By Union-Tribune

Originally published April 29, 2012 at 12:01 a.m., updated April 28, 2012 at 7:31 p.m.

Today marks the launch of Presidential Trivia, a daily feature by Richard Lederer that you’ll find on the front page.

Lederer is a San Diegan who has written 40 books about language, history and humor, including his best-selling “Anguished English” series and current titles such as “American Trivia,” “A Tribute to Teachers” and “Amazing Words.”

The founding co-host of the public-radio show “A Way With Words” has been profiled in The New Yorker, People, the National Enquirer and other magazines. Lederer also has been named International Punster of the Year and winner of Toastmasters International’s Golden Gavel.

The following are his highlights on what makes the U.S. presidency special.

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When George Washington became president in 1789, other national leaders included the king of France, the czarina of Russia, the emperor of China and the shogun of Japan. Today, no king rules France, no czar rules Russia, no emperor rules China and no shogun rules Japan. But the office of president of the United States endures.

“When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president; I’m beginning to believe it,” quipped Clarence Darrow. Very few nations have a governmental system that allows almost anyone to become the leader of the country, in this case, the most powerful in the world.

Our presidents have been highly educated and barely schooled: Woodrow Wilson earned a Ph.D. in political science from Johns Hopkins University, while Andrew Johnson never attended school but was trained as a garment maker and wore only suits that he himself had custom tailored.

Our presidents have been filthy rich and dirt poor, generals and civilians, professional politicians and utter amateurs, sober as a judge and drunk as a skunk, eloquent and barely articulate, handsome and plug-ugly. In the past century alone, the White House has been occupied by the son of a Presbyterian minister, a schoolteacher, a peanut farmer, a failed haberdasher, a former actor and the son of a failed California lemon rancher.

Virginia, Ohio, New York and Massachusetts have furnished most of our chief executives, but such widely scattered states as Vermont, Georgia, Tennessee, Missouri, Michigan and California have also sent native sons to the White House.

The framers of the Constitution could not have envisioned the power that the president now holds to influence world and domestic affairs. Our forefathers and foremothers could not have dreamed that presidents would be the subjects and objects of so much intense interest in their philosophies, opinions, policies and personal lives.

Historian Henry Adams, the grandson and great-grandson of presidents, wrote that the president “resembles the commander of a ship at sea. He must have a helm to grasp, a course to steer, a port to seek.” The voyages that our American presidents have steered on the ship of state are some of the brightest adventures that any nation has experienced since the dawn of civilization.

Starting today and extending to the inauguration on January 20, 2013, I will offer a daily question about our presidents on the front page, with each answer found inside the same day’s edition. I hope you will enjoy and learn from these fascinating facts about the 43 men who been captains of our great nation.