Presidential Birthdays

George Washington February 22, 1732 John Adams October 30 1735 Thomas Jefferson April 13, 1743 James Madison March 16, 1751 James Monroe April 28th, 1758 John Quincy Adams July 11, 1767 Andrew Jackson March 15, 1767 Martin Van Buren December 5, 1782 William Henry Harrison February 9, 1773 John Tyler March 29, 1790 James K. Polk November 2, 1795 Zachary Taylor November 24, 1784 Millard Fillmore January 7, 1800 Franklin Pierce November 23, 1804 James Buchanan April 23, 1791 Abraham Lincoln February 12, 1809 Andrew Johnson December 29, 1808 Ulysses S. Grant April 27, 1822 Rutherford B. Hayes October 4, 1822 James A. Garfield November 19, 1831 Chester A. Arthur October 5, 1829 Grover Cleveland March 18, 1837 Benjamin Harrison August 20, 1833 William McKinley January 29, 1843 Theodore Roosevelt October 27, 1858 William Howard Taft September 15, 1857 Woodrow Wilson December 28, 1856 Warren G. Harding November 2, 1865 Calvin Coolidge July 4, 1872 Herbert Hoover August 10, 1874 Franklin D. Roosevelt January 30, 1882 Harry S Truman May 8, 1884 Dwight D. Eisenhower October 14, 1890 John Kennedy May 29, 1917 Lyndon B. Johnson August 27, 1908 Richard M. Nixon January 9, 1913 Gerald R. Ford July 14, 1913 Jimmy Carter October 1, 1924 Ronald Reagan February 6, 1911 George H. W. Bush June 12, 1924 William J. Clinton August 19, 1946 George W. Bush July 6, 1946 Barack Hussein Obama August 4, 1961

President's Day is in February. However, only four presidents were born in this month. It just so happens that two of America's most prominent presidents were born in February, Washington and Lincoln. The two other presidents that share this birth month are Ronald Reagan and William Henry Harrison.

The most sparse month is a tie between June and September, each claiming only one president. June claims George H.W. Bush, and September has William Howard Taft.

Can we make anything from this skewed distribution of birthdays? Perhaps and perhaps not. 43 total presidents (44 if you count Cleveland twice, as many do, because of his separate terms of office) may not be a large enough sample to create a scientific conclusion regarding birth-months. Yet, we can say that the spring months, taken together, have a dearth of births. This could be because many of the early presidents had fathers who participated in historic events, which usually occurred in the summer months. This would mean these men were more likely to be absent from home at the crucial moment nine months before the spring season. -----

Articles on other historical figures

W.J. Rayment