Donald Trump was the oldest person ever elected to the presidency — here are 14 other records broken by US presidents
Gabbi Shaw
- Ever since the US was founded in 1776, its leaders have been breaking records.
- President Donald Trump is the oldest president to be elected. Whether Trump or Joe Biden win this year's election, they'll break that record.
- At 43, John F. Kennedy was the youngest elected president, yet Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest president. He was 42 when he was sworn in after the assassination of William McKinley.
No matter who is president, they'll likely be the first to do something in office.
John F. Kennedy, for instance, was the youngest person to ever be elected, while Donald Trump was the oldest. Herbert Hoover was the first president to be born west of the Mississippi River, and Barack Obama was the first president to be born outside of the 48 contiguous states.
Keep scrolling to learn 15 records that have been broken by presidents of the United States.
The most expensive presidential inauguration was Donald Trump's 2017 ceremony, which cost $90 million.
President-elect Donald Trump's inaugural committee raised the record-breaking $90 million for his inauguration, including a $1 million donation from Boeing and $500,000 from Chevron, Business Insider reported at the time.
For context, Barack Obama's inaugurations cost $55 million in 2009 and $43 million in 2013, according to the Associated Press.
Trump is also the oldest president to ever be elected — he was 70 years old when he was sworn in.
Trump became the oldest president to be sworn in in 2017, beating the previous record set by Ronald Reagan in 1981. Reagan was 69 years and 348 days old at the time.
No matter who wins the 2020 election, this record will be broken. Trump is currently 74, while Joe Biden will be 78 by Inauguration Day.
The youngest president ever elected was John F. Kennedy, who was 43 years and 236 days old.
Kennedy was elected in 1960, and he remained in office until he was assassinated in 1963. Sadly, that also makes him the youngest president to die.
But Kennedy wasn't the youngest president ever — Theodore Roosevelt was only 42 when he was sworn in after the assassination of William McKinley.
Roosevelt wasn't elected when he became president the first time. He took over in September 1901 after McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, New York. Roosevelt was only 42 years old at the time.
In 1904, 46-year-old Roosevelt was elected in his own right. He defeated Democratic nominee Alton B. Parker to win the election.
At 96, Jimmy Carter is the longest living president in history.
Carter is both the oldest living president, and the president with the longest life. He turned 96 on October 1, 2020, and celebrated at home with his wife, Rosalynn.
John Tyler had the most children of any president.
Tyler, the 10th president of the US, was married twice in his lifetime and had 15 children: Mary, Robert, John, Letitia, Elizabeth, Anne, Alice, Tazewell, David, John Alexander, Julia, Lachlan, Lyon, Robert Fitzwalter, and Pearl, who was born when Tyler was 70.
Bill Clinton was the first US president to use email in office.
While Obama was the first president to regularly use email, the distinction of the president with the first email address goes to Clinton who, in 1993, sent two emails — one as a test, and one to John Glenn, the famed astronaut, who was in orbit in the Space Shuttle.
The first president to be given a Secret Service code name was Harry Truman.
Truman's code name was "General," according to Guinness. Why did they implement code names? Because, with the "improvements in telecommunications technology," there was the threat of people illicitly listening to government communications — and thus, code names.
Other presidential code names include "Lancer" for Kennedy, "Providence" for Eisenhower, "Rawhide" for Reagan, "Searchlight" for Nixon, "Eagle" for Clinton, and "Trailblazer" for George W. Bush.
The first Eagle Scout to win the presidency was Gerald Ford.
In fact, he's the first and only Eagle Scout to ever be elected president.
Barack Obama, of course, was the first Black president.
When Obama was elected in 2008, he made history as the first (and only) person of color to be elected president. He is also the first (and only) president to be born outside of the 48 contiguous states.
Richard Nixon holds the record for most Time magazine covers: 55.
Nixon has been on the cover of Time Magazine a whopping 55 times since its inception in 1923, making him the most frequent cover star in its history, and the most frequent male cover star. The most frequent woman on the cover is Hillary Clinton, who has been on the cover at least 30 times.
George Washington was naturally the first of many things, including the first president to have a submarine named after them.
The USS George Washington was the US Navy's very first operational ballistic missile submarine. It was launched in 1959, and decommissioned in 1985.
Herbert Hoover was the first president to be born west of the Mississippi River.
Hoover, the 31st president of the United States, was born in a two-room cottage in West Branch, Iowa in 1874.
"This cottage where I was born is physical proof of the unbounded opportunity of American life," Hoover later said.
The president with the most edited Wikipedia page is George W. Bush.
According to Guinness World Records, as of January 2016, Bush was officially named the person with the highest number of edits on their Wikipedia page, with a whopping 45,871 edits (and counting).
The first president to work in the Oval Office was William Howard Taft.
In 1902, Roosevelt oversaw an extensive renovation of the White House that included the construction of a temporary office building called the West Wing. By 1909, the West Wing had become a permanent structure and the White House had doubled in size, with Taft becoming the first president to operate out of the Oval Office, which every president has done since.
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