Calvin Coolidge was so famous for being silent that a White House dinner guest made a bet that she could get him to say more than two words. When she told Coolidge about her bet, he replied: "You lose."

Born in Plymouth, Vermont, on July 4, 1872, Coolidge was the son of a village storekeeper. He graduated from Amherst College with honors, and entered law and politics in Massachusetts. He became governor of that state. Next he became President Warren Harding's vice president.

At 2:30 on the morning of August 3, 1923, while visiting his father in Vermont, Coolidge received word of Harding's sudden death. By the light of a kerosene lamp, his father, a notary public, held the family Bible and administered the oath of office that made Coolidge president.

Throughout his political career, Coolidge became more and more conservative. That means he believed that the less the government becomes involved in its citizens' lives the better. Coolidge chose not to run for a second full term. By the time the Great Depression hit the country, he had retired. Before he died in January 1933, he confided to an old friend, "...I feel I no longer fit in with these times."