
It's Presidents Day and while many of us will be taking the opportunity to enjoy 30% off bath towels and other linens, it's important that we also spend a moment reflecting on the commanders-in-chief we've elected thus far.
With that in mind, we once again present 44 lesser-known facts about the leaders of this nation. Ever wanted to imagine John Quincy Adams naked? Too late, you will now.
So enjoy your day off by learning a few things... and seriously, take advantage of those sales. You NEED new sheets.
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8 Martin Van Buren Popularized The Phrase "OK"WikiMedia:Supposedly, President Van Buren popularized one of the most commonly used phrases to date: "OK", or "Okay". Van Buren was from Kinderhook, NY which was also called "Old Kinderhook". His support groups came to be known as "O.K. Clubs" and the term OK came to mean "all right".
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22 Grover Cleveland Was Legal Guardian To The Girl He Later MarriedWhen Grover Cleveland's law partner Oscar Folsom died, Cleveland became the girl's legal guardian. Frances Folsom was 11 years old at the time. Oddly enough, ten years later, they got married at the White House. She remains the youngest First Lady in the history of the United States, having been just 21 when they married.
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25 Theodore Roosevelt Had Really Bad AsthmaMediaWikiIn his early childhood, Teddy Roosevelt suffered from very severe asthma. Because there were no inhalers or special treatments for asthma at the time, he was often sick as a young boy. However, he began to regularly exercise in order to combat the illness and, aside from the occasional asthma attack, he eventually overcame it.
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26 Taft Swore In Later PresidentsAPAfter leaving office, William Taft became the only ex-president to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, effectively becoming the only person to serve as the head of two branches of government. In doing so, he swore in both Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover to the presidency. (On an unrelated note, he also lost 150 pounds after leaving office.)
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27 Woodrow Wilson Had A Ph.D.MediaWikiTo date, he's the only president to hold a doctorate degree, making him the highest educated president in the history of the United States. He was awarded the degree in Political Science and History from Johns Hopkins University. He also passed the Georgia Bar Exam despite not finishing law school.
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30 FDR Has A Movie CreditLate one night at a dinner party, President Franklin Roosevelt regaled guests with a premise for a mystery novel. Magazine editor Fulton Oursler was in in attendance, and he hired some mystery writers to flesh out the premise to a novel, which was then adapted into a movie, "The President's Mystery." FDR received a "story by" credit.
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32 Eisenhower Almost Had His Leg AmputatedMediaWikiAs a freshman in high school, Dwight Eisenhower injured his knee, and the wound caused an infection that doctors feared could kill him. They recommend the leg be amputated, but Eisenhower loved playing sports so much that he refused the operation, and he somehow made a miraculous recovery.
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33 JFK Had A Shoddy Harvard ApplicationWikiMedia:John F. Kennedy's application to study at Harvard was fairly unimpressive by today's standards. Not only that, but his own father, a Harvard alum, gave him a pretty underwhelming recommendation, saying that young Jack was "careless and lacks application."
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35 Nixon Was A Card SharkWikiMedia:While in the Navy, Richard Nixon noticed that his friends were winning money in poker games. Always the opportunist, Nixon had the best poker player in his unit teach him how to play the game. Within only a few months, Nixon had won around $6,000 in poker games, which he used to fund his first congressional campaign.
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40 Bill Clinton Is A Two-Time Grammy WinnerMediaWikiClinton took home the 2004 Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album For Children along with Mikhail Gorbachev and Sophia Loren for their narration on the Russian National Symphony's "Wolf Tracks and Peter and the Wolf". Then in 2005, he won the Best Spoken Word Grammy for the audiobook of "My Life". His wife, Hillary Clinton, also won a Best Spoken Word Grammy for the audiobook of 1997's "It Takes A Village".
Senior Comedy Editor, The Huffington Post