Presidential Trivia Answers (Oct. 4 & 5)

Thanks for playing!

(1) QUESTION: Which President was in the audience when the first hot air balloon took off from American soil?
ANSWER: George Washington. He’d been interested in the balloons for years. “I have only news paper Accts of the Air Balloons,” he wrote a friend in 1784, “to which I do not know what credence to give; as the tales related of them are marvelous, & lead us to expect that our friends at Paris, in a little time, will come flying thro’ the air, instead of ploughing the Ocean to get to America.” If you missed this week’s “this day in history” story about the Medal of Honor recipient who was known as the “balloon buster,” that story is here: https://taraross.substack.com/p/tdih-frank-luke-moh

(2) QUESTION: Following the Constitutional Convention, the Constitution was sent to the states for ratification. Which future Presidents were delegates to their state ratification conventions?
ANSWER: James Madison (VA) and James Monroe (VA). Interestingly, Monroe was opposed to adoption of the Constitution. He thought the document gave too much power to the federal government.

(3) QUESTION: Which President reportedly remarked: “No sir; I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way; but I am not fit to be President.”
ANSWER: Andrew Jackson. At least reportedly, he made the remark when he first heard that a newspaper was throwing his name around as a potential candidate for President.