President Calvin Coolidge was born on the Fourth of July, 1872 in Plymouth, Vermont. Certainly an auspicious birthdate for a future President.
After graduating with honors from Amherst College Coolidge began his own trip up the American cursus honorum by practicing law with a private firm in Northampton, Massachusetts. He was elected governor of that state in November of 1918, and Vice-President of the United States under President Warren G. Harding in 1920, assuming the Presidency upon Harding's death in 1923.
Coolidge is often credited with a "hands off" approach to a booming economy that led to what we now call "The Roaring 20s" and which ended with the crash of the stock market on Black Tuesday in 1929. In fact, many pundits of the day often remarked that Coolidge's greatest talent as President was his ability to do ... nothing. He was also an incredibly thrifty man, and the aphorism "Waste not, want not" is often (and incorrectly) attributed to him.
In fact, he was remarkably conservative in nearly all aspects of his life, even speaking aloud only rarely, though he was a most accessible President, willing to pose for pictures in ridiculous getup.
To illustrate the man's brevity in speech, a friend of his once made a bet stating that she could get Coolidge to say more than two words at one time.
Coolidge's response when she told him of the bet?
You lose.