George Washington’s dentures were made from, among other things, hippo tusks.

When forming a mental picture of George Washington, many of us likely flip through the brain rolodex to recall a portrait of the founding father staring back at viewers in a stately manner or calmly seated before the Continental Congress. However, these cool-as-a-cucumber depictions marked a stark contrast to reality, as Washington was often in pain from the tooth problems he endured for most of his adult years.

Whether due to childhood neglect, poor diet, or genetics, Washington had his first tooth pulled at age 24 and spent the rest of his life trying to play catch-up with fastidious attention to oral health. It wound up being a losing battle, as he was saving his pulled teeth for use in dentures by his early 50s. While real human teeth were a prize component of dentures, Washington accepted sets that included animal teeth as well as lead-tin, copper, and silver alloys — though notably not wood, as is often erroneously reported. By the time of his inauguration in 1789, the first U.S. president was wearing a customized set of dentures, built by New York dentist John Greenwood, that featured hippopotamus ivory and an array of gold wire springs and brass screws to hold its human teeth in place.

Unfortunately, the access to cutting-edge dental technology didn’t translate to an improved quality of life for Washington, who dashed off a series of letters to his dentist in later years that complained of the discomfort and bulging caused by his dentures. Still, the general seemed to realize there was little that could be done in this longtime war of attrition within his mouth, and when his final real tooth needed to be pulled in 1796, he gifted it to Dr. Greenwood.

One president’s son was connected to three presidential assassinations.

If anyone had reason to believe they were cursed, it was Robert Todd Lincoln. The eldest son of Abraham Lincoln was closely connected to three presidential assassinations over the course of his life — first his father’s, then those of Presidents James A. Garfield and William McKinley. Although later retellings have exaggerated his role, the real story is remarkable enough.

Robert narrowly missed accompanying his parents to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, declining an invitation to see Our American Cousin. (Tired, he had decided to go to bed early.) After John Wilkes Booth shot President Lincoln, Robert rushed to the Petersen House across the street, where his father had been taken. He spent the night comforting his devastated mother and was at Abraham Lincoln’s bedside when the president died the following morning.

Sixteen years later, history repeated itself. On July 2, 1881, Robert Lincoln (then secretary of war) was walking toward President James A. Garfield at Washington, D.C.’s Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station when Charles Guiteau fired two shots. Lincoln was roughly 40 feet away and reached the wounded president within seconds, helping organize the chaotic response. Garfield died more than two months later from complications of his injuries.

In 1901, history took another uncanny turn. Lincoln and his family arrived by train in Buffalo, New York, intending to visit the Pan-American Exposition, only to be handed a telegram announcing that President William McKinley had just been shot there. Lincoln hurried to the wounded president’s bedside and visited him twice, believing he was recovering. Instead, McKinley died eight days later.

Robert himself reportedly felt there was a “fatality” surrounding his presence at presidential occasions. But historians caution against the idea of any real curse, and the idea that he was an eyewitness at all three events, as is sometimes reported. His famous name, long career in public life, and the unusually turbulent era in which he lived simply placed him in the orbit of the White House again and again — with extraordinary consequences.

Irving Berlin and Disney helped shape Eisenhower’s ‘I Like Ike’ campaign.

Being the supreme commander of a victorious army is usually enough to make one a popular presidential candidate, but it can’t hurt to have the geniuses behind some of the world’s most beloved songs and films as prominent supporters. One such talent was Irving Berlin, who captured the widespread public approval for a Dwight D. Eisenhower presidency with his jaunty ditty “They Like Ike” in the 1950 musical Call Me Madam. In early 1952, with the NATO general still formally sitting out the race, Berlin unveiled a rewritten version of his show tune, titled “I Like Ike,” as part of a successful effort to push Eisenhower into the ring.

With Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson emerging as the Democratic nominee, Eisenhower’s team sought an advantage by developing the first-ever presidential campaign TV commercials. One series of ads, created by crack advertising executive Rosser Reeves, featured the Republican candidate genially answering policy questions posed by people on the street. But the Eisenhower camp had an even stronger card to play, and they reached out to the Walt Disney Company for assistance in early autumn. 

The result was a pair of 20-second and minute-long animated commercials that featured people happily marching along to another “I Like Ike” jingle (this one not written by Berlin). Although Stevenson responded with his own series of sing-along and animated ads, the governor admittedly was no fan of this form of self-promotion, and he was never able to overcome the popularity deficit that allowed Eisenhower to cruise to an easy win in November 1952.