Middle Names of US Presidents Trivia Quiz

Answer: Knox

James Knox Polk, was born in 1795 in the suburban town of Pineville on the southern border of North Carolina. A former US Representative and Governor of Tennessee, he became the 11th President in 1845 and served just a single term. He was only the third President (after John Quincy Adams and William Henry Harrison) with a middle name.

Polk's Presidency is notable for the annexation and admission to statehood of Texas and the subsequent war with Mexico. Although he served only a single term, his four years in the White House had seriously ill effects on Polk's health and he died just three months after leaving office at the age of only 53. At just 103 days, his is the shortest retirement of all Presidents who left office alive. He is also the youngest retired President to die. Indeed, Polk was only the second President (after George Washington) to die whilst his successor was still in office, although four later Presidents (A. Johnson, Arthur, Coolidge and L. Johnson has since also done so).

Answer: Birchard

Rutherford Birchard Hayes was born in 1822 in the city of Delaware in central Ohio. A former US Representative and two-time Governor of Ohio, Hayes lost the popular vote to the Democratic candidate Samuel J. Tilden, but he won what is arguably the most contentious of all Presidential elections in the electoral college. He thus became the 19th President in 1877 although he served only a single term.

Perhaps the most significant event of the Hayes Presidency was the use of federal troops to end the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Hayes' White House was notable for being alcohol-free, leading to his wife's nickname, Lemonade Lucy. Hayes became the first sitting President to travel west of the Rocky Mountains when he undertook a 71-day train, stagecoach and steamship tour of the American West (including Vancouver in Canada) in the fall of 1880.

Following Hayes death at the age of 70 in 1893, the state of Ohio sponsored the building of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Center, which opened in 1916. This was the first presidential library in the U.S. and remains now only one of three built for 19th-century presidents.

Answer: Abram

James Abram Garfield was born in 1831 in the village of Moreland Hills in northeastern Ohio and served as a major-general in the Union Army during the American Civil War. After 17 years as a US Representatives from Ohio, Garfield became the 20th President in March 1881. Little more than six months later, he followed Lincoln when he became the second US President to be assassinated.

Despite serving as President for just 200 days, Garfield achieved quite a bit: re-asserting Presidential authority over congress, advancing civil rights for African-Americans and beginning civil service reform, for example. He was succeeded as President by his Vice-President, Chester Arthur.

Today, Garfield is remembered for little other than his assassination. There are, however, notable memorials to him, at his burial site in Cleveland OH and via statues in both Washington DC (near to the Capitol) and in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco CA.

Answer: Alan

Chester Alan Arthur was born in 1829 in the town of Fairfield in northwestern Vermont. A brigadier-general in the Union Army during the American Civil War he became James Garfield's Vice-President in March 1881 and took over as the 21st president following his boss's assassination in September that same year. The Presidency had a detrimental effect on Arthur's health and he made only a nominal effort to gain the Republican nomination for the 1884 election. He died less than two years after leaving office, at the age of just 57 in November 1886.

Arthur's presidency was noted primarily for the continued civil service reform begun by his predecessor and for modernizing the US Navy following its decline after the Civil War. The most significant memorial to Chester A Arthur, a 15-foot tall bronze statue, stands in Madison Square in New York City.

Answer: Gamaliel

Warren Gamaliel Harding was born in 1865 in the community of Blooming Grove in north-central Ohio. A former newspaper editor and Senator from Ohio, Harding became the 29th president in 1921. In June 1923, Harding set out on a tour of the American West, stopping in Yellowstone National Park, on the Oregon Trail, and becoming the first president to visit Alaska. After more than a month on the road and just under two-and-a-half years into his four-year term as president, Harding died in San Francisco at the age of 57. He was succeeded in office by his Vice-President, Calvin Coolidge.

At the time of his death, Harding was rated as one of America's most popular presidents. Subsequent exposure of scandals such as the 'Teapot Dome' bribery incident and various extra-marital affairs eroded his popularity and he is now viewed as one of the worst holders of the office. Other notable events during his time in office include the decision not to join the newly-formed League of Nations, and the beginning of the post-war economic decline that would eventually become the Great Depression.

Answer: David

Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was born in 1890 in the city of Denison, on the northern border of Texas some 75 miles north of Dallas. A former 5-star General of the Army during WWII and later Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, he became the 34th president in January 1953 and served two full terms. Significant events during Eisenhower's presidency include the beginning of the Interstate highway system in the US, the establishment of NASA, the end of the Korean War, the desegregation of schools, McCarthyism and the on-going Cold War.

Despite serving two full terms as president, history will probably still remember Eisenhower more for his role in WWII than for what came after. Indeed, his somewhat staid presidency is probably overshadowed somewhat by the glitz and glamour of the Kennedy administration that immediately followed him. Indeed, the bronze statue of Eisenhower that stands in the rotunda of the Capitol building in Washington DC portrays him not as President but as a soldier. A similar statue stands outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London.

Numerous structures, from schools and colleges to bridges, tunnels, mountains and golf clubs are named after Eisenhower. The airport serving the major city of Kansas was renamed in 2015 as the Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport.

Answer: Rudolph

He was born Leslie Lynch King Jr in 1913 in the city of Omaha in eastern Nebraska, but his biological father left shortly after his birth and when his mother later remarried he was renamed Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. After a successful career as a college football player at the University of Michigan, Ford served in the US Navy during WWII, attaining the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

Ford represented Michigan in the House of Representatives from 1949 until 1973, when he succeeded Spiro Agnew as Vice-President in the Nixon administration. When Nixon then resigned in August 1974, Ford became the 38th President, and the first never to have been elected as either President or Vice-President. In September 1975, Ford survived two attempted assassinations, both in California.

Ford died in December 2006 at the age of 93 years and 165 days, making him the longest-ivied of all presidents (he broke Reagan's previous record by 45 days). Having lived 29 years and 11 months after the end of his presidency, he fell just 20 months short of Herbert Hoover's record for the longest retirement (although Jimmy Carter has since eclipsed Hoover's record). Ford was also the last surviving member of the Warren Commission that investigated the assassination of President Kennedy.

Answer: Earl

James Earl Carter Jr was born in 1924 in the town of Plains in southwestern Georgia. A former Governor of Georgia, he became the 39th president in January 1977 and served just one term. Perhaps the most significant event of his presidency was the Iran hostage crisis. He was also responsible for the US boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics (and thus the Russian retaliation at the Los Angeles games four years later).

In retrospect, Carter is viewed as a weak President, and his election was at least in part a public reaction to the dishonesty of the Republican administration (Nixon and Ford) that preceded it. Carter's administration was not seen as a disaster in every quarter, though -- two years after leaving office he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize due to his efforts to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts.

Jimmy Carter celebrated his 90th birthday in October 2014. January 2016 marked the 35th anniversary of the beginning of his retirement, a record that will continue growing until his death as he has already eclipsed the previous record (of 31 years and 7 months set in the mid-20th century by Herbert Hoover).

Answer: Wilson

Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in 1911 in the village of Tampico in northwestern Illinois. A former actor, he was twice elected President of the Screen Actors' Guild. The Governor of California from 1967 until 1975, he became the 40th president in January 1981 and served two full terms. His approval rating of 68% when he left office matched those of F.D. Roosevelt (and later also Bill Clinton) as the best of any modern-day president.

The oldest president ever elected and the only divorcee to hold the office, Reagan's most important legacy is surely the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. (Although the Berlin Wall did not actually fall until a few months after he left office, the relationship between Reagan and Gorbachev is seen as responsible). His relationship with Britain's Prime Minister Thatcher also earned him an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, although as a foreign national he was not entitled to use the honorific "Sir" that otherwise accompanies such an award. As a further nod to the 'special relationship', a statue of Reagan was unveiled outside the American Embassy in London on July 4, 2011.

Answer: Herbert

George Herbert Walker Bush was born in 1924 in the Boston suburb of Milton, Massachusetts. Remarkably, he is the only one of the first 45 U.S. presidents with two middle names. A lieutenant in the US Navy during WWII, he was a Texas member of the House of Representatives and the Director of Central Intelligence before becoming the 43rd Vice-President throughout the two full terms of the Reagan administration. He subsequently became the 41st president in January 1989 and served one full term in office.

Highlights of the Bush presidency include the invasion of Panama, the official collapse of the Soviet Union and the 1st Gulf War in Iraq.

After leaving office Bush became the third former president (after Eisenhower and Reagan) to be knighted by the U.K. His eldest son, George W Bush, subsequently became the 43rd U.S. President in 2001. During the mid-1990s, The George Bush Presidential Library and Museum was built on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.