10 Facts about TR

1. He was so frail and sickly as a boy that his doctors did not know whether he would live to be an adult. He had severe asthma at a time when there were no good medical remedies for asthma.

2. When he killed his first buffalo in September, 1883, he did an Indian war dance around the carcass, and gave his guide Joe Ferris a $100 bill as a reward.

3. He almost worshipped his younger brother Elliott, who was healthier, better looking, more athletic, and more confident than the young Theodore Roosevelt. When Elliott died at the age of 34, Roosevelt was absolutely devastated.

4. Once he killed a mountain lion with a knife!

5. He nearly died exploring an uncharted river in South America. He lost more than 50 pounds in the jungle in the Amazon basin. The river is now known as the Rio Roosevelt in TR's honor.

6. Roosevelt drank coffee in huge quantities. He said the coffee was "good to the last drop." That phrase was adopted as a marketing statement by the Maxwell House Company.

7. President Roosevelt gave his permission for a New York toymaker to market the "Teddy Bear," but he did not think the fad would take off.

8. As a boy Roosevelt was intensely interested in natural history. He even opened what he called Theodore Roosevelt's Museum of Natural History in his family's New York City house. His room smelled of chloroform and he kept dead mouse specimens in the ice chest.

9. Roosevelt love to read. It is quite possible that no President read more books than Theodore Roosevelt. We know for sure that no President wrote more books.

10. Roosevelt was so full of life and energy, so enthusiastic about everything he did, so willing to get down on his hands and knees, that his wife Edith said she sometimes thought of him as her seventh child.