Did you know Theodore Roosevelt wore a gold ring containing a lock of Abraham Lincoln's hair during his presidential inauguration on March 4, 1905 ? (It was a gift from Secretary of State John Hay—who had served as Lincoln's private secretary. Hay purchased six strands of Abraham Lincoln's hair for $100 after Lincoln's autopsy following the 1865 assassination.) (As a child, Roosevelt witnessed the Abraham Lincoln funeral procession. There is a photo of the young Roosevelt perched in a window watching the procession in New York City in April 1865 that surfaced in the 1950s. He and his brother were at his grandfather's mansion.)

Did you know he was the first sitting U.S. president to leave the country while in office (to visit the Panama Canal construction site in 1906) and the first to ride in a submarine ?

Did you know on Valentine's Day in 1884, both his mother and his first wife (Alice) died on the same day ? (Grief-stricken, he moved to the Dakota Badlands to work as a cowboy and rancher.)

Did you know Roosevelt was blind in one eye after a boxing injury in the White House ? ( He suffered a detached retina in a bout in 1908, and stopped fighting. He switched to jiu-jitsu instead.)

Did you know in 1912 when he was running for president with the Bull Moose Party, an assassin shot him in the chest right before a rally and because his thick speech manuscript and a metal eyeglass case slowed the bullet down, he insisted on giving a 90-minute speech before going to the hospital ?