On July 6, 1946, George Walker Bush, the son of future President George Herbert Walker Bush, was born in New Haven, Connecticut. Here are 5 things you didn’t know about George W. Bush, known affectionately by many people as Dubya.
He Owned a Baseball Team Prior to his election as President in 2000, Bush held numerous other positions, including being an oil executive, an owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team, and Governor of Texas. After working on his father's successful 1988 presidential campaign, Bush assembled a group of investors from his father's close friends and purchased an 86% share of the Texas Rangers for $75 million. Bush received a 2% share by investing $606,302, of which $500,000 was a bank loan. When the Rangers franchise was sold for $250 million in 1998, Bush personally received $14.9 million for his $600,000 investment.
He Is An Artist Before he was president, George W. Bush was an oilman, an owner of a professional baseball team, and a governor. Not exactly the profile you'd expect of a budding artist. Nevertheless, an artist is exactly what Bush has become. After leaving office in 2009, Bush learned to paint. Although he initially kept his new hobby a secret, he now shares it openly in hopes that others will be similarly inspired to try new things. In 2017, he even published Portraits of Courage, a book of portraits he painted depicting American veterans.
He Was a Cheerleader Bush attended Phillips Academy, a boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, where he played baseball and served as the head cheerleader. He went on to Yale University after graduation, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in history. He was a cheerleader and a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon at Yale, serving as the president of the fraternity during his senior year. Other politicians who were cheerleaders in school were Franklin D. Roosevelt, Mitt Romney, Ronald Reagan, and Dwight D. Eisenhower.
He Is The Only U.S. President With an MBA Though you might not think of Bush as a brainiac, he is actually the only president in the history of the United States to have his Master’s of Business Administration. He first received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 1968 and continued his education at Harvard Business School, where he earned a Masters of Business Administration degree in 1975. He would become the only president of the United States to hold office with such accolades.
He Is Cousins With Hugh Hefner Bush's family history is a little more colorful than many might imagine. It turns out our 43rd president and the founder of Playboy are distant cousins. More specifically, they’re ninth cousins twice removed, sharing the same pair of great-grandparents. Another cousin shared by the two is former presidential candidate John Kerry.
