50 Fun Facts About Vice President

Who was the first vice president of the United States?

John Adams served as the first vice president, under George Washington from 1789 to 1797, and complained to his wife Abigail that it was 'the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived'.

Which vice president broke the Senate tie-breaking vote record in December 2023?

Kamala Harris cast her 32nd Senate tie-breaking vote on 5 December 2023, passing a 31-vote record from the 1820s and 1830s, and finished her term with 33.

Which vice president quipped 'What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar'?

Thomas R. Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's vice president from 1913 to 1921, is credited with the quip 'What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar.'

Before the Twelfth Amendment, how did someone become vice president?

That is how the 1796 election produced a president and vice president from opposing parties, and the runner-up spent four years frustrating the winner's policies.

The Twelfth Amendment, separating president and vice president ballots, was first used in which election?

Ratified in June 1804, the amendment was first used in that November's election, after the 1800 deadlock in which Jefferson tied with his own running mate and the House needed 36 ballots.

Which sitting vice president killed Alexander Hamilton in an 1804 duel?

Aaron Burr, then Jefferson's vice president, shot Hamilton at Weehawken, New Jersey, on 11 July; he was later tried for treason over a western scheme and acquitted in 1807.

Which vice president signed, as Massachusetts governor, the contorted 1812 district map lampooned as a salamander?

Elbridge Gerry signed the map in 1812 and a Boston Gazette cartoon dubbed it the 'Gerry-mander'; he became Madison's vice president in 1813 and died in office in 1814.

Which vice president served under the sixth and seventh presidents, then became the first to resign the office?

John C. Calhoun resigned on 28 December 1832, weeks after South Carolina's nullification ordinance, to take a Senate seat and fight the federal tariff from there.

Which vice president was chosen by the Senate in 1837 after no candidate won an electoral majority?

Richard M. Johnson fell one electoral vote short after Virginia's electors abstained, so the Senate chose him over Francis Granger, 33 to 16, on 8 February 1837, the only such contingent election.

Which vice president set the precedent that a veep becomes full president when the president dies?

John Tyler, sworn in after William Henry Harrison's death in April 1841, insisted he was fully president and returned letters addressed to the 'Acting President' unopened; Congress accepted his claim.

Which vice president became president in September 1901 after McKinley was shot by an anarchist?

Theodore Roosevelt, vice president for barely six months, took the oath in Buffalo on 14 September 1901 after McKinley died of wounds from Leon Czolgosz's shooting eight days earlier; he was 42.

Which vice president took the oath of office in Cuba in 1853 and died without serving?

William R. King, Franklin Pierce's running mate, took the oath near Matanzas, Cuba, on 24 March 1853, hoping the climate would ease his tuberculosis; he died in Alabama on 18 April 1853.

Which Maine politician was Abraham Lincoln's first-term vice president?

Hannibal Hamlin, a former Maine senator and governor, was vice president from 1861 to 1865, then dropped from the 1864 ticket in favour of Southern Unionist Andrew Johnson.

Which of Ulysses Grant's vice presidents was implicated in the Crédit Mobilier railroad bribery scandal?

Schuyler Colfax, Grant's first-term vice president (1869-1873), was accused of taking discounted Union Pacific shares from Congressman Oakes Ames while Speaker of the House.

Which vice president complained a fire marshal failed to recognise him during an evacuation?

Calvin Coolidge, vice president from 1921 to 1923, was stopped by a fire marshal during a Willard Hotel evacuation who took 'the vice president' to mean a hotel officer; Harding's death in August 1923 made him president.

Which vice president shared the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize and composed the melody of 'It's All in the Game'?

Charles Dawes shared the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize for the Dawes Plan on German reparations; his 1911 composition 'Melody in A Major' became 'It's All in the Game', a 1958 number one for Tommy Edwards.

Which Hoover vice president was the first Native American to hold the office?

Charles Curtis, an enrolled member of the Kaw Nation who spent part of his childhood on its reservation, served as Senate Majority Leader before becoming Hoover's vice president in 1929.

Which of FDR's vice presidents dismissed the job as not worth 'a pitcher of warm' spit (politely put)?

John Nance Garner, Speaker of the House before becoming FDR's vice president in 1933, broke with Roosevelt over the 1937 court-packing plan and challenged him for the 1940 nomination.

Which FDR vice president was denied renomination in 1944, opening the door for Truman?

Henry Wallace, vice president from 1941 to 1945, was pushed off the ticket at the 1944 Democratic convention by party bosses who distrusted him, and Truman took the slot; Wallace became Commerce Secretary.

How many days was Harry Truman vice president before Franklin Roosevelt's death made him president?

Truman served 82 days, from 20 January to 12 April 1945, was never briefed on the Manhattan Project, and said he felt as if 'the moon, the stars and all the planets' had fallen on him.

Which Truman vice president, inaugurated at age 71, got the nickname 'Veep' from his grandson?

Alben Barkley, Truman's vice president, was 71 at his inauguration; his grandson coined 'Veep', and his courtship of widow Jane Hadley, 38, while in office made national news.

Which vice president took temporary charge after Eisenhower's 1955 heart attack?

Richard Nixon chaired cabinet and National Security Council meetings during Eisenhower's recovery in 1955, and again after the 1956 ileitis surgery and 1957 stroke; the episodes fed the push for a disability amendment.

Who was the first vice president given an office in the White House complex?

Lyndon Johnson was given a suite in the Executive Office Building in 1961; earlier vice presidents worked from the Capitol, and the room later became the Vice President's Ceremonial Office.

Which vice president, at a funeral in Norway in January 1969, missed having to announce his own 1968 defeat?

He was attending the funeral of Trygve Lie, the first elected UN Secretary-General, so president pro tempore Richard Russell presided instead.

Which vice president resigned in October 1973 after pleading no contest to a tax evasion charge?

Spiro Agnew resigned on 10 October 1973, the same day he pleaded no contest to one count of tax evasion in a Baltimore federal court; he was the second vice president to resign.

Which amendment, ratified in 1967, lets a president fill a vice presidential vacancy by nomination?

The Twenty-fifth Amendment, ratified in February 1967, lets the president nominate a new vice president subject to confirmation by both houses; before it the office sat empty, cumulatively about 37 years.

Who is the only person to serve as president without ever being elected president or vice president?

Gerald Ford was confirmed as vice president in December 1973 to fill a vacancy, and became president eight months later, on 9 August 1974, after the Watergate resignation.

Which former four-term New York governor was appointed vice president in 1974?

Nelson Rockefeller, New York's governor from 1959 to 1973, was nominated in August 1974 and confirmed by Congress on 19 December 1974, the second vice president installed under the 1967 vacancy clause.

Which 1893 Washington house has been the vice president's official residence since the 1970s?

Number One Observatory Circle, built in 1893 for the Naval Observatory's superintendent, was taken over by the Chief of Naval Operations in 1923 and designated the vice president's residence by Congress in 1974.

Which vice president first lived full-time in the official residence, moving in during January 1977?

Walter Mondale moved into the official residence in January 1977; his predecessor kept his own Foxhall Road home in Washington and used the house only for entertaining.

Which president was the first to give his vice president an office in the West Wing?

Jimmy Carter gave his vice president a West Wing office in 1977, regarding the post as historically 'a wasted asset' and wanting his running mate inside the decision-making process.

Which was the only state carried by Geraldine Ferraro's 1984 Democratic ticket?

Minnesota, the presidential nominee's home state, gave the ticket its only 10 electoral votes, plus 3 from the District of Columbia; Reagan carried the other 49 states.

Which sitting vice president was elected president in 1988, the first to do so since 1836?

George H. W. Bush won in 1988, the first sitting vice president elected president since Martin Van Buren in 1836; only two others, in 1796 and 1800, had managed it.

Which vice president corrected a schoolboy's 'potato' to 'potatoe' at a 1992 spelling bee?

Dan Quayle, reading from a flash card that already carried the wrong spelling, added the 'e' in Trenton on 15 June 1992; 12-year-old William Figueroa had spelled it correctly.

Which former vice president shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his climate change work?

Al Gore shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; his documentary An Inconvenient Truth had won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature that February.

Which vice president accidentally shot lawyer Harry Whittington during a 2006 quail hunt in Texas?

Dick Cheney hit Harry Whittington, 78, with birdshot on the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas on 11 February 2006; Whittington, who suffered a minor heart attack afterward, publicly apologised for the trouble.

To which state did the 2000 Republican VP nominee move his vote from Texas to satisfy the Twelfth Amendment?

He re-registered in Wyoming, the state he had represented in the House for a decade; the Twelfth Amendment's inhabitant clause stops Texas electors voting for two Texans, and the presidential nominee was a Texan.

Which vice president told Obama he wanted to always be 'the last person in the room'?

Joe Biden made being 'the last person in the room' on big decisions his condition for joining the 2008 ticket; Obama later gave him the Iraq portfolio with the words 'Joe, you do Iraq'.

Which state did Joe Biden represent in the Senate for 36 years before becoming vice president?

Delaware elected him to the Senate in 1972, at 29, and re-elected him six times; he was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, but the family moved to Claymont, Delaware, when he was ten.

Which state did Mike Pence govern before becoming Donald Trump's vice president?

Indiana elected Pence governor in 2012 after he had spent twelve years representing the state in the US House; he left the governorship to join the 2016 ticket.

In March 2021, President Biden put his vice president in charge of which issue?

She was tasked on 24 March 2021 with addressing migration at the US-Mexico border by tackling its root causes in Central America; Trump had given Mike Pence the pandemic response the year before.

JD Vance rose to national fame with which 2016 memoir before becoming the 50th vice president?

Hillbilly Elegy, Vance's 2016 memoir of his Appalachian-rooted Ohio upbringing, became a bestseller and a 2020 Ron Howard film; he served in the Marine Corps from 2003 to 2007.

What call sign does a plane use while it is carrying the vice president (but not the president)?

Air Force Two is the call sign of any US Air Force aircraft carrying the vice president; the usual plane is a Boeing C-32, a modified 757, but the president's VC-25 takes the name when the veep is aboard.

Which sitting vice president died in October 1912, days before the election, while on Taft's ticket?

James S. Sherman died of kidney disease on 30 October 1912, six days before the election; Taft's electoral votes for vice president went to Nicholas Murray Butler instead.

Who twice declined the vice presidency, under Harrison and then Taylor, both of whom died in office?

Daniel Webster turned down both offers, saying he did not 'propose to be buried until I am really dead', and served instead as Secretary of State from 1841 to 1843 and 1850 to 1852.

Which McKinley vice president was so influential he was nicknamed 'Assistant President'?

Garret Hobart, a New Jersey lawyer and businessman, was McKinley's close confidant and adviser, earning the 'Assistant President' nickname; he died in office in November 1899.

Since what year has the vice president legally been a member of the National Security Council?

The 1949 amendments to the National Security Act made the vice president a statutory member of the council created two years earlier; Truman, kept in the dark as vice president, wanted his successors informed.

Between 1812 and 1965, on how many occasions was the vice presidency left vacant?

Sixteen times: seven deaths, one resignation and eight successions to the presidency, with the longest gaps, after the 1841 and 1865 successions, each running nearly four years.

Which vice president's grandson and namesake was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1952 and 1956?

Adlai E. Stevenson, Grover Cleveland's second-term vice president from 1893 to 1897, was the grandfather of Adlai Stevenson II, the Illinois governor who lost to Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956.

Under an 1886 Senate resolution, every former vice president is entitled to what in the Capitol?

A marble portrait bust of each vice president is displayed in the Senate wing of the Capitol, commemorating service as president of the Senate; the earliest were carved for the Senate Chamber's gallery niches.