Andrew Jackson was the seventh United States President. He was conceived on March fifteenth, 1767 to Andrew and Elizabeth Jackson, foreigners from Ireland who showed up in the United States two years sooner. Andrew Jackson’s dad kicked the bucket in a mishap just three weeks before he was conceived. Andrew had two more established siblings. He experienced childhood in the Waxhaws locale lying on the fringe of North and South Carolina. At 13, during the American Revolutionary War, Andrew Jackson joined a neighborhood local army. Both of his siblings and his mom passed on when he was 14. He was then raised by his uncles. He examined law, and turned into a legal counselor 1787.
Jackson’s parents emigrated from Ireland.
Andrew Jackson became Tennessee’s first representative in the U.S. House of Representative.
Both North Carolina and South Carolina claim to be his birthplace.
In 1798 Andrew Jackson became a judge in the Tennessee Supreme Court. He served in the position until 1804.
Jackson killed a man in a duel. When a man named Charles Dickinson called Jackson “a worthless scoundrel, a paltroon and a coward” in a local newspaper in 1806, the future president challenged his accuser to a duel.
Andrew Jackson was a busy man. He was a lawyer, politician, judge, landowner and merchant.
He won the popular vote for president three times.
In 1801 Andrew Jackson was appointed to be the commander of the Tennessee militia.
He was the target of the first attempted presidential assassination.
During the War of 1812 Andrew Jackson led his troops to battle against the Creek Indians. The battle at Horseshoe Bend ended in victory for Andrew Jackson. Approximately 800 warriors were killed and they secured 20 million acres of land. He was then appointed major general.
Unbeknownst to Jackson, he married his wife before she had been legally divorced from her first husband.
On January 8th, 1815 he led 5,000 soldiers in New Orleans and defeated 7,500 British soldiers. For this victory he received a gold medal and was named a national hero.
He was the only president to have been a former prisoner of war.
Andrew Jackson was referred to as being ‘as tough as old hickory wood’ by his soldiers. He got the nickname ‘Old Hickory’ because of this.
He adopted two Native American boys.
In 1817 Andrew Jackson and his soldiers defeated the Spanish in Pensacola, Florida. When Spain relinquished Florida to the
U.S. in 1821 via the Adams-Onis Treaty Andrew Jackson was names Florida’s military governor.
He was a notorious gambler.
In 1824 Andrew Jackson lost the presidential election to John Adams.
Jackson’s portrait appears on the $20 bill although he detested paper money.
In 1828 Andrew Jackson won the presidential election, making him the seventh United States president.
Jackson, like Lincoln, was a self-taught frontier lawyer.
Andrew Jackson became known as the ‘people’s president’ because he believed that the people should have the right to elect their president, and he abolished the electoral college.
He studied law while still in his teens, passed the bar at age 20, and became a successful frontier lawyer.
In 1832 Andrew Jackson was re-elected as United States president.
Jackson made his money in the cotton business and owned slaves.
Andrew Jackson married Rachel Donelson in 1788; she was not officially divorced at the time.
He bought a plantation in Tennessee called The Hermitage in 1804.
Rachel Donelson died two months before Andrew became President of the United States. She died of a heart attack and was buried on Christmas Eve.
Jackson was also a self-taught military leader.
Andrew and Rachel had three sons; two were Indian orphans and one was the son of Rachel’s brother Severn Donelson.
His victory, along with his militia at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, led to his commission in the U.S. Army, where he defeated the British at New Orleans.
Andrew Jackson has been blamed by historians for the Trail of Tears, the forceful westward movement of 15,000 Cherokee Indians.
Jackson was friends with Aaron Burr. The former vice president stayed for several days at The Hermitage as he apparently spoke with Jackson about his plans for an “adventure” in the Western states.
Andrew Jackson owned slaves at one time and they worked on his plantation.
Jackson also was on the witness list for Burr’s treason trial. The two men served in Congress at the same time but in different chambers.
Andrew Jackson died on June 8th, 1845. He was 78 years old. He died of lead poisoning that was the result of two bullets that had been in his chest for many years.
Jackson beat up his own assassin. In January 1835, President Jackson was confronted by a deranged man as he left a funeral held at the Capitol. The man fired point-blank at Jackson with a pistol, but the gun misfired. Jackson then started beating the man with his cane.
In the election of 1828, the town of Adams, New Hampshire changed its name to Jackson, in honor of Andrew Jackson and his win.
Jackson really did have a giant block of cheese in the White House. Jackson received the 1,400-pound cheddar wheel as a gift in 1835 and kept it in the White House lobby for two years.
