Friday Smiles 305: The Museum of World Treasures, part 3

This is a scheduled post.  I am out of town and and have been since Wednesday,  I do not have access to the internet.   However, Scott has agreed to link me to Annie's blog today.  I hope to be back tomorrow, but I have no way to leave comments to anyone until I am home.  I'm joining Annie's Friday Smiles and this week we are once again visiting the inside of The Museum of World Treasures.  But first, let's start with a few funnies I found when cleaning my office last year.

I thought we would begin with a few church signs.

     1) Free Trip to heaven. Details Inside!
      2) Try our Sundays. They are better than Baskin-Robbins.
      3) Searching for a new look? Have your faith lifted here!
      4) An ad for a Church has a picture of two hands holding stone tablets on which the Ten Commandments are inscribed and a headline that reads, "For fast, fast, fast relief, take two tablets.
      5) When the restaurant next to the Church put out a big sign that said, "Open Sundays," the church reciprocated with its own message: "We are open on Sundays, too."
      6) Have trouble sleeping? We have sermons -- come hear one!
      7) Come in and pray today. Beat the Christmas rush!
      8) Sign broken. Message inside this Sunday.
      9) Come work for the Lord. The work is hard, the hours are long and the pay is low. But the retirement benefits are out of this world.
      10) If you're headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns.

 Now let's return to the museum.

This is where we left off last time.  

We are now entering the Hall of Presidents.

You can see how the map has changed from the last time I was here in 2016.  Both this and the current map were scanned.

Did you guess whose desk belonged to which President?  Yes, it's John F. Kennedy and his son hiding under the desk.

It's time to start at the beginning.  On the left is George Washington, the first President of the United States.  Although the Constitution has no provisions for political parties, Washington was afraid the country was too new to declare allegiance to one specific political party.  As a result, he is the only President not affiliated with a specific political party.

The second President was John Adams, who was also the first Vice-President.  He was affiliated with the Whig party.

Number 3 belongs to Thomas Jefferson. Note the timeline that runs throughout.  Jefferson was a Democratic Republican and is best known for being the author of the Declaration of Independence.  He sold his books to the Library of Congress after the British burned the capitol.  These nearly 7000 books are the foundation of the Library of Congress's collection.

Some of these Presidents have tabs that lift

to show little known facts.  It was then I realized if I took time to read everything available, I would be there until the next Smithsonian Museum Day!

President number 4 is James Madison.  He was also a Democratic Republican.

Note the wire securely attached to the wall.  Each has even more information on every President.

President number 5 is James Monroe.  He is famous for the Monroe Doctrine, which became the cornerstone of American foreign policy.  Simply stated, the doctrine declared that if any foreign power, especially European powers, tried to encroach on either NORTH or SOUTH America, colonization by these powers would be denied.  It was later extended to include European powers be forbidden to attempt to bully countries into paying back debts.  Monroe was also a Democratic Republican.
 
So many presidents, so little time!  In the middle is President number 6, John Quincy Adams, also a Democratic Republican unlike his father who was a Federalist.  It was during his time in office, the party split into the Democratic and the Republican parties, although I can't find information that their beliefs are the same today as they were when JQ Adams was President.

The next President, number 7, Andrew Jackson, was a democrat.  He served as a general in the War of 1812, where the states fought the Creek Indians and the British who teemed up against the U.S.  He was also a first generation American.

Martin Van Buren was the 8th U.S. President.  He was Jackson's Vice President during Jackson's second term in office.  He was also a Democrat.

President number 9 was William Henry Harrison.  He was the last President born prior to the Revolution and President who was in office the shortest time, 30 1/2 days.  He was a Whig and the first President to die in office.

It was originally believed he got sick the day of his inauguration because he didn't wear a coat or hat and rode to the event on his horse rather than in the carriage that was provided him.  After the inauguration, he further rode his horse through the wet and cold streets, then attended three balls that evening.  However, he didn't get sick till three weeks after his inauguration.  His doctor diagnosed his death as pneumonia, but after reexamination in 2014, the belief was he died of septic shock due to typhoid fever, since the White House water supply was downstream from public sewage.

Harrison's Vice President was John Tyler, who became President number 10.  He was originally a Whig, but once he took the oath of office, he became unaffiliated.   He only served the remainder of a single turn.

President number 10 was James K. Polk.  He was a Democrat and only served one term.

President number 12 was Zachary Taylor.  He was a Whig, but wasn't convinced he actually belonged in politics.    His main reason for being President was to preserve the Union.  However, he died after sixteen months in office.

Please don't ask how I got turned around.  Washington should have been with the first photos, not right before the Civil War.

President number 13 was Millard Fillmore.  He became President when Taylor died.  He was the last Whig to be elected President.  He was opposed to slavery and helped pass the 150 Compromise, which allowed some states to decide whether they wanted slavery or not.  Fillmore's downfall however, was when he enacted the controversial Fugitive Slave Law, which required law enforcement in free states to return fugitive slaves and penalize anyone harboring a slave.

President number 14 was Franklin Pierce.  He served one term and was a Democrat.  He alienated anti-slavery groups by signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act, although he was unable to control the conflict between the North and South, which set the stage for Southern secession from the Union that led to the Civil War.

The President in the corner is James Buchanan, the 15th President.  He was a Democrat who was opposed to slavery but believed it was protected by the U.S. Constitution.  He tried to maintain peace between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the government, but tensions only escalated and seven states seceded from the Union during his one term in office.  He is the only President who never married.

Note the two black (albeit in reality clear acrylic with black background) boxes on the wall above.

One holds Lincoln memorabilia,

while the other holds artifacts of Lincoln's assassination.

Goodness, this photo was way out of order of presidency, but in the order in which I took it.  It is part of George Washington's uniform.

Since you were unable to read the sign, I remembered I had taken a photo of one located in another display the last time I was here.

Here are the boxes I referenced and information on Lincoln, the first of four Presidents assassinated while in office.  He was the 16th President and a member of the Republican/National Union party.

Lincoln behind glass.  He was President during the Civil War between the North and South, pro-slavery vs. anti-slavery. 

When Lincoln was killed, Andrew Johnson became the 17th President.  He was a member of the National Union party in the beginning, but was really a Democrat.  He served the remainder of Lincoln's term.  Johnson was a southern Democrat who was hated by the South.  He was a racist and originally opposed the Emancipation Proclamation (freeing all slaves) signed by Lincoln, but later realized it was an important tool for ending the war.  He was the first President to be impeached.  He remained President because of one vote in his favor in the senate.

Ulysses S. Grant became the 18th President.  Grant, a Republican, served two terms.  He was an American hero. As a Civil War general he led the North to victory, keeping the nation united and abolishing slavery.   He worked to guarantee justice for all.  When he died, he was one of the most famous Americans of his time.

On the end is Rutherford B. Hayes, the 19th President and a Republican.  He was an abolitionist and defended freed slaves.  He was the first President to lose the popular vote, but won the electoral vote.

I'm not sure how I got so far off, because I was sure I had followed the black timelines.  However, after checking all my photos, I seem to be missing Presidents 20 through 25.

They were number 20, James A Garfield, a Republican who was assassinated six months after he took office.
21, Chester A Arthur, also a Republican, who assumed the Presidency upon Garfield's assassination. He served out Garfield's term.
22, Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who served four years as the 22nd President.
23, Benjamin Harrison, a Republican who served four years.
24, Grover Cleveland, the only President to serve two terms that were not consecutive.
25, William McKinley, a Republican who was assassinated six months into his second term of office.

When McKinley was assassinated, Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, also a Republican, was Vice President.  He became the 26th President and is shown on the end next to the adjoining wall.  He served two terms as President.  He was the youngest man to hold the office of President.

The 27th President was William Howard Taft, also a Republican.  He served for one term.  He was later the Chief Justice of the U.S.  He is the only person to have held both offices.

Woodrow Wilson was the 28th President and a Democrat who led the U.S. during WWI.  An advocate for democracy and world peace, Wilson is often ranked by historians as one of the nation’s greatest presidents.  Wilson tried to keep the United States neutral during World War I but ultimately called on Congress to declare war on Germany in 1917.  After the war, he helped negotiate a peace treaty that included a plan for the League of Nations.  Although the Senate rejected U.S. membership in the League, Wilson received the Nobel Prize for his peacemaking efforts.

The 29th U.S. president, Warren Harding, a Republican served in office for two years before dying of an apparent heart attack.  Harding’s presidency was overshadowed by criminal activities of some of his cabinet members and other government officials, although he was not involved in any wrongdoing.

Calvin Coolidge, a Republican and the 30th President, led the nation through most of the "Roaring Twenties," a decade of social and cultural change, materialism, and excess. He took office following the sudden death of Harding.  Coolidge, an honest conservative, worked hard to clean up the corruption that plagued Harding's presidency.

Herbert Hoover, shown at the corner, was the 31st President. He was a Republican who took office in 1929, the same year the U.S. economy plummeted into the Great Depression.  He tried several ways to improve the economy, like building his namesake dam, and raising taxes.  Nothing worked, though.

Most Americans know about Franklin D. Roosevelt.  He is the only President who served more than two terms.  He was elected four times, but died before his fourth term ended.  After his death, Congress passed a law that no President could serve more than two terms in office.  F.D.R., a democrat, had three Vice-Presidents, the last of whom was Harry Truman,

who upon Roosevelt's death became the 33rd President.  He had only been in office three months before he became President.

Truman made the decision to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, helped rebuild postwar Europe, worked to contain communism, and provided aid to South Korea when the Korean War started.  It's obvious, Truman was a democrat, because we have never had running mates (Pres/Vice Pres) serve in different parties.

Dwight D. Eisenhower had never served in office prior to becoming the 34th President.  He was supreme commander of Allied forces in Western Europe during World War II.  He was a Republican.  He dealt with Cold War-era tensions with the Soviet Union, ended the war in Korea, and authorized a number of covert anti-communist operations by the CIA around the world.  Eisenhower strengthened Social Security and created the Interstate Highway System.

President 35 was John F. Kennedy, the same person sitting at the desk in the beginning of this post.  I believe many people around the world know that he was shot to death in Dallas, TX, after he served two years (1,036 days) in office.  Kennedy, a democrat, was the second youngest man and first Catholic to hold the office of President.  He was the only President to have predeceased both his mother and father, as well as his maternal grandmother.

Lyndon B. Johnson, also a democrat, was the 36th President.  He took the oath of office on Air Force One immediately after Kennedy had been declared dead.  He was responsible for escalating the war in Vietnam.  He was also responsible for creating the Civil Rights Act and the tax cuts Kennedy had worked hard to get passed before his assassination.  After he felt his popularity waning, he decided not to seek reelection.

Richard Nixon was the 37th President.  He was a republican.  He escalated the war in Vietnam, then when it was obvious the war couldn't be won, he pulled U.S. troops out.  He was the only President to resign from the position, halfway through his second term.  It was due to his knowledge of and illegal activities in the Watergate coverup.

The 38th President, Gerald Ford, a Republican, became the first unelected President in the nation’s history.  He had been appointed Vice President less than a year earlier by President Nixon. He helped restore public confidence in government after the Watergate debacle.

Shortly after taking office, Ford pardoned Nixon for his illegal crimes and actions in the Watergate scandal.

Jimmy Carter, a democrat is the first of our surviving Presidents.  He was active in the Civil Rights Movement and opposed racial segregation.  He was responsible for many treaties and accords.  He pardoned all draft dodgers from the Vietnam war.  After he left office, Carter was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in co-founding the Carter Center.

Ronald Reagan, a republican, was the 40th President.  He was elected at a time of high unemployment and inflation.  Reagan won the election by a landslide, receiving the highest number of electoral votes ever won by a non-incumbent presidential candidate  He quickly set out to bring inflation under control and played a key role in bringing about a peaceful end to the Cold War.  His economic reforms brought about the greatest peacetime economic booms in U.S. history.  Many remembered him for his acting career.

George H. W. Bush is also known as 41, not only because he was the 41st President, but because people often referred to him as Bush 41, which distinguished him from his son, Bush 43.  He was director of the CIA before becoming President. 

Bush, a republican and one term President, was best known for his military operations against Panama and Iraq, although his popularity at home was marred by an economic recession. 

Bill Clinton, the 42nd President, was a champion for gay rights. He is also still alive and a democrat who served two terms of office.

Bush 43 has sometimes been called "W" because of his middle name.  It was also a way to distinguish George Walker Bush from his father, George H. W. Bush.  Like his father, he is a republican.  In his first Presidential race, he was the fourth person to be elected President while receiving fewer popular votes than his opponent.  He is the second President to assume the nation's highest office after his father.  During his second term, he received criticism for his handling of the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina.  Bush received praise for his handling of the 9/11 attacks, but his economic policy caused the country to fall into a deep depression felt around the world.  He is the third President still living.

Barack Obama, the 44th President, is a democrat.  He is also the first African American President. He was responsible for the healthcare act, sometimes known as Obamacare.

He was responsible for the military operation that took down Osama Bin Laden.  He also repealed the law that originally restricted, but now allows gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military.  He served two terms in office.  He is the fourth living President.

Donald Trump is the 45th President and a republican.  He is the fifth President who is still living.  We will learn about him soon!

If you made it this far, I applaud you.  It took me four days off and on to complete this, but I'm glad I did.  I learned a lot about former Presidents.

As always, I am grateful for your continued visits.  Now let's visit Annie's Friday Smiles, where it never hurts to begin the weekend with a big smile, just like Annie's. Feel free to join in with a post of your own, too.  She'll welcome you just like she did me several years ago.