Theodore Roosevelt was the first president to fly in an airplane.

Richard Milhouse Nixon kept a music box in his Oval office desk that played the tune “Hail to the Chief.”

Franklin Pierce was the first president to memorize his inaugural speech and recite it from memory.

In 1820, James Monroe received all the electoral votes except one. The single elector was voted against him strongly felt that only George Washington should have the historical honor of being elected president unanimously. Now this fact had questioned me when I first saw it, because at that George Washington was dead, and who would vote for a dead president? I’ll have to ask and research about this one.

William Rufus DeVane King was the first and only U.S. vice president to take the Oath of Office from outside the United States. He did this in Havana, Cuba in 1853.

James Buchanan was the only president to not have been married. His niece, named Harriet Lane, took over as First Lady.

The candy, Baby Ruth, was named after the birth of Grover Cleveland’s daughter, Ruth.

Abraham Lincoln, who invented a hydraulic device for lifting ships over shoals, was the only president ever granted a patent.

Harry Truman was the first U.S. president to travel underwater in a modern submarine.

Former First Lady Barbara Bush’s great-great-great-uncle was President Franklin Pierce, 14th U.S. president.

In 1889, Kansas undertaker Almon B. Strowger wanted to prevent telephone operators from advising his rivals of the death of local citizens. So he invented the automatic exchange.

Joseph Niepce developed the world’s first photographic image in 1827.

The first vending machine was invented by Hero of Alexandria around 215 BC. When a coin was dropped into a slot, its weight would pull a cork out of a spigot and the machine would dispense a trickle of water.

Optical fiber was invented in 1966 by two British scientists called Charles Kao and George Hockham working for the British company Standard Telecommunication.

The very first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a white screen.

John Quincy Adams married for money.

James Abram Garfield was the last president to be born in a log cabin.

Eleven years after Abraham Lincoln’s burial, grave robbers broke into his tomb and dragged the casket partially out before they were caught. The men were convicted merely of breaking and entering and served a year in prison as there was no law in America then against body snatching.

John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. president who had formally been a Boy Scout.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first President to make a hole-in-one in golf.

When William McKinley’s wife Ida McKinley became first lady of the White House, she hated the color yellow so much that she made it a White House yellow-free zone. She even ordered the gardeners to yank every yellow flower out of the garden grounds.

Rutherford Birchard Hayes won lots of spelling contests when he was in elementary school.

Theodore Roosevelt found his favorite dog, Skip, wandering around the Grand Canyon. While Roosevelt had many dogs, Skip was the only one permitted to sleep in the presidential bed.

Millard Fillmore’s wife, Abigail Powers, was his former teacher and was the first First Lady to have a job after marriage.

President Grover Cleveland used his veto powers 584 times during his two terms in office. This is the highest record for any resident that served for two terms. For all the presidents, this is the second highest. First highest came from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who died on his fourth term.