Why Teddy Is Cool

Why Teddy Roosevelt is cool?

In the words of Robert Heinlein: “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Teddy Roosevelts' Presidential firsts:

1. In the sphere of race relations, Booker T. Washington became the first black man to dine as a guest at the White House in 1901.
2. Oscar S. Straus became the first Jewish person appointed as a Cabinet Secretary, under Roosevelt.
3. In 1902, in response to the assassination of President William McKinley on September 6, 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became the first president to be under constant Secret Service protection.
4. Roosevelt in 1904, became the first former Vice-President who had succeeded to the presidency on the death of the incumbent, to be elected President in his own right or even win his party’s nomination for election.
5. In 1906, Roosevelt became the first American to be awarded a Nobel Prize.
6. In 1906, he made the first trip, by a President, outside the United States, visiting Panama to inspect the construction progress of the Panama Canal on November 9.
7. He was the first and to date only president from Long Island, New York.
8. He was the first President to refer to the White House as such on his official stationery. Until then the mansion had been referred to simply as 'The President's House'
9. He was the first President to receive a black composer when he met the British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor who had great success with his Hiawatha Trilogy and settings of poems by Paul Lawrence Dunbar the black poet and novelist.
10. He was the first President to fly in an airplane.
11. He was the first President to wear a necktie for his official Presidential Portrait.

Wikipedia on Teddy

The White House Bio

Theodore Roosevelt's Site

quote from Mental Floss Blog