Tags



"If it's Tuesday, then geez, this must be Belgium."

Recently I heard a reporter for CNN make some sort of big deal about
how Barack Obama was the "First black U.S. president to visit Africa."

Well you know, given that President Obama is our first black president
period, that sorta means that he is the first black president to visit anywhere
at all — even Baltimore.

But that did get me to wondering about U.S. presidents and their
travels. I could hardly imagine George Washington visiting England, for
example. They might not have taken too well to that. Thomas Jefferson
visited France, but not while he was president. In any case I decided to
look a few things ups.

So here are a few pieces of trivia:

FIRST PRESIDENT TO VISIT A FOREIGN COUNTRY

Theodore Roosevelt, Panama, 1903.

FIRST PRESIDENT TO VISIT EUROPE

Woodrow Wilson, France, 1918.

FIRST PRESIDENT TO VISIT CHINA

Richard Nixon, 1972.

FIRST PRESIDENT TO VISIT ALL 50 STATES

Richard Nixon.

FIRST PRESIDENT TO VISIT ISRAEL

Richard Nixon, 1974.

FIRST PRESIDENT TO VISIT A MCDONALD'S IN WASHINGTON D.C.

Bill Clinton, 1993.

Okay, I'm just speculating about the last one.


The Big Mac and the U.S. have a short yet
significant diplomatic history together.