Answers to the Presidential Quiz, SPAN January/February 2009



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Answers to the Presidential Quiz
From the November/December 2008 SPAN issue.
By RICHA VARMA

To view the article in magazine format,
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1. Who became both vice president and president without winning a national election?
Gerald R. Ford, a member of the House of Representatives, was appointed vice president by President Richard Nixon following the resignation of Spiro Agnew on tax evasion charges in 1973. Less than a year later, Ford became the only American president not elected to national office when he succeeded Nixon, who resigned to avoid impeachment in the wake of the Watergate scandal.

2. Who was the last president to be born in a log cabin?
The son of a farmer, James A. Garfield was the last U.S. president born in a log cabin, in Cuyahoga County, Ohio. He rose from the depths of poverty to become president at 50 in 1881. Within four months, he was shot by an assassin and lay in the White House for weeks. Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, tried unsuccessfully to find the bullet with an induction-balance electrical device which he had designed, but Garfield died from the resulting infection and internal hemorrhage.

3. Who was the first president to reside in what would become known as the White House?
The first residents, in 1800, were second President John Adams and his wife, Abigail, who moved in when the paint was still wet. In 1790, President George Washington signed an Act of Congress declaring that the federal government would reside in a district "not exceeding ten miles square…on the river Potomac." Although he oversaw the construction of the house, he never lived in it.

4. Which president served the shortest time in office and was the first to die in office?
President William Henry Harrison had the dual distinction of delivering the longest inaugural address-8,445 words-and serving the shortest time in office. Harrison was sworn in on a bitterly cold, wet day in 1841. His speech lasted one hour and 40 minutes and he rode a horse to and from the Capitol building without a hat or overcoat. He died a month later of pneumonia.

5. Which president had the first phone installed in the White House?
Though President Rutherford B. Hayes rarely received any calls, he had the first phone installed at the White House in 1877. His telephone number was 1. Fifty years later, President Herbert Hoover had the first telephone line installed at the president's desk in the Oval Office.

6. Which president had the first electric lights installed in the White House?
President Benjamin Harrison is credited with installing electric lights in the White House in 1891. After he got an electrical shock, his family often refused to touch the light switches and left their operation to the domestic staff. Sometimes, they would go to bed with the lights on.

7. Which president began the White House fleet's transition from coaches and carriages to cars?
President William H. Taft rode to his inauguration in a horse-drawn carriage, but he is credited with having the White House stables converted into a garage for four cars, all ordered in 1909. Also, his wife, Helen, was the first to ride in the inaugural parade from the Capitol building to the White House. Taft is the only man to have been both president and chief justice of the United States.

8. Which president got stuck in a White House bathtub and remains the heaviest U.S. president in history?
President William H. Taft, who took office in 1909, was the heaviest U.S. president at 136 kilograms. After he got stuck in a White House bathtub, Taft ordered a replacement, which was big enough to hold four men.

9. Who was the first president to use helicopters to travel to and from the White House grounds?
President Dwight D. Eisenhower began presidential helicopter travel when he flew from his vacation home in Newport, Rhode Island, to the Naval Air Station Quonset Point in September 1957. He often made short trips to and from his Gettysburg farm in Pennsylvania.

10. Which first name is the most common among U.S. presidents?
There have been six U.S presidents named James: Madison, Monroe, Polk, Buchanan, Garfield and Carter. Tied at second place is John: Adams, Quincy Adams, Tyler and Kennedy; and William: Henry Harrison, McKinley, Taft and Clinton.

11. Who was the tallest U.S. president and the only one to hold a patent?
Abraham Lincoln was the tallest U.S. president at 6 feet 4 inches. Lincoln was also the only president to acquire a patent, for "A Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals" in 1849. The invention consists of a set of bellows attached to the hull of a ship just below the water line. On reaching a shallow place, the bellows are filled with air and the vessel, thus buoyed, is expected to float clear. It was never marketed and is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History.

12. Which president was elected to the House of Representatives after leaving the White House?
Since 1789, 19 presidents and 33 major party presidential nominees have served in the U.S. House of Representatives at some point during their careers. Only in the case of John Quincy Adams, in 1830, did a president become a Representative after he left the White House.

13. Who was the first president to appear on TV?
Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to appear on TV in 1939 when he spoke from the World's Fair in New York City. Very few people saw him. In 1947, President Harry S. Truman pioneered telecasts from the White House when he asked Americans to cut back on their use of grain to help starving Europeans, still recovering from World War II and a famine.

14. Which president was the first to use e-mail?
Personal computers began appearing in the White House through the 1980s and e-mail was first introduced in the waning days of President George H.W. Bush's term in 1992. The first White House Web site was developed in 1994, during the Bill Clinton Administration. Presidents are usually advised not to use e-mail because of security risks and fears that messages could be intercepted.

15. Which president was the first to have a live press conference on TV?
Braving the risk of making mistakes and injudicious statements, John F. Kennedy was the first U.S. president to go live on television in 1961 and received a positive public response. By November 1963, when he was assassinated, Kennedy had held 64 news conferences, an average of one every 16 days.

16. Which president never married?
James Buchanan is the only U.S. president who never married. His niece, Harriet Lane, became extremely popular for hosting presidential gatherings with spontaneity and poise during his term, 1857-1861. She remains unique among first ladies.

17. Which president had 14 children?
President John Tyler was the first vice president to be elevated to the office of president after the death of his predecessor, William Henry Harrison. Tyler's first wife had been an invalid for two years when he unexpectedly became president in 1841. After her death, the first of a president's wife in the White House, Tyler became the first president to marry in office, when he took a second wife, 30 years his junior. Tyler had 14 children from both marriages.

18. Why is Barack Obama the 44th U.S. president, but only the 43rd man to become president?
Only 43 men have become president, through election or succession from the vice presidency. Grover Cleveland was elected twice, nonconsecutively, and is thus America's 22nd and 24th president. Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president, who served between Cleveland's terms.