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TIL that 71% of Americans are "fairly certain" that Alexander Hamilton is among their nation's past presidents. This confidence in Hamilton having been president is higher than for six actual presidents.
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Obviously people haven't listened to Hamilton. Or the Animaniacs President's Song.
Or seen The Wire.
"Hamilton was never president"
Seems to stick to my brain no matter what, and I'm not even from the USA
No ugly-ass white man get his face on no legal fucking tender less he president.
Never gonna be president now.
Never gonna be president now.
Well he never gonna be president now
Probably also true of Ben Franklin. People assume anyone on money was president.
In monarchies we put our monarch on our money, so that seems like a reasonable assumption.
Plus there's the old slang term of "dead presidents" for US bills.
Many many green peoples from history times
Ooh ohh! "Noseclams."
Great movie. Even better soundtrack.
Ain't no ugly ass white man get his face on no legal motherfuckin' tender 'cept he president.
came to make sure someone posted this
This is what i thought of. But i thought it was true. Is it not?
Alexander Hamilton was the first Secretary of Treasury and was instrumental in the formation of the first national bank.
And Benjamin Franklin was Ben "motherfuckin'" Franklin.
Too old to be president by the time the nation was formed but he's was still considered a universal bad ass by all the founding fathers.
It is not
Well I guess Wallace was the smart one
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Who were the 6 or so presidents who lost to Hamilton?
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Odd! I would have thought William Harrison would be well known for refusing to postpone his inauguration speech and getting pneumonia and dying! How interesting.
Do you predict a correlation between the ratio of people who comment on this thread versus actually read the article and the accuracy of knowing past presidents?
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Hamilton, like Grant, is mostly known from being on the money (or was -- now there's some play). Franklin is more widely known, and the bill is less widely circulated.
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Maybe because of his contributions outside American politics, like electricity and milf appreciation
Except the women. Susan B Anthony and Sacagawea.
That's because they're on coins that no one has.
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Just wait for people to assume Harriet Tubman was a president
Most people almost never see those though unless you buy one for a novelty. The later presidential dollar coins exist too but again very uncommon in circulation
I told you, your dirty lady quarters are no good here.
This is so true. I live in Philly, so Ben Franklin is a big deal. Even here, people think he was a predident. As for Hamilton, he was the "father of modern banking". I agree with your money statement (bills only).
Benjamin "Motherfucking" Franklin was president of being an absolute - and literal - pimp.
One of many talents; father of publishing, started a university, innovator & inventor, loved beer.
Founder of the University of Pennsylvania. Inventor of the bifocals. Publisher of Poor Richard's Almanac. Inventor of the Franklin stove. Ambassador to France. Founding father. Postmaster General. First person to name electric charges positive and negative.
Franklin did so many things that a discussion about his life and works would probably overlook a number of things that would earn anyone else a Nobel and a Wikipedia page.
When I was in first grade I thought Martin Luther King Jr. was a president and said so during a book report. This was, apparently, untrue and I nearly died of embarrassment.
The confusion is totally understandable considering how much the school shat itself over MLK Day. I just sort of assumed every super famous person was a president.
Everyone knows Ben Franklin was the sexiest president
True story: Ben Franklin invented cocaine. That's why his bill is also called a "c-note" (cocaine note). People all over the world pay homage to Ben Franklin's accomplishment by using the US $100 bill for cocaine activities.
Read that one time on the comic that came with my bazooka joe gum.
Ben Franklin? He was one of the sexiest presidents ever!
TIL he wasn’t president. Of course I’m not american, but still. I would have given my confidence 100/100
President Franklin was one of the best!
"Ben Franklin -- the only President of the United States, who was never President of the United States."
Firesign Theatre, Everything You Know Is Wrong
Does anyone bother reading the article? They mention him, more people thought Hamilton was president and they were more confident of their answer.
As much as I love Yank bashing, I reckon most Brits couldn't name a single 19th century Prime Minister.
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Nice, I've learned a lot about America from cartoons. If I remember correctly, there's also a Family Guy where Peter references Benjamin Disraeli (a very interesting person, he was ethnically Jewish) and he just looks up and says "you don't even know who I am, do you?".
Yes, sir, I am a Jew, and when the right honorable gentlemen's ancestors were savages on an unknown Island, mine were priests in the Temple of Solomon.
Pitt the Elder!
Lord Palmerston!
I was expecting some bizarre British Monty Python animation but nope of course r/simpsonsdidit
Robert Peele and Benjamin Disraeli.
Am a Yank.
Stop ruining my stereotypes! Both good answers. Maybe the most interesting one is Willian Gladstone, who was pretty eccentric, he used to take prostitutes home for tea to try and reform them. There's also Lord Liverpool, Pitt the Younger and Lord Palmerston. Some pretty important guys, I guess Victoria overshadows them in the national consciousness, but really she had little power.
Yanks who study the American Civil War would probably know Palmerston and Russell from the Trent Affair and associated diplomacy.
Also, I just looked up the list. Apparently the Duke of Wellington became PM at one point? Did not know that.
"try and reform them"
Is that more of that funny Brit slang?
Nope, unless Gladstone was playing a very smart double bluff...
I was thinking Gladstone.
Peele I remember for founding Scotland Yard.
Which I know cause of Peelers and Bobbies.
Why didn't you go with Gladstone? He's famous.
As an American you're lucky I could name those two.
Oh, I'm an American too.
I'm American an had to look it up to be sure he wasn't 18th century, but Pitt the Younger.
also American and also thought of Pitt the Younger
i'm not sure why, maybe he's just got a good name for remembering.
I know Benjamin Disraeli and Wellington
Pitt Junior too I think? Or is he 18th century only?
Good knowledge, but it's so American that you called Pitt the Younger "Pitt Junior"!
i can only name like 6 maybe 7 prime ministers, am brit.
Most of what I (a Yank as you call us) know about British history, I learned from Blackadder and I believe there was a William Pitt somewhere in the third season.
I blame jacksfilms
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Good bot
Y-you too.
I gotchoo
I blame jacksfilms and his runway forehead
Thanks fam
Not only do the majority of people think Hamilton was president, thanks to the musical I'd bet they also think he was black or hispanic.
Nah, we know better. If you listen to the musical, he’s a mix between a whore and a scotsman.
Also a bastard orphan
But he did immigrate from the Caribbean. I wanted him to be a little less white with how many times they said that
Why did you want him to be a little less white?
"It seems that you put scottish and umm 'whore' under ethnicity..."
"Yes."
"You're hired!"
I'm waiting for someone to try and replace a black historical person with a white person so I can laugh and watch the uproar.
Jennifer Lawrence is Harriet Tubman in Express Train to Freedom. Coming to theaters in 2018.
Chris Pratt is Pancho Villa in Master and Commander 2: Lost in New York.
Fuck yeah
Steven Segal was Genghis Khan once.
I thought that film never got made? On the other hand, John Wayne was Genghis Khan once.
The movie that literally caused cancer! (Well, the irradiated sand did, but still...)
Is he not Asian? I totally thought he was Asian.
We replace non-white people for white people all the time in movies so....
I mean, both fictional and real nonwhite people are played by white actors all the time.
Khan noonien Singh, an Indian, was played by benfict cumbersacth.
There was a Broadway musical that was basically shut down because a popular black singer was retiring from the role and the show managers were gonna replace him with a popular white singer. Huge uproar over it, so they instead replaced him with a not-so-popular black guy, the show tanked because there was no longer any well-known singers of any color.
If they can't tell he's white based on the 10 dollar note, that would be sad.
He's green?
Let’s be serious, no one can get tickets to Hamilton.
"Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." -- Yogi Berra
... the people who know he wasn't president are the ones who listened to the musical.
I am not going to lie and I thought he was and a President until just now.
He might have been, eventually. He got killed in a duel in 1804 (he was 49)...It's unlikely he could have beaten Adams or Jefferson, but Madison and Monroe? Possible.
Edit: Holy crap with the people telling me Hamilton wasn't eligible. He was. Relevant bit of the Constitution:
"No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States."
Well, he's never gonna be President now.
That's one less thing to worry about
makes it rain Reynolds affair pamphlets
R/expectedhamilton ?
Edit. Turns out it's a thing.
And very expected for this thread
His sex scandal pretty much killed any chance he had of becoming president.
Have you read this?!?!
Highlights, please.
Yeah, it's A-OK that Jefferson was totally raping his slaves, but banging a married woman is where the American people draw the line!
Jefferson didn't write and distribute pamphlets about his exploits.
If you want to be technical about it Sally was treated more as a mistress than a slave. Which is a really weird thing to say in a modern setting but Antebellum South was a different time.
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Redditor for two years, username checks out.
maybe he would have had a chance if he had gotten in before Adams, but Adams' arrogance and the Federalists' refusal to listen to commoners kinda killed their party, so people probably wouldn't have voted for him. He was definitely qualified, though.
"You could call us Aaron Burr from the way we're droppin' Hamilton's"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRhTeaa_B98&feature=youtu.be&t=98
The Reynolds pamphlet really did him in. You know, he admitted to cheating on his wife and it tanked his electability.
Someone didn't listen to the Hamilton! cast album.
"Well, he’s never gon’ be President now
Never gon’ be President now
Well, he’s never gon’ be President now
Never gon’ be President now
He’s never gon’ be President now
Never gon’ be President now
That’s one less thing to worry about"
One less thing to worry abbbbouuut
But really who are these people? That shit was a phenomenon. You should at least know some of it from pop culture osmosis.
They did say it several times.
I came as soon as I heard
Abstract
Studies over the past 40 years have shown that Americans can recall about half the U.S. presidents. Do people know the presidents even though they are unable to access them for recall? We investigated this question using the powerful cues of a recognition test. Specifically, we tested the ability of 326 online subjects to recognize U.S. presidents when presented with their full names among various types of lures. The hit rate for presidential recognition was .88, well above the proportion produced in free recall but far from perfect. Presidents Franklin Pierce and Chester Arthur were recognized less than 60% of the time. Interestingly, four nonpresidents were falsely recognized at relatively high rates, and Alexander Hamilton was more frequently identified as president than were several actual presidents. Even on a recognition test, knowledge of American presidents is imperfect and prone to error. The false alarm data support the theory that false fame can arise from contextual familiarity.
Direct link to study
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0956797616631113
"Your're next, Chester A Arthur."
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He's on the money. I bet they think Benjamin Franklin was president as well.
And there are plenty of ex-presidents who people have probably never heard of. John Tyler (almost impeached by his own party), Rutherford Hayes (most memorable thing about him was his name), Millard Fillmore (you probably thought this was an unfunny political comic), Chester Arthur (fought the party machine system, had a kickin' 'stache).
People probably think Hoover invented the vacuum cleaner.
I always remember this one because when his head jar tips over in Futurama, he says "Chester A Arthur fall down."
Chester Arthur was actually part of the Republican faction that supported clientelism (Stalwarts). Garfield picked him as a running mate in an attempt to unify the party despite being part of the opposing faction (half-breeds).
After Garfield's assassination by a delusional Stalwart who expected the Party to recognize his support, Arthur--who was now president--turned a 180 and fought against the machine that he helped create.
Garfield probably did more for his cause by dying than he could have in the factionalized party that he was elected by. Giving the credit to Arthur feels a bit unfair to Garfield though.
Garfield is my favorite president. It is just such a cool life story.
No we know better, Hoover invented the dam.
No he headed the FBI
No he invented the vacuum cleaner.
No he taught Lisa Simpson's 2nd grade class.
I disagree. I know him mostly as the guy who won by a single electoral vote in the 1876 election.
Thanks, Animaniacs!
If by "won" you mean "stole" or more specifically "Was awarded the electoral votes of four states as part of a backroom deal to end reconstruction".
That's not in the Animaniacs song, though
Yeah, it doesn't rhyme worth a damn.
Isn't Hayes the president who demanded forced assimilation of native Americans?
The most important thing about Fillmore is that he appointed Daniel Webster as secretary of state.
Hayes is the one who agreed to end Reconstruction to gain the presidency.
I blame Jacksfilms
American's are fairly certain
Alexander's President
To be fair. The only times most people have to actually remember president names are when they're in high school, and whenever some douchnozzle decides he wants to inflame his ego.
I love visualizing an ego inflame
I can still name all the Presidents in order thanks to my 6th grade teacher who taught us to memorize them by singing along to Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Ha... it's just a random name. It doesn't even resemble the name of any actual president. Perhaps the respondents confused him with Renaissance humanist and Catholic martyr Sir Thomas More.
Yeah they probably confused a guy they thought was president with an even lesser known guy who was also not president
And lived two hundred years before presidents even existed!
I am declaring this theory of mine rock solid.
That's completely absurd. I'd bet anyone a thousand bucks they couldn't find 2 people on the street who think that. I'm allowing one person just cuz I'm accounting for crazy.
obligatory The wire did it
Just saw it tonight too Ep 1, Season 1.
What I don’t understand about Hamilton is, how does a bastard, orphan, son of a whore And a Scotsman, dropped in the middle of a forgotten spot in the Caribbean by providence impoverished, In squalor, grow up to be a hero and a scholar?
The man is nonstop.
The ten dollar Founding Father without a father...
Got a lot farther by working a lot harder, by being a lot smarter, by being a self-starter..
Alexander Hamilton SHOULD'VE been president.
Alexander Hamilton's impact on our democracy outweighs most of our past presidents.
You might even say...
He doesn't get enough credit for all the credit he gave us.
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I am quite sure that he will do something that will ensure we'll remember him for the next couple of centuries.
I bet most Britannians know more about George III than about his successors.
People in Britain know who George III was because he was mentally ill and king during the Napoleonic Wars, losing the 13 colonies has little to no impact, especially since he didn't actually have any real power.
Jacksfilms joke
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I'm pretty sure everyone knows Alexander hamilton by now. They pretty much have an entire musical/soundtrack for alexander hamilton and its pretty damn catchy. My 10-year-old sister got into it.
Show your sister 1776, she might like it.
I bet they also think he's the 10th president.
To be fair, Hamilton was the one actually making 80-90% of the decisions during George Washington's presidency, so he might as well have been president.
And pretty much all of Adams' cabinet was going to Hamilton for advice.
In other words, he was Washington's right hand man.
So he was Siri
He was certainly more deserving to be president than some of the other men to hold the office.
But he couldn't keep it in his pants.
The grand overarching points here are that perception is reality and history is bullshit.
Did you guys know we had a president named Grover!?
Twice! He was POTUS 22 and 24.
Twice! He was POTUS 22 and 24.
Really all that matter at any given time are Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Reagan, and the current & last like 4 presidents.
And we only include Reagan in that category because of our proximity to him in history. His overall ranking will fall as time goes on, but it will also be overall more positive.
FDR and Teddy were both pretty big deals. Hoover was instrumental in creating the Great Depression. JFK, Nixon, Truman, the only president to ever use an atomic bomb.
Andrew Jackson exiled an entire nation to Oklahoma.
Neveh gonna be President now
They haven't seen the musical. "You never gonna be president now"
Alexander Hamilton was the best president
Shhh! Someone will spin this into that 'Mandela Effect' garbage.
Relevant link from The Wire
To be fair, if he hadn't been killed he likely would have been.
The Reynolds Pamphlet!
"My name is Alexander Hamilton...."
Just you wait; Just you..... waiit
Jacksfilms has done his job.
Out of all the people I've met in my life, I think one person could list all the US presidents. I love history, but this instance of fact memorization adds nothing to my life.
What a bunch of idiots! Everyone knows he's a fictional character from a musical.
Thank goodness Hamilton was never president.
Honestly, until that musical came out, I wasn't even familiar with his name.
Upvote for honesty.