Tag Archives: FDR

Elliott Roosevelt Might Just Be the Most Interesting Roosevelt Not Named Teddy

“Wait, we found more Roosevelt kids?”

~The Writer of Teddy’s Tots

elliott and eleanor roosevelt

We’re not exactly shy here about our preferences when it comes to the Roosevelt presidents. We’re Team Teddy all the way. But we’re not haters on this front. We’ll readily admit that FDR did have his badass moments, and his wife Eleanor was no slouch on that front either. So while we’re not surprised that their offspring generally went ahead and did impressive things, we were pretty amazed to hear about Eleanor’s supposed “favorite son”, Elliott.

To give you a sense of the Elliott Roosevelt, um, flavor, we’ll just say that we’re about 90% certain that Elliott Roosevelt is only considered her favorite son because he made that claim after she died. Strap in, you guys, this is going to be a wild one.

Now let’s take a moment to talk about the middle son of FDR who, well, let’s just say lived a colorful life.

Elliott Roosevelt Might Just Be the Most Interesting Roosevelt Not Named Teddy

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The History of All Six Desks Ever Used in the Oval Office

“Fuck you I want my own goddamn desk.”

~Lyndon B. Johnson

white house desk

Years ago, in the infancy of our existence as a website, we wrote about The White House, because what is more American than having our President live a mansion where he can get his work done while having a cheeseburger sent to his room at 3AM as he drunkenly calls the President of Greece to tell him that Ouzo sucks?

But we didn’t really devote a lot of time to the actual Oval Office, where shit gets done.  And when we think of the one defining feature of the Oval Office (other than the shape, smartass), we think of the desk where the President sits and, we can say this with absolute certainty, farts at least a few times a day.

The President’s desk is ornate, and “presidential” and, somewhat shockingly, usually shared. In fact, in the whole history of the White House, there have only been six desks used in the Oval Office, many shared by Presidents with very different ideologies who somehow have managed to avoid carving dicks in the wood as a gift to their successors. We’re amazed they had the restraint.

We wouldn’t have. If we had to give our desk to the guy replacing us, it’d be dick central. You couldn’t find a spot on the thing that didn’t have dicks.

This article is not going to be about dicks carved into White House furniture. It is, however about…

The History of All Six Desks Ever Used in the Oval Office

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Every Air Force One in American History

“Get off my plane.”

~Indiana Jones

air force one

Outside of children who are big fans of those Planes movies, nowhere in American society is a single aircraft more iconic than Air Force One. When we fly our President around, we fly him in style, in a cutting-edge jet that can survive a direct blast from a nuclear bomb and is exclusively piloted by Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger. Okay, neither of those things are true, but Air Force One is so mythic that a decent handful of you absolutely took us for our word there.

Air Force One is an American icon, both over and underappreciated at the same time. So we decided to take a moment to sit you down (you are sitting, right?) and tell you about the history of our President’s super expensive charter jet. And since we’re feeling generous, we’ll just let you know about every Air Force One plane that has ever existed, partly because we like to be as thorough as we can when it comes to discussing presidential aircraft, but mainly because we want as many excuses to post scenes from the movie Air Force One on our site.

Every Air Force One in American History

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The American Life of Smedley D. Butler

“No.  Seriously.  I won’t lose.”

~Smedley Butler Playing a Game of Bullshit

smedley butler

We recently wrote an article that focused on the Medal of Honor—mainly, how the military’s highest honor, now given only to acts of almost impossible levels of valor, was sort of tossed around pretty willy-nilly in the years after the Civil War and before World War I.  In that discussion, we briefly mentioned a U.S. Marine named Smedley Butler, who straight up tried to turn down his first Medal of Honor (yes, he was later awarded a second one) because he didn’t think he deserved it.  We then came to realize that Smedley Butler, a badass with a kind of funny first name, isn’t really well known to the casual American—hell, we had only sort of stumbled across his career by accident.

And that’s some bullshit, because Smedley Butler died as the most highly decorated Marine in U.S. history, and served 34 years where he managed to collect medals, tropical diseases, and tactics for tricking the enemy like it was his job.  Well, it sort of was his job, he was a marine, but you get the picture.

So allow us to spend three thousand words or so gushing about Smedley Butler, The Fighting Quaker.

butler and his dogs

Ha ha, holy shit, this picture.

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The Most Unfortunately Named Politicians To Ever Run For President

“Heh heh.  Cox.  I mean, Mr. Governer.”

~Presidential Debate Proctor, 1920

presidential seal

As we’ve established time and time again, we’re not the best at math, but as far as we can tell, America has been a country for over 150 years, and has had more than 40 presidents.  43 presidents maybe?  45?  Either way, it’s less than 50.  And that means that anytime you have the chance to become the President of the Most Powerful Country In The World (pre-2008 division), your name will be in the history books, even if it’s just as a footnote.

The problem with being a part of history is that the first and, in some cases only, thing that we see in a history book is the name of the person.  Yes, we know that George Washington had fake teeth and liked to stand up on boats, but the first thing we register about him is his name.  George Washington.  A strong, authoritative name that screams “Presidential.”  Now not all of our Presidents were blessed with such a fitting name (looking at you, Herbert Hoover) but they at least managed to have names that didn’t actively get in the way of their political gains.

Which is why we’re here to focus on those whose name did get in the way.  The Presidential candidates that got their names on the ballots, failing to realize that maybe they should have changed their name before making the entire population read their name in the polling booth and suppress a giggle.  That’s why we present for you…

The Most Unfortunately Named Politicians To Ever Run For President

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The Latest And The Greatest From The Mountain and Big Face Animal Shirts

“If you DON’T own the ‘Three Wolves Howling At The Moon’ shirt, you’re an awful person and I hate you.”

~Gandhi

 wolf shirt

The staffers of AFFotD have a soft spot in their heart for The Mountain, the geniuses behind the Big Face Animal shirts who still haven’t taken us up on our offer to graciously accept any free products they’d be willing to send our way, but that’s neither here nor there.  The Mountain is staffed by dedicated workers who, we assume, are a lot like us here in the America Fun Fact of the Day offices.  We imagine that they, like us, spend their weekdays recovering from the temporary blindness that inevitably occurs after swigging moonshine from a poorly maintained sill, whispering into the void “what now?” as the void whispers back “you need a T-shirt of a Gorilla in a spacesuit giving you a thumbs up.”  The void is wise.

The Mountain has perfected the art of T-shirts that are stylish, comfortable, and work surprisingly well as a makeshift pot handler in a mobile meth lab, but that doesn’t mean they’re content to rest on their laurels watching stacks of dollar dollar bills flood their P.O. boxes.  No, they are constantly striving to make new and exciting shirts because goddamn it, someone out there wants to wear a giant house fly face on their chest, and if The Mountain isn’t going to oblige them, who the fuck will?

So every now and then we like to bring up The Mountain catalog and list some shirts you need to be buying at this very moment.  It’s partially a public service announcement, partially a play to get free shit from The Mountain, and somehow the free publicity we offer actually counts towards our community service hours for some reason.  America!

The Latest And The Greatest From The Mountain and Big Face Animal Shirts

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America’s Heroes Battling Monsters

“I need to buy all of these.  Every.  Single.  One.”

~You

Art is okay, we guess.  It’s one of the classiest ways to see boobs, and if you have a friend that’s deciding to not make money by painting shit for a living, you at least can go to their gallery openings for an evening of free wine and sub-par cheese spreads.  And there are plenty of Americans who have added very iconic and significant contributions to the artistic and pop culture world, like that one guy who designed the label for Campbell’s soup.

But if there are kinds of art that we don’t particularly care for (looking at you, 25 foot black canvas with a single silver dot on it), there’s one that we can never get enough of.  And that would be images of American presidents and historical figures doing badass things in impossible contexts.  We’ve shown some of these images on our site before, but now it’s time we give proper due, thanks to the gentle prodding from Bro Bible, to American digital artist Jason Heuser.  Because any man that can depict Ben Franklin with Wolverine claws fighting Zeus deserves our money.

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The Jack Thompson in Today’s Fun Fact is a Fictional Satirical Persona Due to Legal Reasons

“Jack Thompson is a douchetard”

~Absolutely Everyone

The America Fun Fact of the Day office takes pride in showing the best and brightest of America.  When our readers see these tales of past and present heroes, we like to think they strive to be better Americans, to grab life by the horns, go down swinging, and various other clichés.  Early bird gets the worm.  Whatever.

And while it’s easy to look at shining beacons of American hope, we often overlook the sinkholes in our society.  Unfortunately, for every Abraham Lincoln, there is a John Wileks Booth.  For every FDR, there’s a Snookie.  For every Jack Kerouac, there is a hungover America Fun Fact of the Day writer making a cheap Jersey Shore joke that will read as gibberish in five years.  To truly see our own greatness, we have to see how we, as a nation, deal with punk ass idiots.

Jack Thompson is one of those punk ass idiots.

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Chewing Gum, Surprisingly American, Reliably Delicious

“Chewing gum is a lot like heroin, since both are incredibly enjoyable.”

~William S. Burroughs


 Chewing gum is an enigmatic American invention.  While it combines ancient history, American ingenuity, and tooth decay, it is not considered to be as awesomely American as alligator wrestling or cage matches (or any combination of the two).  But, in reality, chewing gum is an underappreciated yet surprisingly American commodity.

First, ask yourself a question.  Who makes chewing gum?  Wrigley’s of course.  And where do the Chicago Cubs, America’s most American loveable losers play?  Wrigley Field.

Did you know:  Those two are named after the same fucking guy.

Once you pick up the pieces of your exploded cranium, the America Fun Fact of the Day presents to you…

Chewing Gum:  More American than your immigrant grandparents

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