Spoilers ahead.

Here's President John F. Kennedy signing the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963. House of Cards President Garrett Walker is shown in an almost identical scene, signing an education bill. Both are handing out the pens to their right, but direct your attention to the very back of the crowd of woman and children, respectively, where each president's second in command stands.

Fictional Vice President Jim Matthews has much in common with the only visible man behind Kennedy: Lyndon B. Johnson. Like Matthews, the 37th VP found he was utterly powerless after the election, and his attempts to better position himself led to humiliation. While Matthews complains to Congressman Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) that he did not receive a pen from the signing, Johnson was smarting after Kennedy refused his request to take the workspace next to the Oval office.

When young journalist Zoe Barnes receives a taunting email from one of her colleagues at the Herald, she uses the attached photograph like it was a calling card from Underwood himself. The photo of the Congressman craning his neck to appreciate the backside of the ever-enterprising Barnes bears a striking resemblance to this image of President Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy.

"Everything is about sex, except sex," says Congressman Underwood. "Sex is about power." While that's certainly the case for the coupling of Barnes and Underwood, no examples of conflict-of-interest-ridden reporter/congressperson trysts readily come to mind. The recent David Petraeus scandal, however, comes close enough. General Petraeus, who was the director of the CIA before resigning, wasn't a politician per se, but he did act like one—courting the press and arguably promoting himself as much as his policies. It is acceptably cynical, then, to assume his extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell, the author of his biography, All In: The Education of General Petraeus, proved mutually beneficial, at least for a while.

Peter Russo is one of the most compelling characters in House of Cards, charming but dogged by a weakness for alcohol, drugs, and prostitutes. Among his less shocking but more commonplace indiscretions is his affair with a staff member. There are so many real-life, dramatic examples to choose from, but the now-infamous video above is worth revisiting. It features former Congressman Mark Souder (R-IN), a staunch advocate of family values, extolling the virtues of abstinence before he resigned. Had he stayed on, an embarrassing ethics investigation would have exposed his affair with married female staffer Tracy Meadows Jackson, the very woman interviewing him in the video.

After a night of debauchery with a prostitute—arranged by none other than Congressman Underwood—a still-drunk Russo does a career-ending phone interview. (Corey Stoll, the actor who plays Russo, has the inebriated act down: Readers may or may not recognize him as Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris.) Underwood's chief of staff is there to ensure the interview takes place, but would a politician appear drunk in public by his own volition? In 1892, Georgia Congressman Thomas Watson took aim at the moral rectitude displayed in the House of Representatives, where "drunken members have reeled about the aisles—a disgrace to the Republic." In The People's Party Campaign Book, he recounted the many instances in which "Drunken speakers have debated grave issues on the Floor and in the midst of maudlin rumblings have been heard to ask, 'Mr. Speaker, where was I at?'"

"When has your help ever helped me?" asks Russo as Underwood drives him home, perhaps solidifying his sad fate. Shortly after we were introduced to Underwood, he killed a dog who had been hit by a car. Now we see him smother another being in pain, this time making it look like a suicide.