- Bush was the first president to publicly refuse to eat
broccoli. Broccoli farmers got mad and began sending truckloads of broccoli to the White House. His wife, Barbara, accepted the
broccoli, but Bush said, "I am President of the United States and I don't have to eat it.
- After telling the press he was an expert in hand gestures, George Bush gave the "V-for-Victory" sign as he drove in his armored limousine past demonstrators in Canberra, Australia's capital in January 1992. In Australia, holding up two fingers to form a "V" has the same vulgar meaning as the middle-finger gesture in the United States. The Aussie demonstrators were very mad, and they signaled in the same manner back at the U.S. President. Bush later apologized.
- Bush played first base for the Yale baseball team.
Bush, distantly related to Benedict Arnold and Marilyn Monroe, is also related to Presidents
Pierce, Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ford, and to Winston Churchill.
When he received his commission in 1943, he became, at 19, the youngest pilot then in the
Navy, flying 58 combat missions during World War II.
With Bush, the first president born in June, presidents have been born in every month.
- He was named after his grandfather, George
Herbert Walker, an investment banker.