A cool trivia quiz

[rhu]

An LJ friend posted the following quiz in a friends-locked post. With his permission, I'm reproducing it here because it's SO COOL:

There were 42(*) men who served as president before Obama. Here are the number of days they spent in office:

4,422 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,922 2,865 2,840 2,728 2,040 2,027 1,886 1,654 1,503 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,461 1,460 1,430 1,419 1,262 1,036 969 895 881 491 199 31

Can you match 'em up? I especially like "1,460" (how'd that happen?). I'm also surprised that barely half the presidents were either "2,922" or "1,461".

(*) Here I'm counting Cleveland once, and anomalies such as Cheney serving as "acting president" (while G.W. Bush was incapacitated during an operation) not at all.

Normal protocol for people commenting with spoilers is to use <font color="white">spoilery stuff</font> --- until HTML6 introduces the <spoiler> tag. :-)

Comments

[devjoe.livejournal.com]

1460 should be a president who served in February of 1800 or 1900, which was not a leap year.
Also, one of the ones which is a bit more short of a full term should be whoever was the last president to start his term in March, before they moved the start of the term up to January 20.

[acroarcs.livejournal.com]

Okay, here's what I've been able to reason out. 4422 is Franklin Roosevelt. The two-term (and close to two full term that don't pair off - see below) presidents are Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Jackson, Grant, Cleveland, Wilson, Truman Eisenhower, Reagan, Clinton, and GW Bush. I'll pull out the 2865 and 2840 in a moment. The one-term (and the close to one-term) presidents are Adams, JQ Adams, Van Buren, Polk, Pierce, Buchanan, Hayes, B Harrison, Taft, Hoover, Carter, and GHW Bush. I'll pull out the 1460 in a moment as well.

That leaves numbers that come in pairs. 2728 and 1654 form a pair that makes three full terms, which must be McKinley/T Roosevelt. Roosevelt served longer, almost two full terms, so he's the 2728 and McKinley is the 1654. There are three one-term pairs. 31 and 1430 are WH Harrison and Tyler. 199 and 1262 are Taylor and Fillmore. That leaves 491 and 969 as the Garfield/Arthur pair, but I don't know for sure which is which. I think Garfield is the 969 because I think he died in 1883, not 1882. That would make Arthur the 491.

Two two-term pairs are the easier ones. 1503 and 1419 are Lincoln and A Johnson, as Lincoln was assassinated early in his second term. 1036 is Kennedy (to get from Jan 1961 to Nov 1963), so 1886 is L Johnson. However, it's impossible for me to distinguish between the 881/2040 pair and the 895/2027 pair. One is Nixon/Ford, with Nixon the longer term, the other is Harding/Coolidge in some order. I will guess 2027 is Nixon, 895 is Ford, 881 is Coolidge, and 2040 is Harding.

Out of the two-termers, Truman is the 2840, as he started in Apr 1945. The only other reason I can think of for someone to be short the full two and not be paired off with someone else is if the 2865 is Washington and the first term started late, so that's what I'll go with as a guess. And finally, someone in the 1800s didn't get inaugurated in Inauguration Day because it was a Sunday. Inauguration Day used to be in March and was changed during FDR's tenure. Based on his and Truman's term lengths, I believe it was on March 5. The only one-term president who started a term in the 1800s in a year in which March 5 was a Sunday was Van Buren, so he should be the 1460. And now I will go and see what I have correct and what I have wrong.

[acroarcs.livejournal.com]

Joe's point about leap years is better than what I tried for the 1460, especially given the instructions, so I picked the wrong one-termer to be the 1460. Adams should be 1460, as his term included February 1800, and Van Buren is back at 1461. (Doesn't help that I was off by a day anyway. March 4, hmph. Used the wrong date for the current Inauguration Day.) This isn't as noticeable for 1900 because it's part of the McKinley/T Roosevelt pair. Also, got the Taylor/Fillmore and Garfield/Arthur pairs mixed up. And I have Harding and Coolidge mixed up. So eight wrong out of the forty-two for me.

[ianrandalstrock.livejournal.com]

Good quiz. I'll exempt myself from answering, because I know the answers, but this is a good one.