(1) QUESTION: It’s said that one President enjoyed eating cottage cheese with ketchup. Which President?
ANSWER: Richard Nixon, but it’s probably not true. He was a health nut who ate cottage cheese, but usually with fruit. “If the President ever doused his cottage cheese with catsup,” White House chef Henry Haller writes, “I never saw him, and doubt that he did. Yet the rumored ‘recipe’ became rather popular with the dieting American public. In fact, a cottage-cheese-and-catsup ‘diet plate’ actually appeared on some ‘chic’ restaurant menus!”
(2) QUESTION: Which President married his wife, placing a $2.50 ring from Sears on her finger?
ANSWER: Lyndon B. Johnson. His biographer Mark Updegrove explained while speaking on a panel at the JFK Library several years ago: “When LBJ got married, it was after a six-week whirlwind courtship in which he was plying the Johnson treatment at every turn. This was a very reluctant bride, and he sort of beat her into submission—or romanced her into submission. They get married and he has to hurriedly buy a ring, and he does so from Sears and Roebuck. It's a $2.50 ring, which Luci Johnson still wears to this day. Well, after he leaves the White House several years later, he’s on vacation in Acapulco, I believe, and he’s sort of berating her, ‘Why did it take you so long to trade in that ring and buy a new ring? I told you shortly after we got married go buy a beautiful ring. Why did it take you three years to do that?’ And she said, ‘Why, darling, I was just waiting to see if the marriage would last.’”
(3) QUESTION: Which President was the first to propose a national observatory? The United States Naval Observatory was ultimately built.
ANSWER: John Quincy Adams. He proposed the idea in his annual message on December 6, 1825. “Connected with the establishment of an university,” Adams said, “or separate from it, might be undertaken the erection of an astronomical observatory, with provision for the support of an astronomer, to be in constant attendance of observation upon the phenomena of the heavens, and for the periodical publication of his observances.”
That guidlines JQA gave for the observatory are slightly odd... The importance of the observatories to navigation were very firmly established by the time JQA came along. They were also subject to some security in terms of trying to limit the sale of high-tech observation equipment. Guiseppe Piazzi sought to acquire the "circle" (a telescope mounted with vernier scaled altitude/azimuth circles) for his new observatory at Palermo, he had a devils time getting approval for it from Great Britain, who didn't want to sell such high tech stuff out of the country. He succeeded - and ultimately discovered Ceres with it -- with the help of Gauss. JQA was ambassador to UK during the period Piazzi was seeking to acquire his circle. Whether that had come up in discussioins, and whether accurate measurement to aid navigation and give a competitive lead were major conversation items, it would surprise me that, 20 yrs later, he didn't at least realize how important the Naval Observatory would become to our naval competitiveness.
Tara, where do you get these snippets of history that few (like me) know anything about. Sure I can search and find the answers but that isn't fair to the rules.
Thanks for the entertainment, knowledge and enjoyment Tara. You are amazing.