Obama Descended from First Documented Slave
Barack Obama, the United States' first African-American president, is likely a descendent of the first documented enslaved African in colonial America.
According to a two-year Ancestry.com study of thousands of records from colonial Virginia, the president is the 11th great-grandson of John Punch, a black man who came to America in the 1600s as an indentured servant and was enslaved for life in 1640 after trying to escape his servitude.
It is believed that although Obama's father was a black, Kenyan native, his ties to slavery stem instead from his white mother, Stanley Ann Dunham. The enslaved Punch had mixed-race children with a free white woman who were born free because of their mother's freedom. They later went on to become "prominent" land owners in Virginia.
George Washington Grew Cannabis
George Washington grew hemp at his home, large quantities of it and he was not the only former president to do so. Thomas Jefferson and James Madison cultivated hemp as did most other 1700's farmers.
It's believed that some of them smoked its leafy counterpart, marijuana, as well.
According to the Huffington Post, on Aug. 7, 1765, Washington noted in his farm journal that he "began to separate the male from the female hemp... rather too late." In the 1790s, the crop was grown mainly for its industrial value as hemp. It was not until many years later that the recreational use of the herb became trendy. However, founders who smoked tobacco and consumed their own brewed beer probably did not underestimate the recreational properties of the crop.
Bush, Kerry, and Hefner All Distant Cousins
Extremely coincidentally, President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry are very distantly related. They are ninth cousins, twice removed. The two politically astute and well educated men may have different political ideologies, but their love for their country and politics sheds light on a cousinly bond.
But they have another mutually distant cousin who doesn't quite fit that mould.
Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is the ninth cousin of both men. Hef is twice removed from George W., and Hefner is a slightly closer relation to Kerry, being only once removed.
When asked about his relation to the two politicians, wild child Heffner said, "Well I feel closer to Senator Kerry."
"You know I'm an 11th generation direct descendent of William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower, a direct descendent of a Puritan," Hefner continued proudly, finding no irony in the fact. "I suppose that it is not a big surprise, but it is certainly unique to be a relation to both candidates."
"I would be delighted to invite both President Bush and Senator Kerry for a family reunion," the playboy added facetiously, laughing to himself.
Abraham Lincoln Was a Bar Owner
Abraham Lincoln, best known as the Great Emancipator, was less known for owning a bar. He co-owned the pub with a man named William Berry. The duo appropriately named their saloon 'Berry and Lincoln' which was located in Springfield, Ill.
Berry, Lincoln's partner, was a heavy drinker as opposed to the future president who once said that liquor makes him "flabby and undone." Because of these fundamental differences, the co-owners had difficulty running their business. The unlikely partnership of Berry and Lincoln did nothing but get "deeper and deeper in debt," according to Lincoln.
Lincoln's career as a bartender was fairly short-lived. In 1834, he ran for state legislator and won forcing him to give up the bartending business and in 1840 the entire enterprise was abandoned five years after the death of his partner.
Harry Truman Doesn't Have a Middle Name Despite the 'S'
The mysteriously floating S in Harry S Truman's name is not to be anchored down by a period. The former president explained that the "S" did not stand for any name but was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. In 1962, Truman initiated the "period" controversy when he demanded that newspapermen should omit the period after the S as it does not actua