- The total cost of the building reached $232,372, which in nowadays’s money, that’s roughly $4,380,000, according to one historical currency converter.
- British soldiers set the White House on fire back in 1814, during the famous War of 1812. They were trying to get back at Americans, as our soldiers recently set Canadian buildings on fire in York, Ontario.
- Also, I bet you didn’t know that the White House was the biggest house in the country until after the Civil War.
- Nowadays, the White House has 132 rooms and 35 bathrooms spread out over six levels. There are also 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, eight staircases, and three elevators.
- Theodore Roosevelt was the one who officially called it the White House in 1901. Up until that point, people used to call it all kinds of names, including the Executive Mansion and the President’s Palace.
- A maximum of 140 guests can attend a dinner at the White House. Also, if they’re only serving appetizers, the kitchen can serve over 1,000 guests at once.
- If you want to paint the outside, you’d need over 570 gallons of paint to cover the entire White House.
- Even if a couple of features have been removed, the White House grounds also included a movie theater, a one-lane bowling alley, an indoor and outdoor pool, a game room with billiard and ping pong tables, and of course, a jogging track, and a tennis court. Fun fact: Barack Obama actually added removable basketball hoops to the tennis court, so he could easily practice his own favorite sport.
To fully explain the whole “charm” behind the White House, I’d probably need more than three articles. But what I can do is recommend one of my favorite books, called “White House Confidential: The Little Book of Weird Presidential History” by Gregg Stebben and Austin Hill. You will learn so many interesting things about the history of American Presidents but also the White House; you’ll never look at it as you used to!
If you’re interested in reading more about presidents, here’s what we recommend:
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