How Well Do You Know Your Presidents?

February 11, 1997

Everyone knows that George Washington was the first president of the United States, but how many other presidential firsts do you know? As a tuneup to Presidents' Day (Feb. 17), try matching these other presidential "firsts" to the presidents who accomplished them.

Who was the first American president to ...

1. Not be born a British subject?

2. Open a baseball season by throwing out the first ball?

3. Live in the White House?

4. Appear on television?

5. Receive a patent?

6. Put in a telephone in the White House?

7. Grow tomatoes?

8. Star in a Hollywood movie?

9. Be more than 6 feet tall?

10. Have a father who had also been president?

11. Play tenor sax in a jazz band?

12. Win the Nobel Peace Prize?

13. Travel by train?

14. Have electric lights installed in the White House?

15. Have once been an indentured servant?

Choose from these names:

A. William Taft (1909-13)

B. Thomas Jefferson (1801-09)

C. John Quincy Adams (1825-29)

D. Theodore Roosevelt (1901-09)

E. Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881)

F. George Washington (1789-97)

G. Benjamin Harrison (1889-93)

H. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1933-45)

I. Martin Van Buren (1837-41)

J. Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865)

K. Ronald Reagan (1981-89)

L. Millard Fillmore (1850-53)

M. Bill Clinton (1993-)

N. John Adams (1797-1801)

O. Andrew Jackson (1829-37)

Answers:

1. I; 2. A; 3. N; 4. H; 5. J.; 6. E; 7. B; 8. K; 9. F; 10. C; 11. M; 12. D; 13. O; 14. G; 15. L.