AWESOME FACTS ABOUT EVERYTHING LXII

1. The "nuclear football" is a briefcase containing the codes used by the President of the United States to authorize a nuclear attack while away from fixed command centers, such as the White House Situation Room. It is carried by an aide-de-camp and follows the President wherever he goes when away form the White House. 

2. Jimmy Carter was the first President to be born in a hospital.

3. Calvin Coolidge translated Dante's Inferno as a wedding gift to his bride.

4. John and Abigail Adams exchanged over 1,100 letters during their courtship and marriage.

5. Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair.

6. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died with hours of each other, on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

7. James Monroe, the last surviving Founding Father, died on July 4, 1831. 

8. Andrew Jackson was involved in an estimated 100 duels, usually because someone said something negative about his wife. 

9. Martin Van Buren was the first President born in the United States - in Kinderhook, New York. His nickname - "Old Kinderhook" - was shortened to OK, and is thought by some to be the origin of the expression used to this day.

10. John Tyler was born in 1790. He had 15 children by two wives, some born later in life. At 63, his son Lyon was born (1853). Lyon ended up marrying a much younger woman and had children into his 70's. That included a son, Harrison, who was born in in 1928 who [as of Nov. 12, 2021] is still alive today - age 93. Another of John Tyler's grandsons, Lyon Tyler, Jr., died last year at age 95.

11. Warren G. Harding was the first President to visit Alaska.

12. FDR's last inaugural address was about five minutes long.