Re-Learning the Presidents!

Have you ever seen the show "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader"? If you haven't, it's an hilarious TV show where the guest (or victim) is required to answer questions from a typical 5th grade text book. The guest can be helped by 5th graders, five of whom are up on stage with him/her. It's similar to "Who wants to be a Millionaire" but, in my opinion, more fun (maybe because I actually know the answers to most of the questions--Millionaire is mostly pop culture, which I know little to nothing about!).

Anyway, if the guest answers a series of 5th grade questions correctly, he/she gets a million bucks! It's a fun show, and it was sad and funny at the same time how many adults who LOOKED intelligent didn't know answers to simple questions (like how many Es are in the word mathematics-they didn't show the word-or what continent has the largest rain forest in the world). I watched one adult man in his 40s miss both of those! So yeah, it's a cool show.

All that to say, one of the questions related to the chronological order of presidents and I was ashamed I didn't know the answer! So I studied up a little on that subject, and here are some interesting facts as the product of my research. :)

There have been more one term presidents than there have been two term. Since there has been a total of 43 presidents, sixteen were two term, twenty were one term, and seven were assassinated, resigned, or died natural deaths. It's also interesting to me how Franklin Roosevelt served three terms! (I put him under the two term bracket.) Here is the list I found, for your enjoyment:

A list of U.S. Presidents, listed in the order in which they entered office.

1. George Washington (1789-1797)
2. John Adams (1797-1801)
3. Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809)
4. James Madison (1809-1817)
5. James Monroe (1817-1825)
6. John Quincy Adams (1825-1829)
7. Andrew Jackson (1829-1837)
8. Martin Van Buren (1837-1841)
9. William H. Harrison (1841)
10. John Tyler (1841-1845)
11. James K. Polk (1841-1849)
12. Zachary Taylor (1849-1850)
13. Millard Fillmore (1850-1853)
14. Franklin Pierce (1853-1857)
15. James Buchanan (1857-1861)
16. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)
17. Andrew Johnson (1865-1869)
18. Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877)
19. Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)
20. James A. Garfield (1881)
21. Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885)
22. Grover Cleveland (1885-1889)
23. Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893)
24. Grover Cleveland (1893-1897)
25. William McKinley (1897-1901)
26. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909)
27. William H. Taft (1909-1913)
28. Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
29. Warren G. Harding (1921-1923)
30. Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929)
31. Herbert Hoover (1929-1933)
32. Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)
33. Harry S. Truman (1945-1953)
34. Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961)
35. John F. Kennedy (1961-1963)
36. Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
37. Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974)
38. Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977)
39. Jimmy Carter (1977-1981)
40. Ronald Reagan (1981-1989)
41. George H. W. Bush (1989-1993)
42. Bill Clinton (1993-2001)
43. George W. Bush (2001-2009)

I hope you learned something new. And if you get a chance sometime, check out that show "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader." It's a riot.