Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908. He was one of our former presidents, 36th to be exact, and was a major leader of the Democratic Party. He had four siblings. He had three sisters and one brother. His sisters’ names were Rebekah, Josefa, and Lucia whom were all older. His brother Sam Houston was also older. When LBJ was at the age of 19, he went to Southwest Texas State Teachers’ College which now known as Texas State University-San Marcos today. LBJ was involved in many extracurricular activities which included both the political and debate teams. Also he was editor for his school and graduated in 1930. As president and when LBJ signed the Higher Education Act he revisited his college.
When he went back he fondly took in his memories of the school. He said,” I shall never forget all the faces of the boys and girls in that little Wellhausen Mexican School, and I remember even yet he pain of realizing and knowing then that college was closed to practically everyone of those children because they were too poor. And I think itt was then that I made up my mind that this Nation could never rest while the door to knowledge remained closed to any American.-Lyndon Baines Johnson.
When LBJ stopped teaching he got into politics. Soon after he became senator and met Claudia Alta Baker. Claudia was also from Texas and then fell in love. On November 17, 1934 the two were married. LBJ crazily proposed to her after 24 hours of meeting her! He named his daughters with the same initials as himself such as Lynda Bird Johnson, and Luci Baines Johnson. He had also named his pet Beagle Little Beagle Johnson.
In 1937 LBJ ran for Congress as a representative of Texas. Later Lyndon became Vice President of Kennedy. After Kennedy was assassinated he became president. Some odd traits that Lyndon had were; He was the second tallest president after Abraham Lincoln, he was also known as cheap because his family was poor and had a large financial debt but he was a multimillionaire. Another odd trait was that LBJ would take important people into the bathroom to discuss important situations. One of his favorite things to do was take people driving at 90 mph while drinking scotch!
Lyndon died on January 22, 1973 suffering from his third heart attack out on his ranch. The reasoning for this was most likely because of his heavy drinking and stress. He was at the age of 64 when he died and was found reaching for his. I think that even though LBJ had some very odd traits he worked hard after taking Kennedy’s place once he passed.
Sources:
http://hdwebsite05.tripod.com/id6.html
http://millercenter.org/academic/americanpresident/lbjohnson
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