A Little Bit of History

Last night Ben and I were watching "Amistad". I wasn't really interested in it at first but eventually I was drawn in and became quite intrigued.

The story was quite interesting but it got me asking some questions about the U.S. President's of the past.

I knew that Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president and that George Washington was our 1st. I also knew the names of several other President's (John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, etc.) but there were actually quite a few I don't ever remember hearing - Martin Van Buren was the one I'd never heard of that started my little inquisition. Turns out President Martin Van Buren was a key person in the story of Amistad and as such made me wonder what other presidents I'd never heard of and what they did during their presidency.

After some googling and reading some Wikipedia articles I think I am at least slightly more aware of the U.S. Presidents. The most interesting thing I found was the list of assassinations and attempted assassinations.

Did you know that President George W. Bush had a grenade thrown at him in May of 2005, when he was in Georgia. The grenade was live and had its pin pulled, but did not explode because a red tartan handkerchief wrapped tightly around the grenade kept the firing pin from deploying quickly enough.

It seems like a lot of the attempted assassinations should have been actual assassinations and through one miracle or another were avoided. It appears as though there was some sort of attempt on almost every single one of our President's lives. It's quite amazing only four presidents were actually killed by assassins. I know four is still a lot, more than it should be, but it's obvious to me that someone is looking out for the leaders of our country.

After reading through these articles, it's actually made me quite interested in the history of the U.S. President's. I think I better start reading because there is a lot to get caught up on.