Bizarre History (2 page)

Grover Cleveland, the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms, was stubborn, strong-willed, and large—which earned him his nickname, Uncle Jumbo. He was also known as the Beast of Buffalo because of rumors that he beat his wife and mother-in-law (which he didn’t).

Henry IV was known as one of France’s greatest kings … and lovers. With more than fifty mistresses and several children, he was known as the Gay Old Spark.

Bloody Mary, Queen of England from 1553 until her death in 1558, received her nickname honestly. She had a propensity for burning religious dissenters at the stake.

Slick Willie (or Teflon Bill), also known as Bill Clinton, president of the United States from 1992–2000, got his nickname for his ability to dodge the many scandals that rocked his administration.

Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson got his nickname for being tough as old hickory. Well, just how tough was he? By the time he became president of the United States in 1829, he had been in at least seven duels and had the bullets rattling around in his chest to prove it. As a teenager, he and his brother were captured by the British during the Revolutionary War. During his captivity, he received sword wounds on his hand and head for refusing to shine a soldier’s boots. As president, he even survived an assassination attempt. On January 30, 1835, Richard Lawrence, an unemployed and deranged house painter, approached Jackson as he left the Capitol and fired at him. His gun misfired. He then pulled out a second pistol, which also misfired. By this point, Jackson was charging Lawrence. The sixty-seven-year-old president beat the would-be assassin with his cane and had to be restrained by aides.

As badass as all that was, his duel with Charles Dickinson in 1806 was even badder. He let Dickinson shoot first because he knew Dickinson was a better shot anyway. Jackson got hit in the chest, and then took careful aim and killed Dickinson.

SIDE NOTE:
At Jackson’s funeral in 1845, his parrot had to be removed from the church because it wouldn’t stop cursing.

Charles D. B. King was president of the West African nation of Liberia from 1920–1930. He was challenged in 1927 during one of his reelection bids by Thomas J. R. Faulkner. King beat him by six hundred thousand votes, which is curious since there were only fifteen thousand registered voters at the time. King made the
Guinness World Records
for most fraudulent election in history.

One might think dirty campaigning a fairly modern invention; however, one of the dirtiest campaigns ever in American politics was the second contested presidential election ever. Thomas Jefferson was opposing John Adams in 1800, and although these two had been friends, by the end of the campaign they were bitter enemies. Adams’s Federalists charged that Jefferson cheated his creditors, robbed a widow of her pension, and acted a coward during the American Revolution. Rumors abounded that Jefferson would burn all the Bibles and tear down all the churches in America if he became president. He would also make marriage illegal and force all women to become prostitutes. One newspaper even wrote that if Jefferson became president, “murder, robbery, rape, adultery, and incest will all be openly taught and practiced. The air will be filled with the cries of the distressed, the soil will be soaked with blood, and the nation black with crimes.” This was not exactly a ringing endorsement.

He are some other whoppers: He made sexual advances on a friend’s wife, had several affairs with married women while in France, and fathered several children with one of his slaves. (His enemies didn’t know that last one was true …) Perhaps worst of all, his opponents planted a story that he was dead. The report ended up in the
Baltimore American
on June 30: “It was last evening reported that the Man in whom is centered the feelings and happiness of the American people, Thomas Jefferson, is no more.” It took at least a week for Jefferson to get the word out that he was, in fact, quite alive.

Meanwhile, Adams’s camp was fighting off rumors that he was going to marry one of his sons off to one of King George III’s daughters and then turn the United States into a dynasty, with Adams as King John I. Adams was also called “old, querulous, bald, blind, crippled, toothless”—some of which were true! According to “sources,” Adams sent his running mate, General Thomas Pinckney, to Europe to procure four European women for their pleasure. Adams was able to dispel this rumor with a clever retort: “I do declare, if this be true, Pinckney has kept them all for himself, and cheated me out of my two!”

Varius Avitus Bassianus, also known as Heliogabalus, was Roman Emperor from 218–222 CE. He was only around fifteen when he became emperor, which can perhaps explain some of his indiscretions.

He supposedly entered Rome as emperor upon a chariot drawn by fifty naked slaves.

He replaced the god Jupiter with a god of his own choosing and then married a local vestal virgin, which was a flagrant breach of Roman law.

He liked to get party guests so drunk that they’d pass out. He’d then move them to a room filled with toothless leopards, lions, and bears so his friends would have a surprise waiting for them when they awoke.

He is credited with inventing an early type of whoopee cushion. He would place inflated animal bladders under his guests’ chair cushions at parties.