Posted on 01/17/2017 3:19:45 PM PST by Kaslin
Editor’s note: This is from New York Times Bestselling Author Larry Schweikart’s The Politically Incorrect Guide to The Presidents Part I
Did you know that most facts about America’s early presidents aren’t in history books? Political correctness has taken its toll on some of our greatest heroes and portrayed them as evil men. New York Times bestselling author Larry Schweikart sets the record straight in his new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Presidents Part I. As America prepares to inaugurate its 45th president, here are five interesting facts about America’s past inaugurations that aren’t easily found in academia (or the liberal media).
1. No one remembered to bring a Bible for George Washington to be sworn in on at America’s first presidential inauguration.
The judge who administered Washington’s oath had to send for a Bible from the local Masonic lodge. After saying “So help me God,” Washington dramatically bent down to kiss the Bible, followed by a loud cheer, “Long Live George Washington, President of the United States!”
2. Three of our early presidents – John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Johnson – did not attend the inaugurations of their successors.
The men were so eager to leave Washington that they left town before witnessing the swearing-in of the men who took their places.
3. Andrew Jackson arrived armed to John Quincy Adams’ inauguration.
James Monroe and his guest Lafayette first feared the worst when they saw that Andrew Jackson was (customarily) armed with two pistols when he arrived at John Quincy Adams’ inauguration. Turns out, Jackson was just pulling their leg with a frightening expression on his face and soon broke out in a broad grin and congratulated the new president.
4. William Henry Harrison gave the longest inauguration speech in history – that possibly killed him.
The speech was two hours (and 8,445 words) long. While it’s unknown if he caught a cold that turned into pneumonia during that speech, he quickly became seriously ill and died a few weeks later.
5. The first inauguration ever filmed was in 1897.
William McKinley was the first president whose oath of office was captured on film and his presidency was marked by breakthroughs in invention and technology – telephones became common during his time and American cities began embracing electricity.
Larry Schweikart, Ph.D., is a retired professor of history at the University of Dayton and the coauthor of A Patriot’s History of the United States, a #1 New York Times bestseller. His most recent book, The Politically Incorrect Guide® to the Presidents Part I, debuted on January 9, 2016. He is the coauthor of the upcoming books How Trump Won and The Politically Incorrect Guide® to the American Revolution. Dr. Schweikart lives in Chandler, Arizona, with his wife, Dee, and three dogs.
Ping.
More interesting info from our own Freeper LS!
Lyndon B. Johnson used to enjoy humiliating his Defense Secretary Robert STRANGE McNamara by sitting stark naked on the toilet while speaking to him.
I need to know the really important things....
What kind of dogs?
President-elect Warren Harding was kidnapped in the middle of Biscayne Bay. After the election, Harding was visiting Miami. The Miami boosters took him out for an excursion on Biscayne Bay. While out on the boat, Miami Beach promoter Carl Fisher came up to the side in another boat and yelled out to Harding asking if he was interested in a relaxing game of poker with booze in sunny Miami beach. The already bored Harding perked up at hearing this and immediately hopped into Fisher’s boat which sped him away to Miami Beach, leaving the horrified Miami boosters behind on their boat.
A young Harry Truman once had a roommate in Kansas City named Eisenhower. No, not Dwight D. Eisenhower himself but one of his brothers.
Stanley, our first adoptee is a Doodle/Llapa Apso mix. Beautiful dog. My dog.
Milo, the Yorkie, is older, was adopted next. Has a very cute underbite like the Gamhorrean Guards in Star Wars. Not one of your “beautiful” Yorks, but cute and has his own tough personality. He was the one mauled by the pitbull four months ago when we were walking. Going to court about that in two weeks.
The latest is Peanut, a Chihuahua, that I saw wandering in the street when it as 90degrees and rising here. No tags, no chip, emaciated, bladderstone, all her teeth were bad. About $3000 later, she is extremely cute, very loving, not at all like a “normal” yippy Chihuahua. Older.
Shame about Harrison. His was a brilliant speech. Excerpts follow:
The Constitution of the United States is the instrument containing this grant of power to the several departments composing the Government. On an examination of that instrument it will be found to contain declarations of power granted and of power withheld. The latter is also susceptible of division into power which the majority had the right to grant, but which they do not think proper to entrust to their agents, and that which they could not have granted, not being possessed by themselves. In other words, there are certain rights possessed by each individual American citizen which in his compact with the others he has never surrendered. Some of them, indeed, he is unable to surrender, being, in the language of our system, unalienable.
...
I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion of the sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained of and the correctives which may be applied. Some of the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects of the Constitution; others, in my judgment, are attributable to a misconstruction of some of its provisions. Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the Presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson early saw and lamented this error, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of the States to its correction. As, however, one mode of correction is in the power of every President, and consequently in mine, it would be useless, and perhaps invidious, to enumerate the evils of which, in the opinion of many of our fellow-citizens, this error of the sages who framed the Constitution may have been the source and the bitter fruits which we are still to gather from it if it continues to disfigure our system. It may be observed, however, as a general remark, that republics can commit no greater error than to adopt or continue any feature in their systems of government which may be calculated to create or increase the lover of power in the bosoms of those to whom necessity obliges them to commit the management of their affairs; and surely nothing is more likely to produce such a state of mind than the long continuance of an office of high trust.
...
If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror. We have examples of republics where the love of country and of liberty at one time were the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens, and yet, with the continuance of the name and forms of free government, not a vestige of these qualities remaining in the bosoms of any one of its citizens....The spirit of liberty had fled, and, avoiding the abodes of civilized man, had sought protection in the wilds of Scythia or Scandinavia; and so under the operation of the same causes and influences it will fly from our Capitol and our forums. A calamity so awful, not only to our country, but to the world, must be deprecated by every patriot and every tendency to a state of things likely to produce it immediately checked. Such a tendency has existed—does exist. Always the friend of my countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them from this high place to which their partiality has exalted me that there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best interests—hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in its views, selfish in its objects. It looks to the aggrandizement of a few even to the destruction of the interests of the whole. The entire remedy is with the people.
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres26.html
John Quincy Adams refused to swear the oath of office on a Bible; he swore on a law book.
The food served in the Franklin D. Roosevelt White House was so horrible that dinner guests visibly recoiled in disgust after a few bites. When the King & Queen of England visited the Roosevelt White House, they were served hot dogs.
Truman was an artillery officer in WW I. His unit was firing toward German lines at 11:00 am/11/11/1918.
In 1945, he orders the dropping of the atomic bomb to end WW II.
While unprovable, it is possible Harry Truman (in essence) fired the last shot of both World Wars.
bump
Thank you for the reply.
Dogs are truly man’s best friend.
I have two Golden Retrievers myself.
SuzyQ is a 90 pound eating machine, whatever she can get her mouth on, but has the sweetest temperament. Loves hugs and hugs back. Fortunately she has stopped eating the furniture.
Littlebit is 75 pounds and obsessive about playing ball. It’s all she wants to do.
Sisters from the same litter, so they have literally been together all their lives.
Johnson had a lot meetings with aides when he was on the toilet. And some when he was naked and shaving or showering or having a massage. He might have enjoyed humiliating McNamara, but he was a busy, impatient guy with everybody.
On February 20, Zangara was brought to Dade County Courthouse for arraignment and trial. By the end of the day, Zangara was given a sentence of 80 years at hard labor on four counts of attempted murder.
As Zangara left the court room, he said to the judge, "Oh judge, don’t be stingy. Give me a hundred years." The judge replied, "Maybe there will be more later."
And there was more because on March 6, Mayor Cermak died from his wound. The next day, March 7, Zangara was brought back to the court room where he was arraigned for murder. Three days after that, on March 10, Zangara was sentenced to death in the electric chair.
On March 20, exactly one month after his initial arraignment, Zangara was strapped into the electric chair. His last words were "Pusha da button. Go ahead, pusha da button."
The 33 days from the shooting in Bayfront Park to Zangara's electrocution is considered to be the swiftest legal execution in 20th century American history.
Pusha da button!
We just can’t do bigger dogs. The ones we have just about knock us down.
Perhaps the last shot fired by an American, but a US airman was killed on 8/18/45 by a Japanese fighter pilot who cut loose on an American photo-recon mission over the home islands.
https://youtu.be/lD7b7repoRM?t=1m3s
George Washington takes the Oath of Office Inauguration from the movie John Adams.
Awesome!
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