1. Abraham Lincoln was a pretty good wrestler in his youth. Out of almost 300 fights, he apparently lost only one!
2. Inspiration for Neil Diamond's song "Sweet Caroline" came from John F. Kennedy's daughter, who was eleven years old at the time.
3. President Calvin Coolidge did this thing where he thought it was funny to summon his bodyguards to his room using a buzzer and then hiding under his desk.
4. Lyndon B. Johnson was even more of a prankster: He owned an amphibious car that could be driven on land and in water, and commonly invited unsuspecting guests on his ranch for a drive. He'd pretend in front of a lake, act like the brakes weren't working and drive right into the water.
5. To help Franklin D. Roosevelt with his rehabilitation after contracting polio, the laundry room in the White House was turned into a heated pool in 1933.
6. In 1969, Richard Nixon arranged for the construction of a new room above the pool that is now the White House Press Briefing Room.
(But you can still access the old pool!)
7. After his death, John F. Kennedy's brain was stored in the U.S. National Archives until it mysteriously went missing.
8. The White House has officially been called the "White House" only since 1901. In the 100 years prior, it was referred to as the "President's Palace," the "President's House" or "Executive Mansion."
9. Since 2001, the annual salary for a president is $400,000.
10. The First Lady's salary? $0!
11. But just because the president and their family lives rent-free, they still have to pay for things like groceries and dry cleaning.
12. In 2015, Barack Obama made it legal for U.S. citizens to mine and own asteroids.
13. President Eisenhower caused a minor diplomatic crisis when he said that he preferred pizza from New York over pizza from Naples.
14. President Lincoln suffered from depression and that was apparently why he never carried a knife around with him.
15. John Tyler was the first president to have his photograph taken.
16. Theodore Roosevelt the first one to drive a car.
17. And Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first to fly in an airplane.
18. However, Barack Obama was the first president who's had a 3D portrait made of him.
Here is the result:
19. Also, Obama has won two Grammy Awards.
20. First Lady Nancy Reagan was extremely superstitious and had her own astrologer, who created charts that dictated how Ronald Reagan should time his appointments, travel, and international summits.
21. An extraordinary number of people have reported sightings of the ghost of Abraham Lincoln in the White House — including Eleanor Roosevelt, Jacqueline Kennedy, and Winston Churchill.
22. When the young Leonard Nimoy was still working as a taxi driver, he had John F. Kennedy as a passenger.
23. A library book borrowed by George Washington in 1789 was finally returned only in 2010.
24. In 1944, 9 U.S. airmen were shot down over Japan. Eight of them were captured and tortured. The ninth was George H.W. Bush.
25. And finally, Lincoln actually only wore a beard only during the last 5 years of his life.
Before that, he looked like this!
This post was translated from German.