February 9

On the 9th in 1825 John Quincy Adams was elected the 6th president of the United States by the United States House of Representatives after no other candidate received enough votes in either the popular vote or the Electoral College in the hotly contested election of 1824. It seems that his opponents in the election, Henry Clay, William H. Crawford, Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun did not want to just play nice, and so, today, we only have to deal with two infantile candidates throwing tantrums in their bid to get free room and board in the White House. Adams is one of only two Presidents (Jimmy Carter is the other) to write and publish poetry. Adams wrote an epic poem about Henry II’s conquest of Ireland.