I drew on on “Facts about Presidents” to compile some more trivia. These trivia pertain to the deaths of presidents. Let’s start with this table, which lists the presidents in the order in which they died and gives the gap (in years) between their deaths:

The gap between the deaths of Washington and Jefferson is 26.55 years, and so on down the list. It happens that the first gap is the longest one. The next longest gap is the 21.25 years between the deaths of LBJ and Nixon. (Aside: When LBJ died in January 1973, Nixon continued a precedent established by Truman after the death of FDR and declared a national day mourning for LBJ. The declaration meant a day of paid leave for federal employees and contractors. Many said that it was the best thing LBJ did for them.)

The chart below depicts the death years of presidents. The years are plotted in a saw-tooth pattern, from left to right: row 1 (bottom row), row 2, row 3, row 4, row 5, row 6, row 1, row 2, etc. (If you’re uncertain about the interpretation of the initials, see the key at the bottom of this post.) The vertical green and white bands delineate presidential administrations. Washington’s is the first green band, followed by a white band for John Adams, and so on. (For a sequential list of administrations, see the table later in this post. For exact dates of administrations and deaths, see “Facts about Presidents.”)

Many administrations didn’t experience any presidential deaths. Those administrations with more than one presidential death are as follows:

• John Quincy Adams — Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

• Andrew Jackson — James Monroe and James Madison

• Abraham Lincoln — John Tyler, Martin Van Buren, and Abraham Lincoln (I consider the death of a sitting president to have occurred during his administration.)

• Ulysses S. Grant — Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, and Andrew Johnson

• Grover Cleveland (first administration) — Ulysses S. Grant and Chester Alan Arthur

• William McKinley — Benjamin Harrison and William McKinley

• Herbert C. Hoover — William Howard Taft and Calvin Coolidge

• Richard M. Nixon — Dwight D. Eisenhower, Harry S Truman, and Lyndon B. Johnson

• George W. Bush — Ronald W. Reagan and Gerald R. Ford.

What about the number of ex-presidents living during the administrations of sitting presidents? Lincoln, Clinton, and G.W. Bush are tied for the most living ex-presidents (5 each):

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KEY TO PRESIDENTS’ INITIALS: