Trivial Pursuit is one outstanding board game and an excellent source for developing a solid foundation of knowledge with which to bore people. Moreover, if meta-trivia (that’s trivia about trivia) is a thing, I’d argue that looking back at the chronology of the game’s editions makes for a pretty good study of the evolution of what types of trivia are considered important to society.
Those of us who care, ‘History’ is one category that was there at the beginning and remains today as part of Genus (not Genius, people) XXXVII or whatever the current version is. (Science, Entertainment, and Roll Again being a few of the others). As such, anyone claiming to be a trivia aficionado needs to have a pretty vast and varied stock of fun facts from American history in his or her repertoire – and American Presidential trivia makes for a great place to start.
For instance, did you know that there is one spot from which you can see the final resting places of not one, but two of the Fab 45? That place is Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, wherein lie the graves of Presidents James Monroe and John Tyler. (I’d never guess that any POTUS other than Reagan would be buried in a place called Hollywood). As an aside, Hollywood Cemetery is also the final address for Confederate President Jefferson Davis as well as Civil War generals George Pickett and J.E.B. Stuart. Not too shabby.
But back to the presidents. James Monroe, who was lucky enough to oversee a time in our history with so little action that it’s now known as ‘The Era of Good Feelings’ lies in the black tomb pictured here behind President Tyler’s monument, Monroe is a much-respected figure from that ‘Second Greatest Generation’ of the Revolutionary War era, but John Tyler, who historians dismiss as a not-so-great president, might be more interesting.
I guess even the greatest president’s reputation would take a hit if he were to, say, renounce his citizenship and align with a bitter enemy, right? Tyler actually did this, choosing to side with his home state of Virginia during the Civil War, even going so far as to serve in the Confederate Congress. He died before the war was over, without ever having been rehabilitated. Even now, it is said that his casket is draped with a confederate flag. For clarification, I guess we could always ask Tyler’s grandkids. Yes you read that correctly. Apparently, Tyler men like to celebrate their virility well into old age, which is why our tenth president (1790-1862) still has two living grandsons.
As Tyler was the second half of that antebellum dynamic duo, Tippecanoe and Tyler Too, he reached the presidency not through direct election, but following the death of the aforementioned Tippecanoe (that’s William Henry Harrison). Since this sort of thing had never happened before, and there was no provision in the Constitution for an order of succession in his day, Tyler had a pretty tough time convincing people that he was the legitimate President, often putting up with being referred to as ‘His Accidency’ or just, “Acting President”.
Then again, maybe that last moniker means Hollywood is the right place for him after all.
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