The good, the bad and ...

As the world watches the election of a US president on Tuesday, it’s worth reminding ourselves that that country has (practically) seen them all before. From the horrible to the downright saintly …

For the first time in modern history, both major party candidates for the White House are teetotallers. President Donald Trump and Joe Biden both say they’ve never had a drink.

In Texas, more people voted early than the state’s entire 2016 turnout. By Friday more than 9-million people had cast their ballots and polls showed a near dead-heat in the state, with a slight edge for Trump. Jimmy Carter in 1976 was the last time the state opted for a Democrat.

Connecticut’s Democratic senator Chris Murphy poked fun at Trump’s late-night Twitter antics this week, saying: “I’m dreaming of a president who isn’t awake at 3am in the morning.”

The Economist on Friday announced it was backing Biden. This is the ninth time the Economist has endorsed a US presidential candidate, a practice that began in 1980 with a nod to Ronald Reagan.

Americans aren’t the only ones obsessed with Tuesday’s vote. British gamblers are betting a record amount on the outcome. By Wednesday £219m (R4.6bn) had been wagered on the Betfair Exchange.

George Washington, the first US president, was elected in 1789. At the time, only white men who owned property could vote. His election was uncontested, but he remained reluctant to run until the last minute, in part because he believed seeking the office would be dishonourable.

The first Baby Boomer president, Bill Clinton, was the first Democrat since Franklin D Roosevelt to win a second term.

John F Kennedy was assassinated after barely a thousand days in office. He was the only president to appoint his brother to the cabinet.

Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He also wrote his own epitaph, in which he did not mention that he served as president.

Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) was just 42 when he became the youngest president in the nation’s history after the assassination of William McKinley. His motto was “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” He craved attention. It was said he wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

Franklin D Roosevelt (1933-1945) assumed the presidency during the worst of the Great Depression, but assured the American people: “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” He also led the US through the perilous years of World War 2. Roosevelt remains the only president to serve more than two terms.

When 91 historians were asked to rank all US presidents up to and including Barack Obama, they chose Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) as the country’s best president to date, particularly for his leadership in a crisis.

Lincoln led the country through the Civil War between the North and the South, and in 1863 signed the Emancipation Proclamation freeing slaves. On April 14 1865 Lincoln died after being shot in the head at a theatre in Washington. The assassin, actor John Wilkes Booth, shouted, “Sic semper tyrannis! [Ever thus to tyrants!] The South is avenged.”

Booth fled on horseback. Lincoln died the next morning.

Reagan survived an assassin’s bullet in 1981 and was dogged by accusations of mental impairment. His son Ron said he saw early signs of Alzheimer’s during his father’s presidency, but the elder Reagan was not diagnosed with the disease until 1994, five years after leaving office.

There are 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms and six levels in the White House. There are also 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, eight staircases, and three elevators. The president and deputy president may not take the lift at the same time.

Kennedy was the first president to hold a press conference on television.

McKinley was the first president to campaign by

telephone.

Franklin Pierce gave his 3,319-word inaugural address from memory.

Before Lincoln’s election as 16th president of the US, he failed as a businessman, storekeeper and farmer.

Harry S Truman used to get up at 5 o’clock in the morning to practise the piano for two hours.

Millard Fillmore refused an honorary degree from

Oxford University because he felt he had “neither literary nor scientific attainment”.

William Taft, who weighed 150kg, got stuck in the White House bathtub the first time he used it. A larger one was ordered. He was the first president to own a car and the last one to own a presidential cow.

Calvin Coolidge refused to use the telephone while in office.

Grover Cleveland personally answered the White House phone.

Carter was the first president born in a hospital. He studied nuclear physics at Annapolis, Maryland.

George W Bush was a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard from 1968 until 1973.

Andrew Johnson was buried beneath a willow tree that he planted, his head on a copy of the constitution.

At his inauguration, Washington had only one tooth. At various times he wore dentures made of human teeth, animal teeth, ivory and lead. Never wood.

Ulysses S Grant was the first president to run against a woman. He was also the first president to view the Pacific Ocean, in 1852. Witness to some of the bloodiest battles in history, Grant could not stomach the sight of animal blood. Rare steak nauseated him.

When Britain’s Prince of Wales visited the White House in 1860, so many guests accompanied him that president James Buchanan had to sleep in the hall.

Before becoming a politician, Lyndon B Johnson taught at a school in Texas. Johnson rejected his official White House portrait, saying it was the ugliest thing he ever saw.

Truman popularised the saying, “If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.”

Washington owned 300 slaves when he died. He might have had a set of false teeth, but he made sure each of his six horses had their teeth brushed every day.

Theodore Roosevelt was the first American to win the Nobel peace prize, awarded in 1906 for his role as a peacemaker in the Russo-Japanese War.

Gerald Ford worked as a fashion model for Cosmopolitan and Look magazines in the 1940s.

Kennedy is the only president to have won a Pulitzer prize, for his book of biographies, Profiles in Courage.

Reagan was the first actor elected president. He was in 53 films before becoming president.

Truman was the first president to travel underwater in a submarine.

James Polk’s wife, Sarah, worked as the president’s secretary without taking a salary. She forbade dancing and card-playing in the White House.

In high school, Clinton played saxophone in a jazz trio who wore dark glasses on stage and called themselves Three Blind Mice.

John Tyler was the president with the most children — he had 15.

John Quincy Adams was the first president to be photographed. He regularly swam nude in the Potomac River. The US’s first professional female journalist, Anne Royall, knew of his 5am swims. After being refused interviews with Adams many times, she went to the river, gathered his clothes and sat on them until she had her interview. Before this, no woman had interviewed a president.

Theodore Roosevelt had a photographic memory. He could read a page in the time it took anyone else to read a sentence.

Carter was a speed reader, having been recorded reading 2,000 words per minute.

Dwight D Eisenhower was famous for his vegetable soup, steaks and cornmeal pancakes.

Upon the election of his successor, Lincoln, Buchanan sent him a note saying, “My dear sir, if you are as happy on entering the White House as I am on leaving, you are a happy man indeed.”

A dinner guest made a bet that she could get Coolidge, a man of few words, to say more than two of them. When she told the president of her wager, he replied, “You lose.”

While sheriff of Erie County, New York, Cleveland was also the public executioner and personally hanged two murderers.

Coolidge averaged nine hours of sleep a night and took afternoon naps of from two to four hours.

Franklin D Roosevelt was the first president whose mother was eligible to vote for him.

Richard Nixon was the first president to visit all 50 states and the first US president to visit China.