On January 20, 2021, Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46th President of The United States. At 78-years-old (Biden celebrated his 78th birthday on November 20, 2020), he is the oldest president in American history.
Among the things that we know about Joe Biden include how he overcame his childhood stutter, his devotion to his family, and how managed to overcome two heartbreaking tragedies (his first wife Neilia and his one-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in an automobile crash a month after Biden was elected to his first term as a US Senator, and his eldest son Beau passed away on May 30, 2015, at the age of 46 due to glioblastoma).
However, there are probably a few things that most people probably do not know about the president. Read on for some Joe Biden facts that you probably didn’t know!
Along with becoming the nation’s oldest president, Biden also became the first president whose home state is Delaware. The president has resided in Delaware since 1953, after his family moved to Claymont, Delaware from Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden’s birthplace.
Joe Biden is the fifteenth member of an exclusive club of vice presidents who went on to become the President of The United States. Some of the club’s members, including Biden, ran for office after their terms as vice president ended. Others were unexpectedly sworn in as the President of the United States after the president’s resignation, assassination, or fatal illness.
In his 2017 memoir Promise Me, Dad, Biden states this about one of the benefits that came with being the vice president: “The vice presidency had lived up to Jill’s hopes of a new adventure for the entire family. One of the great privileges of the office was being able to take my older grandchildren around the world. It was an incredible educational experience for them, and not a burden for me or my staff.” Biden also mentioned that throughout his tenure as vice president, his elder grandchildren got to visit every continent except for Antarctica.
Back in 2016, then-vice-president Joe Biden declared to the crowd during a visit to the headquarters of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream: “My name is Joe Biden, and I love ice cream! You all think I’m kidding—I’m not. I eat more ice cream than three other people you’d like to be with, all at once.” During the 2020 election, Eater reported that the Biden campaign had even spent $10,000 on ice cream—though they were gifts to campaign donors.
Although Joe Biden’s a Democrat and the late Senator John McCain was a Republican, the two men shared a close friendship that dates back to the 2008 Republican Presidential Nominee’s time as the Navy’s liaison to the U.S. Senate (McCain wasn’t elected to his first of eventually six terms as a United States Senator of Arizona until 1986). Joe and his wife Jill were even present the night McCain met his wife Cindy at a Navy reception in Hawaii in 1979.
The friendship between Biden and McCain was so strong that when McCain died of glioblastoma (the same malignant form of brain cancer that killed Biden’s elder son Beau in 2015) in 2018, that McCain requested Biden deliver a eulogy at one of his funeral services in Arizona in 2018. The president also served as one of the 15 pallbearers at McCain’s funeral service at the National Cathedral in D.C.
Joseph Biden Sr., the president’s late father, a former one-time manager of a car dealership, gifted his son a green 1967 Corvette Stingray as a wedding present for him and his first wife, Neilia. The younger Biden still drives the car to this very day as his sons, Beau and Hunter, had the engine rebuilt as their Christmas gift to their father one year.
The president-elect remains ever the car enthusiast as he still subscribes to Car and Driver alerts on his iPhone.
Ahead of the 2008 Vice Presidential Debate, Biden revealed in an interview with Katie Couric that his favorite film was the 1981 Chariots of Fire, stating that, “The truth of the matter is the thing about it, there is a place where someone put personal fame and glory behind principles. That to me is the mark of real heroism, when someone would do that.”
Joe Biden is the second Catholic president in American history, following John F. Kennedy. In his presidential victory speech, he referenced the Catholic hymn “On Eagle’s Wings,” a hymn of significant importance for the Biden family and his late son Beau.
Of all the places one could imagine, Joe Biden was at the dentist’s office when Barack Obama called him to officially offer him the Vice President Position.
Remember the Barack Obama and Joe Biden memes that went viral after Donald Trump was elected President in 2016? It turns out that Biden was a huge fan of the memes, and his daughter Ashley said that her dad “spent an hour laughing at the memes” when she first brought them to his attention. In an interview with NBC News, Biden revealed some of his favorite ones: “A couple of ones I liked were ones where I was trying on Ray Bans and he’s lying on the couch and I turn around and I said, ‘Which ones do you like?’ And he looks at me and says, ‘Joe, Joe, come on, focus here…the one where he says, “Barack…I put in the drawer fake birth certificates.”
The memes were so popular that in 2017, Obama made a meme (see below) to wish his good friend Joe Biden a “Happy Birthday” on social media.
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