Fun & Interesting Facts about American History

Learning American history fun facts makes learning about American history fun! There are so many interesting facts and trivia about the founding of America, and our history is filled with fascinating people - from John Adams to George Washington.

...That George Washington gave the shortest inaugural address in history, all because of his painful dentures? He only had one real tooth left at the time of his second inaugural, and his speech consisted of only 135 words long and took only 90 seconds to deliver.

George Washington never cut down a cherry tree or threw a silver dollar across the Potomac River. But he was shot at several times yet was never harmed - even though he once "had four bullets through my coat, and two horses shot under me yet escaped unhurt", according to a letter he wrote to his brother after the battle at Monongahela river.

...that when Ben Franklin was only 16 years old, he started writing letters to "The New England Courant" (the first newspaper in Boston, and his brother's newspaper) under the name of a fictional character he called "Silence Dogood"?

He knew that his brother would never let him publish anything under his own name, so Benjamin Franklin wrote letters to the paper using the name Mrs. Dogood. "Mrs. Dogood" wrote very opinionated letters! She wrote about the treatment of women, and she ridiculed the goings on of the world around her. Mrs. Dogood became a popular guest contributor and published around 14 letters before Franklin finally confessed to his brother that he was the writer behind "her" letters.

...That Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were the two Founding Fathers who died on the same day. Onetime close friends and longtime political foes, they had only recently been corresponding with each other again.  They spent years with no contact, due to the heated Presidential race between them and their political differences. They both died on July 4th, 1826, exactly 50 years after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. 

James Monroe died five years later on July 4, 1831.

...that like father, like son, Alexander Hamilton was killed in a pistol duel with Aaron Burr in July of 1804, at Weehawken, NJ. Hamilton's son, Philip, died in a duel at the same location three years earlier.

In 1789 President George Washington appointed Alexander Hamilton the first "Secretary of the Treasury".

...that Thomas Jefferson was known to have greeted White House guests in his robe and slippers? He also initiated the custom of the President shaking hands when greeting guests, ending the custom of bowing that George Washington had used (Washington disliked physical contact). Things like this and his more casual White House dinners contributed to his being known as a "Man of the People" .

While in the White House, President Thomas Jefferson kept a pet mockingbird named Dick, who was often allowed to fly around Jefferson's office.

...that the first Independence Day celebration occurred on July 8, 1776 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania?  The reason that we now celebrate Independence Day on the fourth of July is because that is the day that the final draft of the Declaration of Independence was actually adopted by the Continental Congress.

...that the Liberty Bell cracked the first time it rang? Or that the final crack that made the Liberty bell unringable was on George Washington's birthday in 1846?

...that Martin Van Buren was the 1st U.S. president to be born in the United States? The first seven presidents were born in what is now known as the United States of America, but they were born as British subjects. America's eighth president, Martin Van Buren, was born in 1782.