What are the origins of this fun-filled festive custom?
Aaron Burr, the third vice president of the United States, is remembered for his role in two of the most infamous scandals in American political history. In a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11, 1804, Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Indicted for murder, Burr fled to South Carolina. In 1807, he was again in trouble after being arrested and charged with treason for allegedly masterminding a plot to attack the Spanish colony of Mexico. Burr was later acquitted, but his career was effectively over.
Elbridge Gerry served as the fifth vice president of the United States, though he was the Republican party's third choice for the position. He has the dubious honor of having the political practice of gerrymandering name after him, having been caught manipulating the boundaries of congressional districts to his own advantage.
John Caldwell Calhoun was elected vice president in 1824 under John Quincy Adams and was reelected in 1828 under Andrew Jackson. On both occasions, it was an odd pairing. While Calhoun was pro-slavery, Adams was a Northern abolitionist. Under Jackson, he became a dedicated champion of states' rights. But he later became embroiled in the Petticoat affair, where Calhoun's decision to ostracize a Washington woman accused of adultery so rattled the president that he dismissed his entire cabinet, with Calhoun first out of the door after he resigned his position.
As the ninth vice president, Richard Mentor Johnson served under President Martin Van Buren. Johnson's term was largely unremarkable except for a scandal that enveloped him after he took on one of his slaves, a woman called Julia Chinn, as his common-law wife. Johnson was also chided for believing that the planet was hollow and proposing an Arctic drilling expedition to reach the center of the Earth.
William Rufus King is the only United States vice president to take the oath of office on foreign soil; he was inaugurated in Cuba, due to his poor health, on March 24, 1853. King returned to the United States on April 17 and died the next day.
Sworn in at age 36, John Breckinridge remains the youngest person ever to hold the office of vice president, representing Kentucky and serving under James Buchanan. After a failed bid for the presidency in 1860, Breckinridge returned to Kentucky and urged the state to secede at the outbreak of the Civil War. Kentucky stayed in the Union and Breckinridge promptly joined the Confederate Army. Kicked out of the US Senate and later charged with treason, the former vice president escaped to Europe. He only returned to home soil after President Andrew Johnson granted him amnesty in 1868.
Hannibal Hamlin served as the 15th vice president of the United States during President Abraham Lincoln's first term. Hamlin had little influence in the Lincoln administration. In fact, while the Civil War raged across the nation, Hamlin spent much of the time safely ensconced with his family in Maine. His failure to engage with his boss cost Hamlin a second term, with Lincoln dropping him from the ticket in favor of Andrew Johnson.
Thomas Andrew Hendricks, the 21st vice president, is remembered not so much for his short tenure in office, from March 4 to November 25, 1885, but for his staunch opposition to African-American rights, voting in favor of segregation, and not protecting the rights of newly freed slaves. Hendricks died suddenly of a heart attack on November 25, 1885.
For a man who served two terms as vice president under Woodrow Wilson, Thomas R. Marshall remained strangely detached from his role. Marshall's lack of enthusiasm for the job was demonstrated by the animosity shown by him towards his boss and his refusal to attend cabinet meetings. Nevertheless, Wilson kept him on for a second term. Marshall's antipathy surfaced again after he steadfastly refused to step in for Wilson after the president was incapacitated by a stroke in October 1919.
Calvin Coolidge served under Warren G. Harding as the 29th vice president of the United States. Coolidge was another whose position required little of him, although he did attend cabinet meetings, making him the first vice president to do so. A quiet and sometimes sullen man (he apparently earned the nickname "Silent Call" for his hushed manner), Coolidge was thrust onto the world stage following Harding's death two years into his presidency.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's vice president, Henry Agard Wallace, unnerved colleagues with his mystical approach towards religion and his association with controversial émigré Russian theosophist Nicholas Roerich. Wallace only served one term as vice president, with the Democrats selecting Harry S. Truman as their vice-presidential nominee in 1944.
As early as 1952, Richard Nixon was being dubbed by the press as "Tricky Dicky" after it was revealed that the vice-presidential candidate had a slush fund maintained by his backers, which reimbursed him for political expenses. While this exposed Nixon to allegations of a potential conflict of interest, he survived the mud-slinging to reach the White House along with Dwight D. Eisenhower. Nixon's tenure as the 36th vice president was largely uneventful, with one notorious exception: the controversial and heated 1959 "kitchen debate" in Moscow with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev.
Spiro Agnew was mired in controversy long before he took national office as the 39th vice president of the United States under Richard Nixon. Investigations into bribery allegations during his tenure as governor of Maryland led to Agnew being fined and sentenced to probation. During his time in office, Agnew turned on critics of Nixon and the Vietnam War with venom. He was forced to resign during the Watergate scandal: his boss followed him out of the door the following year.
Dan Quayle's inexperience, political naivety, and numerous gaffes turned the 44th vice president of the United States into a laughing stock. He got off to a bad start when he compared himself to John F. Kennedy in the 1988 vice-presidential debate. From then on it went south fast. His reputation was effectively fried in 1992 after he altered 12-year-old student William Figueroa's correct spelling of "potato" to "potatoe" during a visit to the Muñoz Rivera Elementary School spelling bee in Trenton, New Jersey.
Richard Cheney is often cited as the most powerful vice president in American history. But that label won him as many enemies as it did friends. Serving under George W. Bush, Cheney was regarded as a White House enforcer, a shadowy puppetmaster according to Time magazine, who was behind many of the administration's most controversial policies, not least calling for the invasion of Iraq, a decision made based on the misleading claim that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
John Adams was the first person to hold the office of vice president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. He held the position in some contempt and famously complained, "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived." Nevertheless, he faithfully served George Washington for eight years before succeeding him as the nation's second president.
Theodore Roosevelt served as the 25th vice president of the United States under president William McKinley for six months in 1901, assuming the presidency after McKinley's assassination. As running mate during McKinley's bid for the presidency, Roosevelt campaigned relentlessly and the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory based on a platform of victory, peace, and prosperity. During his tenure, though, Roosevelt demonstrated a certain apathy towards the job. After McKinley's death, however, his attitude changed dramatically as the consequences sank in.
As the 43rd vice president, George H. W. Bush generally maintained a low profile. He stepped away from decision-making and avoided criticizing President Ronald Reagan. But in 1981, Reagan was shot and wounded. For a few weeks, Bush presided over cabinet meetings, met with congressional and foreign leaders, and briefed reporters. His eight years of hand-on training as vice president was rewarded with his election as president in 1989.
Al Gore served as the 45th vice president of the United States to Bill Clinton from 1993 to 2001. Such was the chemistry shared between the two men that Clinton involved Gore in decision-making to an unprecedented degree for a vice president. Early on in his tenure, Gore promoted innovative environmental and technology policies, interests he carried over beyond his time in the White House.
As the United Sates Senator from Texas, Lyndon B. Johnson is credited with helping a young John F. Kennedy win the South. As Kennedy's sometime brusque and rude vice president, Johnson was a forceful advocate of civil rights and science and technology research. He was also a clever and persuasive diplomat, traveling abroad on a number of occasions, which gave him some insights into global issues.
As the 42nd vice president of the United States under Jimmy Carter, Mondale became a trusted counselor to the commander-in-chief. Mondale traveled extensively throughout the nation and the world advocating the administration's foreign policy. He held weekly lunches with the president, a tradition that is still upheld today.
The Watergate scandal was already in full swing when Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 40th vice president in December 1973. He replaced Spiro Agnew, who was himself mired in controversy. Ford kept his head above the fray and did so admirably. He did, however, grant a full and unconditional pardon to the disgraced Richard Nixon.
Joe Biden was sworn in as the 47th vice president of the United States on January 20, 2009. He acted as a trusted confidant to Barack Obama, drawing on his considerable foreign policy experience to advise the president over two terms on a multitude of international issues. Biden himself assumed the presidency in 2021.
Serving as the 34th vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman's tenure was brief, from January 20 to April 12, 1945. His vice presidency was relatively uneventful, although he was the first in the position to have a Secret Service agent assigned to him. Truman had rarely discussed world affairs or domestic politics with Roosevelt, and wasn't aware, for example, of the ongoing Manhattan Project. Only after he assumed the presidency was Truman made privy to the top-secret program. As president, he subsequently authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Hubert Humphrey served as the 38th vice president of the United States under Lyndon B. Johnson from 1965 to 1969. During his tenure, he was a key player in the administration's civil rights policy and played a major role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was also known for his advocacy of liberal causes, such as arms control, a nuclear test ban, food stamps, and humanitarian foreign aid.
George Clinton served as the fourth vice president of the United States under both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, from 1805 to 1812. Noted as one of the most astute politicians of the era, Clinton was admired for his advocacy of states' rights and his opposition to centralized government.
Kamala Harris makes this list by virtue of the fact that she became the first African American, the first person of South Asian descent, and the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States. And according to The Conversation, she's on track to be one of the most influential vice presidents in history.
Sources: (Time) (CNN) (The Guardian) (Miller Center) (Polyas) (The Conversation) (History News Network) (History) (U.S. Department of State) (StrawPoll)
See also: American presidents and vice presidents who didn't like each other
Andrew Johnson was vice president at the time of Abraham Lincoln's assassination, and had only held office for a month or so before the president's death. Lincoln had chosen him for his running mate as a unifying gesture. Unfortunately, after assuming the presidency, Johnson, a former slavery supporter, vetoed the Civil Rights Act of 1866 (which Congress passed through override) and opposed the 14th Amendment.
The vice president of the United States holds the second-highest office in the executive branch of the US federal government. The role is essentially "a heartbeat away from the presidency," meaning that if a sitting president dies, is temporarily incapacitated, or is impeached, the vice president takes over. However, constitutionally, the main responsibility of the vice president is the role of president of the Senate. It's a position that comes with a lot of responsibility and, for the most part, those who've been tasked with the job have served with distinction. In fact, there are some who have risen beyond the call of duty. But there are also others who have let themselves, and their country, down.
Intrigued? Click through the following gallery and find out the strengths and weaknesses of vice-presidential picks.
The worst (and best) vice presidents in US history
The strengths and weaknesses of vice-presidential picks
LIFESTYLE History
The vice president of the United States holds the second-highest office in the executive branch of the US federal government. The role is essentially "a heartbeat away from the presidency," meaning that if a sitting president dies, is temporarily incapacitated, or is impeached, the vice president takes over. However, constitutionally, the main responsibility of the vice president is the role of president of the Senate. It's a position that comes with a lot of responsibility and, for the most part, those who've been tasked with the job have served with distinction. In fact, there are some who have risen beyond the call of duty. But there are also others who have let themselves, and their country, down.
Intrigued? Click through the following gallery and find out the strengths and weaknesses of vice-presidential picks.