This may come as a surprise to most folks. I just found out about myself while doing research for another blog. Did you know that none of the United States Presidents in the first 61 years of our nation were actually born in the country they led.
Why? Because the first seven U.S. Presidents were all born before 1776, before the United States was an independent nation. The first President who could actually claim to have been born a U.S. citizen was the country’s eighth President, Martin Van Buren. He was born in 1782 in New York, which also makes him the first president elected in that state.Â
Before becoming President in 1837, Van Buren served as Vice President under Andrew Jackson Jackson’s endorsement helped elevate him to the nation’s highest office. Unfortunately, his presidency was marked by a severe economic downturn. He was defeated in his campaign for reelection by William Henry Harrison, who was born in Virginia in 1773, making him the last U.S. President to come into the world a subject of the British Empire.
Another interesting fact is that Van Buren first language wasn’t English—it was Dutch. His family’s roots in Kinderhook, New York, extended back before the nation’s founding, and even before New York was a British colony. Van Buren could trace his heritage to Dutch immigrants who settled in the Kinderhook area in 1631, when New York was known as New Netherland. Even after control of the colony passed from the Dutch to the English, Kinderhook remained an overwhelmingly Dutch community, and the young Van Buren grew up speaking the Dutch language until he learned English in school and became fluent in his teens.
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Frank
Frank Victoria is an award-winning author and screenwriter. He’s been an Amazon bestseller with his recent book,The Founders’ Plot, a political thriller for our times. He donates proceeds of his books to Tunnels to Towers and Fisher House, helping military veterans and first responders. His novella,The Ultimate Bet is available on his website and Amazon. Check out his new website:Frank M. Victoria
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