Adams and Jefferson died on the same day
John ADAMS and Thomas JEFFERSON worked together on the Declaration of Independence in 1776, became bitter political rivals, stopped speaking for more than a decade, and then reconciled by letter in old age. They wrote to each other for fourteen years.
Both died on 4 July 1826 — the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration, within about five hours of each other. Adams's last words are reported as "Thomas Jefferson survives", which was not true; Jefferson had died that morning. Five years later James MONROE also died on the Fourth of July. The coincidence was taken at the time as a sign, and it still reads like one.
The White House has been burned and rebuilt
In August 1814, during the war with Britain, British troops entered Washington and set fire to the President's House and the Capitol. James MADISON had already fled; his wife Dolley stayed long enough to have the full-length portrait of George WASHINGTON cut from its frame and carried to safety.
The building was left a shell, and the rebuilding took three years. The name White House was in use before the fire, but the white paint over the scorched sandstone helped fix it. Theodore ROOSEVELT made the name official in 1901. Truman later found the interior so structurally unsound that between 1949 and 1952 it was gutted to the outer walls and rebuilt inside with a steel frame.
A president gave his name to a toy
On a hunting trip in Mississippi in 1902, Theodore ROOSEVELT's hosts cornered and tied up a black bear so he could shoot it. He refused, saying it was unsporting. A newspaper cartoon of the scene spread across the country, and a Brooklyn shop owner, Morris Michtom, made a stuffed bear and asked permission to call it Teddy's bear.
At about the same time a German company, Steiff, was producing jointed toy bears independently, and both caught on. Roosevelt, who became president at 42 after William McKinley's assassination, remains the youngest ever to hold the office; John KENNEDY, at 43, was the youngest elected to it.
Firsts, oddities and the rest of the grid
Grover CLEVELAND was the first president to serve two non-consecutive terms, and so is counted as both the 22nd and 24th. Ulysses GRANT was arrested for speeding his horse and carriage in Washington while in office. Calvin COOLIDGE was famous for saying almost nothing; a dinner guest once told him she had bet she could get more than two words out of him, and he replied, "You lose." Barack OBAMA became the first Black president in 2009, and Jimmy CARTER lived to 100, longer than any other president.
Also in the grid: Abraham LINCOLN, largely self-taught and a licensed lawyer from reading borrowed books; Andrew JACKSON, Woodrow WILSON, Herbert HOOVER, Harry TRUMAN, Dwight EISENHOWER, who pushed through the interstate highway system, Richard NIXON and Ronald REAGAN. Four of them are carved into a mountain in South Dakota, which our US landmarks page covers, and our world leaders page covers the moment Washington chose to step down.