How to Celebrate Presidents’ Birthdays, Part 2

Today, we continue with our look at how and when to celebrate the birthdays of presidents who aren’t Lincoln or Washington.

July 11 – John Quincy Adams: Spread some rumors about the wife of the guy at work you don’t like.
July 14 – Gerald Ford: Tackle a Heisman winner.
August 10 – Herbert Hoover: Talk to your kids about the Hawley-Smoot Tariff.
August 19 – Bill Clinton: Be cool, man, just be cool.
August 20 – Benjamin Harrison: Enjoy the creme from some Oreos (or other comparable sandwich cookies).
August 27 – Lyndon B. Johnson: Get yourself some new tailored pants.
September 15 – William Howard Taft: Bust something large.
Ocotber 1 – Jimmy Carter: Peanut party! (With plenty of salt.)
October 4 – Rutherford B. Hayes: Make a compromise if you have the opportunity to.
October 5 – Chester A. Arthur: Shots!
October 14 – Dwight D. Eisenhower: Go to the beach.
October 27 – Theodore Roosevelt: Be a man all over the place.
October 30 – John Adams: Dress up as a lawyer and defend some Englishmen against public opinion.
November 2 – (Two options) James K. Polk: Discuss your property lines with your neighbors. Warren G. Harding: Abstain from drinking for a while, but sneak some when no one’s looking.
November 19 – James A. Garfield: Do some curls, play some football.
November 23 – Franklin Pierce: Look great, but make terrible decisions.
November 24 – Zachary Taylor: Cherries and milk for everyone!
December 5 – Martin van Buren: Grow some distinctive facial hair and talk about Andrew Jackson.
December 28 – Woodrow Wilson: Settle an argument between some friends.
December 29 – Andrew Johnson: Rebuild part of your house.

Presidents whose Names Could Be Easily Transformed Slightly into Porn Names

-James K. Poke
-Millhard Fillmore
-Warren B. Harding
-Pervert Hoover

Presidents who were Born in Ohio and Secretly Hated Ohio

-Ulysses S. Grant
-Rutherford B. Hayes
-Benjamin Harrison (“Cleveland sucks.”)
-Warren G. Harding

Presidents who Learned It from Watching You

-Richard Nixon
-Warren G. Harding
-Andrew Johnson
-Martin Van Buren

Presidents who Never Existed

-William Henry Taft
-John Fitzy Adams
-Warren G. Hoover
-Dwight Delano Roosenhower
-Zachary Tyler
-John Taylor
-Chester Alan Alda

Happy America Day 2010: Presidents’ Favorite America Day Pastimes

Once again, in honor of America Day, also known as Independence Day or Separation Sunday, LP looks back at those great moments associated with the day. This year, we present the favorite July 4th holiday pastimes of our most-esteemed presidents.

-George Washington: created makeshift pinatas of various British officers and threw Brit-bashing parties
-Thomas Jefferson: bought some property
-Andrew Jackson: in alternating years, he would either duel or invite the entire state of Tennessee to the White House for a party, consistently during which several pillars from the presidential mansion would go missing only to be found in various places around Washington (1829: the Potomac, 1831: O’Malley’s Tavern, 1835: in front of Congress)
-William Henry Harrison: would normally breathe
-Abraham Lincoln: would light fireworks off from his top hat
-Ulysses S. Grant: annually stopped laying siege to Vicksburg (after annually laying siege to Vicksburg a few months before hand)
-James A. Garfield: played some tackle football on the White House lawn, then some baseball, then he’d strap on some blades and play high-contact roller hockey in the White House Roller Hockey Rink (which he had installed), and then finish the day with a best-of-seven street-rules basketball series and a lemonade
-Chester A. Arthur: took a shot and toasted himself
-Theodore Roosevelt: did things so amazingly manly and awesome that to reprint them would be an affront to the Roosevelt estate, and even a mention of such things warrants an apology (those being the circumstances, the letter is in the mail)
-William Howard Taft: shifted in his seat
-Warren G. Harding: went to Toronto one year (it was ok)
-Herbert Hoover: lit his cigar with $100 bills
-Dwight D. Eisenhower: liked to add or take away a star on the flag each year to see if anyone would notice
-Jimmy Carter: celebrated the Fourth the traditional Georgia way, with peanuts and an ATV
-Ronald Reagan: would draw his face on $10 bills
-Bill Clinton: cannot remember

Presidents’ Favorite Books

Dwight D. Eisenhower: Great Expectations

Rutherford B. Hayes: Moby Dick

James Buchanan: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Leadership

Warren G. Harding: Gravity’s Rainbow

Presidential Rankings Based on Google Search Results

Here’s an interesting bit of information: the following list is how the presidents are ranked based on the number of results returned on Google for the search term “president x” where x equals the president’s first and last name. There are definitely some surprises (11.5 million for John Tyler?) and some not-so-surprises (Lincoln, Washington, Kennedy in the top 10).

Also, these results are just for those presidents no longer living. Clinton’s 25-million+ would have skewed the rankings, and we would not want that. Why? There’s so much more we can do with this information. Check LP tomorrow and see.

(accessed April 12-13, 2010)

1. Abraham Lincoln … 22.8 million
2. George Washington … 22.6 million
3. Thomas Jefferson … 15.7 million
4. Andrew Jackson … 16 million
5. James Madison … 15.8 million
6. Franklin D. Roosevelt … 13.5 million*
7. Andrew Johnson … 13.2 million
8. John F. Kennedy … 13 million**
9. John Tyler … 11.5 million
10. Theodore Roosevelt … 6.72 million***
11. Woodrow Wilson … 5.57 million
12. Dwight D. Eisenhower … 5.4 million
13. Richard Nixon … 4.37 million
14. James Knox Polk … 4.17 million
15. James Monroe … 3.71 million
16. Ronald Reagan … 3.19 million
17. Lyndon Johnson … 2.8 million
18. James Buchanan … 2.37 million
19. John Adams … 2.23 million
20. Benjamin Harrison … 2.17 million
21. Gerald Ford … 2.08 million
22. Herbert Hoover … 2.08 million
23. John Quincy Adams … 2 million
24. Franklin Pierce … 1.96 million
25. Zachary Taylor … 1.52 million
26. William Henry Harrison … 1.46 million
27. James Garfield … 1.37 million
28. William McKinley … 1.3 million
29. Ulysses S. Grant … 1.27 million
30. Grover Cleveland … 1.21 million
31. Harry S Truman … 1.18 million
32. Martin van Buren … 952,000
33. William Howard Taft … 868,000
34. Calvin Coolidge … 864,000
35. Warren G. Harding … 804,000
36. Rutherford B. Hayes … 539,000
37. Chester A. Arthur … 301,000****
38. Millard Fillmore … 254,000

*as Franklin Delano Roosevelt
** as John Kennedy
***as Teddy Roosevelt
****as Chester Arthur

Presidents with the Strangest Nicknames

-Iron Butt (Richard Nixon)
-Uncle Cornpone (Lyndon Johnson)
-Wobbly Warren (Warren G. Harding)
-The Human Iceberg* (Benjamin Harrison)
-Uncle Jumbo (Grover Cleveland)
-Ten-Cent Jimmie (James Buchanan)
-His Rotundity (John Adams)
-Ol’ Woodbiter** (George Washington)

*NOTE: This might actually be kind of kickass.
**NOTE: This is the only fake one…the rest are true for once.

Presidents Who Gave their Two-Hour Inauguration Speech in the Cold Without a Jacket and Later Died

-William Henry Harrison
-Warren G. Harding*

*Note: Harding was replaced by a robot replica, which lasted until 1923, when it malfunctioned after being left outside on a rainy night.