James Madison, who stood less than 5'5" tall, was short even by the standards of his contemporaries. Some accounts suggest he weighed as little as 100 pounds.⁹

Among Dolley Madison's many improvements to the White House was the installation of its first bathtub.¹⁰

After the British burning of Washington, a bill calling for the permanent removal of the capital to another city was only narrowly defeated in Congress.¹¹

John Payne Todd, Dolley Madison's son from a previous marriage, earned a reputation in Washington as a playboy. President James Madison, at least in part in an effort to remove the source of embarrassment, sent his stepson to St. Petersburg as an attaché with the American diplomatic delegation. But the plan backfired—Todd ran up exorbitant bills on the president's accounts while chasing women in Europe.¹²