54 Facts About George Herbert Walker

1. George Herbert Walker was admitted to a hospital with an irregular heartbeat.

2. George Herbert Walker often used the "thousand points of light" theme to describe the power of citizens to solve community problems.

3. George Herbert Walker signed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act which provides monetary compensation of people who had contracted cancer and a number of other specified diseases as a direct result of their exposure to atmospheric nuclear weapons testing undertaken by the United States during the Cold War, or their exposure to high levels of radon while doing uranium mining.

4. George Herbert Walker was the only president to successfully veto a civil rights act, the job-discrimination protection Civil Rights Act of 1990.

5. George Herbert Walker began an effort to persuade the Democratic controlled Congress to act on the budget; with Republicans believing that the best way was to cut government spending, and Democrats convinced that the only way would be to raise taxes, Bush faced problems when it came to consensus building.

6. George Herbert Walker entered office at a period of change in the world; the fall of the Berlin Wall came early in his presidency, and the collapse of the Soviet Union came in 1991.

7. George Herbert Walker supported the Nixon administration's Vietnam policies, but broke with Republicans on the issue of birth control, which he supported.

8. George Herbert Walker was a young Conservative Republican in contrast to the aging liberal Democrat Yarborough, and campaigned against pending civil rights legislation, believing it gave too much power to the federal government.

9. George Herbert Walker was elected to Phi Beta Kappa when he graduated from Yale in 1948 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.

10. George Herbert Walker was honorably discharged from the Navy in September 1945, one month after the surrender of Japan.

11. George Herbert Walker became a naval aviator, taking training for aircraft carrier operations aboard USS Sable.

12. George Herbert Walker was reelected in 1968 but was defeated for election to the Senate in 1970.

13. George Herbert Walker moved his family to West Texas where he entered the oil business and became a millionaire by the age of 40 in 1964.

14. George Herbert Walker served until September 1945, and then attended Yale University, graduating in 1948.

15. George Herbert Walker is known for his funky sock collection, but there's much more to the former president than crazy footwear.

16. George Herbert Walker was on hand for the opening of the George W Bush Library and Museum on the grounds of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

17. George Herbert Walker was a fair student and had a reputation for being an occasional troublemaker.

18. George Herbert Walker narrowly won the Electoral College vote in 2000, in one of the closest and most controversial elections in American history.

19. George Herbert Walker was the biggest drug dealer in the world, he brought crack to America in military planes.

20. George Herbert Walker was elected as vice president in 1980 alongside President Ronald Reagan, serving in that office until 1989, when he successfully ran for president himself.

21. George Herbert Walker was elected to the House of Representatives in 1967 while living in the 7th District of Texas.

22. George Herbert Walker was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for bravery in action.

23. George Herbert Walker was sworn into office on January 20, 1989.

24. George Herbert Walker was the longest-lived president in US history.

25. George Herbert Walker made two appointments to the US Supreme Court: David Souter in 1990, and Clarence Thomas in 1991.

26. George Herbert Walker met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and in July 1991, the two men signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

27. George Herbert Walker began his time in the White House as Germany was in the process of reunifying, the Soviet Union was collapsing and the Cold War was ending.

28. George Herbert Walker was a two-term US vice president under Ronald Reagan, from 1981 to 1989.

29. George Herbert Walker has the Distinguished Flying Cross among his medals.

30. George Herbert Walker joined the Navy at the age of 18 after Pearl Harbor instead of heading on to Yale.

31. George Herbert Walker served as a combat pilot in the war, flying carrier-based torpedo bomber aircraft and a total of 58 combat missions.

32. George Herbert Walker began dating his future wife, known as Barbara Pierce at the time, after they were introduced at a Christmas dance in 1941.

33. George Herbert Walker was re-elected in 1984, with Bush serving as his vice president for both terms.

34. George Herbert Walker became the patriarch of one of the nation's most prominent political families.

35. George Herbert Walker took office with the humility that was his hallmark.

36. George Herbert Walker carried 40 states, becoming the first sitting vice president to be elected president since Martin Van Buren in 1836.

37. George Herbert Walker was first elected to Congress in 1966 and served two terms.

38. George Herbert Walker had to ditch one plane in the Pacific and was shot down on Sept 2, 1944, while completing a bombing run against a Japanese radio tower.

39. George Herbert Walker seized leadership of the NATO alliance with a bold and ultimately successful proposal for deep troop and tank cuts in Europe.

40. George Herbert Walker signed the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act to ban workplace discrimination against people with disabilities and require improved access to public places and transportation.

41. George Herbert Walker abandoned the idea in his second year, cutting a deficit-reduction deal that angered many congressional Republicans and contributed to GOP losses in the 1990 midterm elections.

42. George Herbert Walker held more news conferences in most months than Reagan did in most years.

43. George Herbert Walker backed Clinton on the North American Free Trade Agreement, which had its genesis during his own presidency.

44. George Herbert Walker lost his bid for re-election to Bill Clinton in a campaign in which businessman H Ross Perot took almost 19 percent of the vote as an independent candidate.

45. George Herbert Walker earned his economics degree in just 3 years and eventually moved to Texas.

46. George Herbert Walker says Bush played in the first two College World Series, and even met baseball legend Babe Ruth right on Yale Field.

47. George Herbert Walker actually invited the Yale baseball team to Maine just two summers ago.

48. George Herbert Walker is working relentlessly to find a solution to a difficult problem – one that will benefit Israel and the cause of peace in the Middle East.

49. George Herbert Walker worked throughout his life to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians and was instrumental behind the scenes in laying the foundation for the Camp David peace accords.

50. George Herbert Walker wrote about visiting the White House for Christmas.

51. George Herbert Walker was known as the power behind the local Democratic Party.

52. George Herbert Walker was educated at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit boarding school in England.

53. George Herbert Walker was descended from a Maryland family of slave owners.

54. George Herbert Walker was born on June 11, 1875 in St Louis, Missouri.