11. President Andrew Jackson struggled for two years with a 1,400-pound wheel of cheese which infected the entire neighborhood with its putrid stench
Providing the inspiration behind The West Wing‘s “Big Block of Cheese Day”, which subsequently became an actual annual event under President Obama, in 1835 Colonel Thomas Meacham elected to flaunt his legendary cheese-making abilities in presidential fashion. Creating ten cheeses for a public celebration in Oswego, New York, the largest of these was measured at four feet in diameter, two feet tall, and weighing fourteen hundred pounds. Dedicating the colossal product to President Andrew Jackson, Meacham boxed up the enormous wheel of cheese and sent it to the White House as his gift. Although presumably meant in kindness, Jackson was left at a loss precisely what to do with the generous offering.
Giving large pieces of cheese to friends, the ginormous cheese remained indefatigable, becoming an “evil-smelling horror” whose stench stretched for several blocks. In an act of desperation, the outgoing Jackson held one last public reception in 1837, inviting ten thousand visitors to devour the aging cheese. Although eliminating the physical presence of the cheese for his successor, Senator John Davis wrote the following year Van Buren had a “hard task to get rid of the smell of cheese, and in the room where it was cut, he had to air the carpet for many days; to take away the curtains and to paint and white-wash before he could get the victory over it”.