US Presidents
Contents - First Ladies - Classroomhelp.com

U.S. Presidents
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George Washington
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
James Madison
James Monroe
John Quincy Adams
Andrew Jackson
Martin Van Buren
William H. Harrison
John Tyler
James K. Polk
Zachary Taylor
Millard Fillmore
Franklin Pierce
James Buchanan
Abraham Lincoln
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
Rutherford B. Hayes
James A. Garfield
Chester A. Arthur
Grover Cleveland
Benjamin Harrison
William McKinley
Theodore Roosevelt
William H. Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren G. Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Harry S Truman
Dwight D. Eisenhower
John F. Kennedy
Lyndon B. Johnson
Richard M. Nixon
Gerald R. Ford
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan
George Bush
Bill Clinton
George W. Bush
Barack Obama


Key Dates

1889 Theodore Roosevelt graduates from Harvard.

1882 Roosevelt is elected to the New York State Legislature.

1898 Spanish-American War begins. Roosevelt organises a cavalry unit and becomes a war hero.

1900 Roosevelt becomes Vice President under McKinley.

1901 McKinley is assassinated. Teddy becomes President.

1903 Roosevelt establishes the first federal wildlige refuge.

1904 Roosevelt is elected President.

1904 Work begins on the Panama Canal.

1905 Roosevelt creates the Forest Service.

1908 Taft is elected President.

1912 Roosevelt forms the Progressive or Bull Moose Party and runs for President. (He loses.)

1914 The Panama Canal is completed.

1919 Teddy Roosevelt dies.



Theodore Roosevelt
1901 - 1909

Teddy Roosevelt was born on October 17, 1858 in New York, New York.

He was a sickly child.

The youngest man to become president. He was 42. He was 5' 8" tall.

He and John Quincy Adams were the two presidents who didn't lay their hand on the Bible to take the oath of office.

Theodore Roosevelt didn't have a Vice President from (1901-1905). During his second term Charles Fairbanks (1905-1909) was Vice President.

President Roosevelt was the first president to refer to his residence as the "White House." Prior to his term it was known as the Executive Mansion or just the President's House.

When the Great White Fleet, which TR sent around the world in 1907, returned to America in 1909, it was immediately painted gray.

Theodore Roosevelt served in the Spanish-American War.

Theodore Roosevelt: third cousin twice removed of Martin Van Buren

Booker T. Washington was the first black man invited to dine at the White House, a guest of TR. ( Lincoln had invited African-Americans to the White House but not to dine.)

His sons, Archie and Quentin, sometimes lined up for morning roll-call with the White House police.

Theodore Roosevelt (Republican) founded the Progressive or Bull Moose Party.

He was the first American to win the Nobel Peace Prize (1906).


Theodore Roosevelt.
(Click for larter image.)

President Teddy Roosevelt was the first president to study the martial arts. He took up jiujisu after being hurt in a boxing match.

He set aside vast wilderness lands for conservation. These later became part of the country's national parks and nature reserves.

Roosevelt tried to have "In God We Trust" removed from coins. He thought it sacrilegious and unconstitutional.

Oklahoma was admitted as a state while Roosevelt was preisident.

Teddy was the first president to own an automobile--it was a purple-lined Columbia Electric Victoria. He rode through Hartford, Connecticut on August 22, 1902. 20 carriages followed the president's car. He was also the first president to own a car.

President Roosevelt was also the first president to submerge in a submarine.

He had a guinea pig named Father O'Grady and a snake named Emily Spinach. He also had a Bull Dog named Pete and a Cheapeake Retriever named Sailor Boy.

TR was the first president to ride in an airplane, a Wright biplane October 11, 1910 in St. Louis, Missouri. (He rode in the plane after his term of office.)

In 1912, John Schrank attemted to assassinate President Roosevel while he was cmpaigning for the presidency. The bullet passed through the folded paper copy of the speech he was going to give that day. It also went through his iron eye glass case. The bullet did enter his chest and went in three inches. It lodged in his chest cage. Schrank was committed to a state hospital and stayed there until he died in 1943.

The teddy bear was named after President Theodore Roosevelt. In 1902, while hunting in Mississippi, Teddy's dogs cornered a small bear cub. Roosevelt refused to shoot it. This act of mercy was published in the newspaper in cartoon form. Morris Michtom and his partner ask Theodore Roosevelt to use his name for a toy bear. Teddy agreed to let his name be used. Now the soft cuddly bears are known as Teddy Bears. (Morris Michtom went on to found the Ideal Toy Company.)

President Roosevelt's daughter, Alice, had a pet garter snake named Emily Spinach. The family had numerous pets while they lived in the White House.

He was the first American and first president to win a Nobel Peace Prize. He won the award for his efforts in ending the Russo-Japanese War.

Theodore Roosevelt died on January 6, 1919, in Oyster Bay, New York. He was 60 years and 71 days old.

Quotes from Theodore Roosevelt:

Get action. Do things; be sane, don't fritter away your time; create, act, take a place wherever you are and be somebody; get action.
1900 Many-Sided Roosevelt, p. 83

The only safe rule is to promise little, and faithfully to keep every promise; to "speak softly and carry a big stick." -1913 Autobiography p. 537

"Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time."
Kansas City Star, Nov. 1, 1917

"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy."

"When you play, play hard; when you work, don't play at all."

"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad."

 

Topics


Nicknames for the Presidents

First Ladies

Presidents who died in office

Assassinations and Assassination Attempts

Vice Presidents who became Presidents

Presidential Salaries

Oldest living Presidents

Presidents' Military Service

Books about U.S. President

Pets of the Presidents



 

 



Sources:

The Presidents of the United States. 22 September 2004: http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/

Davis, Gibbs and Ilus. David A. Johnson. Wackiest White House Pets. New York: Scholastic Press, October 2004

James, Barber and Amy Pastan. Smithsonian Presidents and First Ladies. New York: DK Publishing, 2002

Kane, Joseph Natan. Facts about the Presidents from Washington to Johnson. New York: H.W. Wilson Company, 1964.

McCullough, Noah, The Essential Book of Presidential Trivia. Random House, USA, 2006

Pine, Joslyn, Presidential Wit and Wisdom: Memorable Quotes from George Washington to Barack Obama . Dover Publications, Mineola, New York, 2009

Huffington Post web site.

Lang, Stephen, The Complete Book of Presidential Trivia, Pelican Publishing Company, Gretna, 2011

O'Reilly, Bill, and Dugard, Martin, Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 2011

St. George, Judith In the Line of Fire: Presidents' Lives at Stake , Scholastic Inc. New York, 2001


I have set a goal of reading a book about all of the deceased presidents. I share the ones that I have read as well as my current reading. You can view the books on my book page. I am open to suggestions of books to read. (jim@anewadventure.org.)

What I am currently reading:

Gurzman, Kevin R.,James Madison and the Making of America, St. Martin's Press, New York, 2012


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This page was last updated on Monday, May 14, 2012

For comments or corrections email jim@anewadventure.org.