When George Washington became president in 1789, other national leaders included the king of France, the czarina of Russia, the emperor of China, and the shogun of Japan. Today, no king rules France, no czar rules Russia, no emperor rules China, and no shogun rules Japan. But the office of president of the United States endures.

The United States invented the idea of a president serving as head of state. When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president; Im beginning to believe it, quipped Clarence Darrow. Very few nations have a governmental system that allows anyone to become the leader of the country, in this case, the most powerful in the world. Our presidents have been highly educated and barely schooled: Woodrow Wilson earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University, while Andrew Johnson never attended school but was trained as a garment maker and wore only suits that he himself had custom tailored.

Our presidents have been filthy rich and dirt poor, generals and civilians, professional politicians and utter amateurs, sober as a judge and drunk as a skunk, eloquent and barely articulate, handsome and plug-ugly. In the past century alone, the White House has been occupied by the son of a Presbyterian minister, a schoolteacher, a peanut farmer, a failed haberdasher, a former actor, and the son of a failed California lemon rancher.

Virginia, Ohio, New York, and Massachusetts have furnished most of our chief executives, but such widely scattered states as Vermont, Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, Michigan, and California have also sent native sons to the White House.

The framers of the Constitution could not have envisioned the power that the president now holds to influence world and domestic affairs. Our forefathers and foremothers could not have dreamt that presidents would be the subjects and objects of so much intense interest in their philosophies, opinions, policies and personal lives. During this most passionate and protracted presidential campaign in American history, I am pleased to share with you the feats, fates, families, foibles and firsts of our American presidents.

Check back next week for more presidential trivia from Richard Lederer.

Richard Lederer is the author of more than 3,000 books and articles about language and humor, including his best-selling Anguished English series. He was a founding co-host of A Way with Words on KPBS Radio. Lederer will be talking about his newest work, Presidential Trivia, at a KPBS Lecture Series event on Wednesday, September 26.

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