[tet68]

A short history.
Given to us by Queen Victoria...

The Resolute desk is a large, nineteenth-century partners’ desk often chosen by presidents of the United States for use in the White House Oval Office as the Oval Office desk. It was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the timbers of the British Arctic Exploration ship Resolute. Franklin Roosevelt had a small door built for the gap to prevent people from seeing his wheelchair. Many presidents since Hayes have used the desk at various locations in the White House, but it was Jackie Kennedy who first brought the desk into the Oval Office in 1961 for President John F. Kennedy. It was removed from the White House only once, after the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, when President Johnson allowed the desk to go on a traveling exhibition with the Kennedy Presidential Library. After this it was on display in the Smithsonian Institution. President Jimmy Carter brought the desk back to the Oval Office, where Presidents Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used it. It is currently in use by President Barack Obama.

[July4]

Has anybody else noticed the shape of BO’s right hand? We've all noticed the shoe gesture on the beautiful and richly historic desk given to us by the British, but the President's hand is bent into the form of a gun. Could this photo be a signal to someone out there?

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the informative post Tet68.

[Fast Moving Angel]

Thanks for this. I hope the ghost of Queen Victoria comes back to haunt him.