- Before he became president, Lyndon Johnson was a teacher at a small school in South Texas.
- Before he became president, Woodrow Wilson was president of Princeton University.
- Only one president was a preacher -- James Garfield.
- Did you know that William Howard Taft is the only President who served as both President and Chief Justice of the United States?
- President John F. Kennedy won a Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for his collection of essays, Profiles in Courage.
- Both George Washington and Jimmy Carter were farmers before they became president -- President Washington was a planter and a farmer at his home in Mount Vernon, and Before he was President, Jimmy Carter ran his family's peanut farm in Plains, Georgia.
- Before he became president, Barack Obama was a U.S. Senator. Before that, he was an Illinois State Senator, and before that he was a community organizer in Chicago.
- The President's personal office is called the oval office. Any plane he flies on is called Air Force One, and any helicopter is called Marine One.
- The "S" in Harry S. Truman's name isn't short for anything. The President was named after both of his grandfathers, Anderson Shippe Truman and Solomon Young. The initial honors them both.
- The first public reading of the Declaration of Independence took place in Philadelphia -- where the bell now-known as the Liberty Bell rang out to call the city's population together on July 8, 1776.
- On July 9, 1776, General George Washington gave an order for the Declaration of Independence to be read to his army.
- In the early part of the 19th century, a network called the Underground Railroad, which received its name in 1831, helped escaped slaves gain freedom. As a conductor on the Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman helped 300 slaves gain freedom during the 1800s.
- The Statue of Liberty was a gift of friendship resulting from the diplomatic relationship between the United States and France.
- President Lincoln owned only one home during his lifetime -- in Springfield, Ill.
- President Jefferson spent more than 40 years designing and building his home in Charlottesville, VA known as Monticello. The President admired classical architecture and incorporated this style into his home.
- President Jackson's estate outside of Nashville, TN was known as the Hermitage.
- President Richard M. Nixon was offered a position as a player's representative to the Major League Baseball Players Association in 1965. He declined, stating that he was needed in politics. Nixon served as President from 1969 to 1974.
- George H.W. Bush played first base on the Yale University team that twice reached the finals of the College World Series.
- Grace Coolidge, wife of President Calvin Coolidge, could often be found keeping a perfect scorecard while watching baseball games in the presidential box.
- In 1915, Woodrow Wilson became the first President to attend the World Series, where he and his fiance, Edith Gault, made their first public appearance since announcing their engagement. The President insisted on paying for his own tickets.
- In 1787, just four years after the end of war with Great Britain, 55 delegates gathered in Philadelphia to replace the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention led to the creation of the U.S. Constitution, which was signed on September 17, 1787.
- On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the Constitution.
- The first day Congress conducted business under the Constitution was April 6, 1789. On this day, members of Congress counted the votes of the electors, who unanimously elected George Washington as the nation's first president.
- In order to amend the Constitution, three quarters of all states must vote in favor before the proposed amendment becomes law.
24 Fun Facts Concerning the United States
Asia Becomes Involved in World War II
- During the 1930s, a militaristic Japan invaded and brutalized Manchuria and China as it sought military and economic domination over Asia. The United States refused to recognize Japanese conquests in Asia and imposed an embargo on exports of oil and steel to Japan. Tensions rose, but both countries negotiated to avoid war.
- While negotiating with the United States and without any warning, Japan carried out an air attack on the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. The attack destroyed much of the American Pacific fleet and killed several thousand Americans. Roosevelt called it “a date that will live in infamy” as he asked Congress to declare war on Japan.
- After Pearl Harbor, Hitler honored a pact with Japan and declared war on the United States. The debates over isolationism in the United States were over. World War II was now a true world war, and the United States was fully involved.
Battles of World War II - The Turning Points
- El Alamein — German forces threatening to seize Egypt and the Suez Canal were defeated by the British. This defeat prevented Hitler from gaining access to Middle Eastern oil supplies and potentially attacking the Soviet Union from the south.
- Stalingrad — Hundreds of thousands of German soldiers were killed or captured in a months-long siege of the Russian city of Stalingrad. This defeat prevented Germany from seizing the Soviet oil fields and turned the tide against Germany in the east.
- Normandy landings (D-Day) — American and Allied troops under Eisenhower landed in German-occupied France on June 6, 1944. Despite intense German opposition and heavy American casualties, the landings succeeded, and the liberation of Western Europe from Hitler had begun.__
- Midway — In the “Miracle of Midway,” American naval forces defeated a much larger Japanese force as it prepared to seize Midway Island. Coming only a few months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese victory at Midway would have enabled Japan to invade Hawaii. The American victory ended the Japanese threat to Hawaii and began a series of American victories in the “island hopping” campaign that carried the war closer and closer to Japan.
- Iwo Jima and Okinawa — The American invasions of the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa brought American forces closer than ever to Japan, but both invasions cost thousands of American lives and even more Japanese lives, as Japanese soldiers fought fiercely over every square inch of the islands and Japanese soldiers and civilians committed suicide rather than surrender.
- Use of the atomic bomb — Facing the prospect of horrendous casualties among both Americans and Japanese if American forces had to invade Japan itself, President Harry Truman ordered the use of atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to force the Japanese to surrender. Tens of thousands of people were killed in both cities. Shortly after the bombs were used, the Japanese leaders surrendered, avoiding the need for American forces to invade Japan.
