FIRSTS 3: A year after the introduction of the Model T Ford in 1908, Congress authorized $12,000 so that the 27th president, William Howard Taft, could have two motor cars at the White House. 

Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872. He would be sworn in as the 30th president 51 years later. He remains the only president to have been born on Independence Day.

Harry Truman, also known as “General,” was the first president to get a nickname from the Secret Service. Though he did serve as a captain in World War I, the 33rd president was never actually a general. 

Sarah T. Hughes became the first woman to serve as a federal district judge in Texas when John F. Kennedy, 35th president, appointed her in 1961. She was summoned by then–vice president Lyndon B. Johnson after Kennedy’s assassination, and requested to administer the Oath of Office to LBJ as the 36th president.

The first and only unelected president of the United States was Gerald Ford. He became the 38th president in 1974 after Richard Nixon resigned, having previously been appointed vice president following Spiro Agnew’s resignation. 

Jimmy Carter, 39th president, was the first to oversee the installation of computers in the White House for official use, starting in 1978. Carter was the first U.S. president born in a hospital, born on October 1, 1924, at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains, Georgia. His mother, Lillian Carter, was a registered nurse who worked at the facility. All presidents after him have also been born in hospitals.

Of the 45 men who have served as president of the United States, 31 had prior military service, and 14 had none. Their service ranks range from private in a state militia to general of the army.