, and his family upheld his request, despite repeated pleas by
Congress. They wanted to put his
body underneath a marble statue in the Capitol.
13. He Was Not Very Religious.
According to Washington biographer Edward Lengel, "He was a very moral
man. He was a very virtuous man, and
he watched carefully everything he
did. But he certainly doesn't fit into our conception of a Christian
evangelical or
somebody who read his Bible every
day and lived by a particular Christian theology
14. He never chopped down that
cherry tree.
Parson Weems, who wrote a
myth-filled biography of Washington shortly after he died, made up the cherry
tree
story. The Mount Vernon Digital Encyclopedia identifies that book, The Life of Washington, as " the
point of origin for
many long-held myths about
Washington."
15. He was an inveterate letter-writer.
We don’t have an exact number, but
the best estimates seem to put the number of letters he penned somewhere
between 18,000 and 20,000. If you wrote
one letter a day, it would take you between 50 and 55 years to write that
many.
16. Before becoming the Father of
the Nation, Washington was a master surveyor.
He spent the early part of his
career as a professional surveyor. Here’s one of the earliest maps he created, of his
half brother Lawrence Washington’s
turnip garden:
Over the course of his life,
Washington created some 199 land surveys. Washington took this skill with him
into his
role as a military leader.
17. Before fighting the British, he
fought FOR the British.
At the age of 21, Washington was
sent to lead a British colonial force against the French in Ohio. He lost, and this
helped spark the Seven Years War in
North America.
18. He was a dog-lover.
Washington kept and bred many
hunting hounds. He is known as the "Father of the
American Foxhound," and kept
more than 30 of the dogs. According
to his journals, three of the hounds' names were Drunkard, Tipler, and Tipsy.
19. He lost more battles than he
won.
According to Joseph J. Ellis' His Excellency: George Washington, “he lost
more battles than any victorious general
in modern history.”
20. He was lucky, but his coat
wasn't.
In the Braddock disaster of 1755,
Washington’s troops were caught in the crossfire between British and Native
American soldiers. Two horses were
shot from under Washington, and his coat was pierced by
four musket balls,
none of which hit his actual body.
21. He didn’t have wooden teeth.
But he did have teeth problems. When he attended his first
inauguration, he only had one tooth left in his head.
22. He is the only president to
actually go into battle while serving as president.
On September 19, 1794, George
Washington became the only sitting U.S. President to personally lead
troops in the field when he led the
militia on a nearly month-long march west over the Allegheny Mountains to the
town of Bedford.”
23. He fell in love with his best
friend’s wife.
According to Joseph Ellis' His
Excellency, several letters show that before he married Martha, Washington was
in
love with Sally Fairfax, who was the
wife of George William Fairfax.
24. He was widely criticized in the
press in the later years of his presidency.
He was accused of having an overly
monarchical style and was criticized for his declaration of neutrality in
overseas
conflicts. Thomas Jefferson was
among the most critical of Washington in the press, and John Adams recalled that
after the Jay Treaty, the
presidential mansion “was surrounded by innumerable multitudes, from day to day
buzzing,
demanding war against England,
cursing Washington.”
25. He owned a whiskey distillery.
He installed it at Mount Vernon in
1798 and it was profitable. According to Julian Niemcewicz, a Polish visitor to
the
estate, it distilled 12,000 gallons a year. In 1799, Washington wrote to his nephew: “Two hundred
gallons of Whiskey
will be ready this day for your
call, and the sooner it is taken the better, as the demand for this article (in
these parts)
is brisk.”
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