John Quincy Adams is the only president to serve in the House of Representatives after his presidency, which was for 17 years.

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.

On election night in 1876, Rutherford Birchard Hayes went to his bed believing he had lost the presidential election. The next day, however, his Republican campaign manager boldly proclaimed him the winner. It was discovered that three Republican states in the South (Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana) had sent in double returns. The Democrats screamed foul, until it was revealed they too, had committed election return fraud. Congress debated the election results for weeks. The year ended with no U.S. president-elect. In January 1877, Congress appointed an electoral commission to laboriously re-count the entire vote and settle the dispute. On March 2, the commission announced that Hayes had 185 electoral votes and Samuel Tilden 184. If only one of the 20 disputed electoral votes had gone to him, Tilden would have been elected. His popular vote was 4,284,020, and Hayes at 4,036,572.

A collection of highly romantic love letters from Ronald Reagan to actress Nancy Davis, whom he married in 1952, was published in September 2000 and became a best-seller.

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. President to be born in a hospital.

John Tyler was the first president to marry while in office.

U.S. President 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.

The White House purchased 12 tons of jelly beans during Ronald Reagan’s presidency.

One Native American has served as vice president of the United States. Charles Curtis of Kansas was President Herbert Hoover’s vice president. Curtis’s mother was a full-blooded member of the Kaw tribe.

The first president to have been chosen by the House of Representatives was Thomas Jefferson (ties between him and Aaron Burr).

The last president to not attend college was Harry Truman. Regardless, there is a college named after him, in Chicago, Illinois.

The Star-Spangled Banner was chosen as the U.S.’s national anthem while Herbert Hoover was president.

Andrew Johnson was also the only former president elected to the U.S. Senate.

Millard Fillmore’s wife Abigail was the first one to set up the White House Library.

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.