4

The Blueberry Jelly Bean Flavor and a Jelly Bean Portrait

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Love him or hate him, there's one thing you can't take away from Ronald Reagan: That dude was crazy about jelly beans, and it was adorable. During his presidency, he made it mandatory for jelly beans to be served in the Oval Office and on Air Force One. There was even a custom-designed holder for Air Force One so the jelly beans wouldn't spill if the plane encountered turbulence during a flight. That's a real thing that real Air Force dollars were really devoted to designing (we assume it cost six billion dollars and the lives of several brave test eaters). His obsession was so great that Jelly Belly actually created their classic blueberry flavor solely for Ronald Reagan's presidential inauguration in 1981, just so he could have red, white and blue candies with him there. Isn't that precious? That's like something a 6-year-old would write in his dream journal.

Via Nutsinbulk.com
"There's no time to make them in the shape of ponies, sir. You have a speech to give."

3

Portrait on a Carpet

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In 1997, when President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan was visiting the United States, he decided to commission a traditional piece of their folk art for the U.S. president. The most popular form of Azerbaijani folk art is hand-woven carpets, and that's cool: We've seen some pretty hot rugs in our time, if you know what we mean (those ones with pumas on them that they sell at swap meets; Jesus, get your head out of the gutter). But "a generally really awesome carpet" is not the direction they opted for; no, they figured to make it truly personal, truly special, this had to be a carpet portrait (yes, that is a thing). And for a presidential gift, of course, you want only your absolute best carpet portrait guy (yes, there are many) on the job. That was master weaver Kamil Aliyev. The man was already pretty famous for his carpet portrayals of many different leaders of many countries (seriously, this is a thing that has happened more than once, no matter how many times your brain straight up rejects that concept), so they entrusted him with the portrait of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Via Azer.com
"I love having sex on top of my face, how did you know?"

2

Two Grizzly Bear Cubs

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Right after the Louisiana Purchase, Thomas Jefferson began sending expeditions out West in earnest, to explore and bring back samples of that exotic, unknown land. Sure, plenty of explorers brought back boring stuff like maps or plant specimens, but not Captain Zebulon Pike, who decided to pick up two actual grizzly bear cubs.

Via Indiehorror.org
Some men bring bottles of wine to a housewarming party; Zebulon brings assorted super-predators.

1

1,235-Pound Cheese

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It was the summer of 1801, and John Leland of Cheshire, Massachusetts, wanted to give his president an appropriate gift of his esteem. So, as anyone in their right mind would obviously do in such a situation, Leland persuaded his entire town to chip in with him and make a 1,235-pound cheese, and then transport it to the White House. That president? Why, Thomas Jefferson, of course.

Man, there's just something about that guy's face that apparently makes you want to give him crazy crap.

Via Wikimedia Commons
"Think he'd like an overcoat made out of interlocking mummified human hands? Let's get on that!"

All that milk (allegedly from over 900 different cows) was molded in a local cider press to make the final result: a 4-foot, 4 1/2-inch diameter and 15-inch thick cheese wheel fit for a president. There may have been an ulterior motive for the gift, though, seeing as how Leland specified, upon handing it over to the president, that it was made entirely without slave labor. It also bore the somewhat ominous motto "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." That, uh ... that seems like an awful lot of effort just to send a passive-aggressive note to a guy, but then, this was before the invention of Post-it notes and Twitter.

Thomas Jefferson, presumably while frantically motioning for somebody -- anybody -- to please come and take the furious cheese-monger activist away from him, cut out a large hunk and handed it to onlookers.

Via Whha.org
"Hey, if you have time, could you make us a couple of tons of crackers?"

And, in possibly the greatest instance of "pretending to like a gift" in history, Jefferson kept the cheese at the White House for more than two years. It was even served in a few congressional dinners, up until 1803, when the last of it was eaten with the "mammoth loaf," an equally absurdly large loaf of bread baked for him by the United States Navy. And then, by all accounts, everybody there got hammered on what we are going to assume were comically oversized beers.

Photos.com
Incidentally, the word "bro" was born that night.

Julien Blower also writes for the parody news site The Leaky Wiki.

For more presidential insanity, check out 7 Badass Animals Presidents Have Kept As Pets and 6 Presidential Secrets Your History Teacher Didn't Mention.