We Americans love our “firsts”. When Obama was elected, it was said and is still being said and will continue to be said, he is “the first African-American” to hold the highest office in the land!! Toot! Toot!!!
What do you expect from US? We're still a baby country experiencing our “first steps” in many ways. When a baby takes his or her first steps doesn't everybody applaud the monumental achievement and encourage the little one to keep on going forward?? So let US blow our horn!
George Washington was, of course, our 1st POTUS.
Abraham Lincoln was our 1st Republican POTUS.
- Sadly he was also our 1st POTUS to be assassinated.
Andrew Johnson was the 1st POTUS to be impeached, but he was not removed from office (narrowly escaped).
Ulysses S. Grant was the 1st American since George Washington to hold the rank of full general.
- He was also the 1st to publish his “Personal Memoirs”.
Theodore Roosevelt was the 1st to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the 1st (and only) POTUS to serve 3 terms.
John F. Kennedy was the 1st Roman Catholic ever elected as President.
Lyndon Johnson was the 1st to nominate an African-American (Thurgood Marshall) for the Supreme Court.
Richard Nixon was the 1st of our country's leaders to be impeached who had to go home!
Ronald Reagan was the 1st POTUS to appoint a woman (Sandra Day O'Connor) to the Supreme Court.
- By God's grace, he was also the first to survive an assassination attempt by John W. Hinckley, Jr.
So there you have just a few remarkable “first moments” in the history of the United States of America.
* (Just an aside trivia note: Ronald Reagan and Bob Marley share the same birth date, February 6th. Marley died in 1981, the same year as the failed attempt on Reagan's life.)
Image credit: Public domain.
* * More Interesting Trivia: * *
- In 1872, Victoria Woodhull was the first woman to run for President of the United States.
- 100 years late in 1972, Shirley Chisolm was the first black woman to run for President.
***
Original Post, Feb 22, 2014 at
TreasurePen
