The first official US President, under the current Constitution, is George Washington, and the most recent, at the time of this book's publication, is Joseph R. Biden. As a coach of some 21 National Sweepstakes Championship teams in all four divisions of Academic Games, one of my students' strongest games, was the one that originally was called "A Game Called Mr. President." Well you can see why that name has evolved into simply "Presidents," and rightfully so. Geraldine Ferraro might have become our first woman Vice President in 1984, but for the Reagan landslide that year. Hillary Clinton actually won the popular vote in 2016, and in 2024 we have another woman running for the highest office in the land. So what is the importance of this game for students in grades pre sixth to twelfth?
My Students who played the game Presidents, which made learning about all the histories of our 46 administrations and all the events in their lives as well, (45 actual presidents), found, to their great surprise, that it was fun. Children naturally like almost anything that is competitive, and these games are competitive but with a strong dose of good sportsmanship added. After playing in my teams for some four or more years, by the time they were in college, I was amazed and pleasantly so, that so many of my former stars told me how easy United States History had become, thanks to playing the game "Presidents."
The game doesn't only focus on the presidential administrations of all 45 different occupants of the White House, but it focused on important historical context, on the biographies of every individual who became president. The players got the feeling that they knew all of these men (up to 2024) personally. They not only learned about how Washington threatened to put down a group of Western Pennsylvania farmers, protesting the excise tax on spirits (not the deceased kind) during what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion. Nor do many realize the implications of the Ostend Manifesto, which very nearly got the US into another war, in order to purchase, or take Cuba, in the mid- 19th century.
It also teaches them how Washington, as a British Officer confronted the French, at Fort Necessity, just south of what is today known as Pittsburgh, fired the first volley that launched what became the American theater of the first global conflict, --the 7 Years war, which many historians call the real first world war! There is also how a clever newswoman sat on John Quincy Adam's clothes on the bank of the Potomac, refusing to budge until he gave her an interview. (He loathed reporters.) Then there's how very few know that Teddy Roosevelt was blinded in one eye during a boxing match he held with a friend at the White House, -- a friend he refused to tell because he didn't want to have him feel guilty. There's the fact that a British officer nearly killed Andrew Jackson, because he refused to shine the man's boots, and the boy had to block the descending saber with his arm, causing him a savage injury. Even fewer know that Richard Nixon, aside from having a peculiar fondness for a breakfast of cottage cheese with ketchup, fell off of the family buggy while a toddler, and the wheel of the buggy nearly crushed his skull leaving a scar from the front of his scalp to the back of his neck. And many more didn't know he was a Quaker!
Our only president who served and saw action in World War I, -- was Harry Truman. There is a laundry list of important acts of Congress, such as the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, over control of the Panama Canal. Few know who was the only Vice President to win the Nobel Peace Prize, or the time we had a first lady known as "Madam President." So many tantalizing bits of both history and fascinating trivia that will enlighten the minds of any reader into the history of the United States, and the people who guided the Ship of State since the nation's inception, are all found in this book.