I like to do quizzes. My favorite site for quizzes is Sporcle. And I’ve always been into presidential trivia, ever since I was a young child and got a book with weird presidential facts at the Scholastic book fair. So I’ve been doing a lot of history and president quizzes, and I was having trouble with for a bit with the “identify these presidents by their pictures” quizzes. Some of the presidents look way too fucking alike. Grant, Hayes and B. Harrison are all beardy, all served in the late 1800s, and just don’t give you a lot to work with. So I wrote a list of the presidents and how to identify them/tell them apart (and some fun facts.) Enjoy!

(I’m also trying to memorize them all in order, but Millard Fillmore fucks it up. Who cares about Millard Fillmore?)

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How to tell the presidents apart:

1. George Washington: Oh no, Grandpa forgot to put his teeth in, but his wig is perfect.
2. John “The OG” Adams: Big hair, painted portrait, sideburns. Looks like he takes the weight of the republic very seriously.
3. Thomas “Rights for All Men Except The Ones I Purchased” Jefferson: Redhead when young. Handsome. Ruddy cheeks. Looks like Thomas Jefferson.
4. James “Mad Dog” Madison: Looks kinda haughty, not bad looking, painted portrait, clean-shaven
5. James “Portraitists Hate Me” Monroe. Clean shaven, short brown hair. Painters were not kind to him.
6. John Quincy Adams: Conservative muttonchops, close-cropped white hair.
7. Andrew Jackson: Looks a lot like the guy on the $20 bill. Dessicated when older; he was probably exhausted from ordering the slaughter of all those “Injuns” on the Trail Of Tears.
8. Martin Van Buren: Glorious white muttonchops and floofy white hair to match. The only president who spoke English as a second language, and the first born after the American Revolution.
9. William Henry Harrison: Clean-shaven. Kinda looks like Sam Waterson. Shortest presidential term ever because he gave the lonest inauguration speech in history while standing in the pouring, freezing rain and apparently that’s a dumb thing to do. Got sick and died.
10. John Tyler: Cadaverously thin. Clean-shaven. Way too thin. Like, seriously, hook a brother up with a sammy or something.
11. James “Don’t Knox It Until You’ve Tried It” Polk: Clean shaven, had a man-about-town look to him, hair is white and kinda mullety, but cool?
12. Zachary “Zed To My Friends” Taylor: Kinda craggy, didn’t look happy. Clean-shaven.
13. Millard “Seriously? I was a president?” Fillmore: Bland-looking. Clean shaven. Kinda chubby. Who the fuck remembers Millard Fillmore?
14. Franklin “Ugly On The Inside” Pierce: Youngish, handsome, but also like super racist tho. Popped collar like he was hot shit. Clean-shaven.
15. James Buchanan: Older, handsome, bachelor, lookin’ for the hottest ladies. Popped collar, but more in a dandy sort of way. Clean-shaven.
16. Abraham Lincoln. He kinda looks like the guy on the penny.
17. Andrew Johnson: Looks like a vagrant that wandered into the presidency and is pissed about it. Clean-shaven, but looks like he thinks baths are for sissies.
18. Ulysses Grant. Shortish beard, haunted expression. On the younger side when elected. Easy to distinguish from other beardy presidents because he looks like he sees the ghosts of dying soldiers everywhere. Drank himself to death.
19. Rutherford “Ooh My Little Beardy One” Hayes: ONE OF THE CURSED BEARDED ONES. Uh… whiter beard than….
20. James “Not a Cat” Garfield: Not a cat. Also beardy. Browner hair/beard. But seriously, what the fuck. Assassinated, clearing the way for…
21. Chester A. Arthur: Inglorious muttonchips. From Vermont, but Vermonters are fine letting New York have him.
22. Grover “Not a Muppet” Cleveland. Looks like Taft, less-fancy mustache, marginally less obese.
23. Benjamin “Whitebeard” Harrison: The whitest beard of all the beardy beards. Also kept his beard rather well-groomed. Beard.
24. Grover “Deja-vu” Cleveland: Looks like he was president twice.
25. William “Denali” McKinley: Always looks like someone poked him in the butt and he’s offended. Assassinated.
26. T-Roos: If you don’t know what Teddy Roosevelt looks like, you’re a dumb-dumb.
27. William “Heavyweight” Taft: Fat, fancy mustache.
28. Woodrow “World War Won” Wilson: Looks like he’s gonna smack you one. Sometimes glasses. Clean-shaven, stern. Looks like he led his country through WWI and the Spanish flu and he’ll have none of your shit.
29. Warren Gamaliel Harding. Eyebrows. In many pictures looks like he’s on death’s door (he was!) Listed his middle name because for some reason I know it. Tenure marked by SCANDAL!
30. Calvin “The Potomac Sphinx” Coolidge. Clean-shaven, looks kinda like Truman, NO GLASSES, kinda smug but like he earned it. Vermonter, and this one we’re proud of.
31. Herbert “Damn Dam” Hoover: Chubby, looks nice enough to name homeless camps after. Clean-shaven.
32. Franklin “Polio Sucks” Roosevelt: Looks more and more like he’s about to die (he was!)
33. Harry “The S is for Sexy”. Truman: Glasses, looks like a swell guy other than that whole atomic bomb thing.
34. Double-D Eisenhower: Looks like your cool great-uncle if he happened to be a 5-star general.
35. John “The F is for Fuckmachine” Kennedy: Callow and wall-eyed.
36. Lyndon “Let Me Show You My Penis” Johnson: Looks like a dirty old man.
37. Tricky Dick Nixon: Looks hungover from all the souls he drank last night. Shifty.
38. Gerald “Oopsie, I’m the President” Ford: Looks completely out of his depth
39. Jimmy “Iran So Far Away” Carter: Just a simple peanut farmer! Looks like the kind of guy who’d not only give you directions, he’d draw you a map and send you off with a piece of his wife’s prize-winning cherry pie.
40. Ronald “The Gipper” Reagan: Resembles a movie star’s corpse.
41. George “READ MY LIPS NO NEW TAXES” Bush: Tends to look smug, taken aback, or a combination thereof.
42. William “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is” Clinton: Looks like he speaks with a drawl when he’s trying to steal your woman.
43. George “Walker Texas Ranger” Bush: Like an adolescent chimpanzee who is very impressed with himself.
44. Barack “Seriously, how can you think Kennedy was hotter than me?” Obama: Voted “Best Smile”
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46. Joseph Robinette Biden: Looks like grandpa still walks three miles a day and builds his own fences.