With everything that’s recently been said about impeachment, Gerald Ford was mentioned. Ford, a long-time member of the House of Representatives, was quoted as having said that high crimes and misdemeanors were whatever the House says they are.

That said, I got to thinking about Ford’s time in the White House and recalling a bit of historical trivia regarding both he and his vice president, Nelson Rockefeller.

While some of you old-timers may recall this, it may be new to the whipper-snappers out there. As a result of the 25th Amendment and the resignation of President Richard Nixon, Ford and Rockefeller made history.

Before the resignation of Nixon his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, had been forced to resign because of criminal problems back in his home state of Maryland. The 25th required that a replacement be appointed and that person was Gerald Ford. Thus, Ford became the first VP to have never been elected by the people or the Electoral College. Later, when Nixon resigned to avoid being removed through the impeachment process, Ford became the president, again without being elected.

That left the VP vacant and the 25th required that someone needed to be appointed to fill that vacancy. That somebody was the former governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller.

So, for the first and only time in America’s history, both the presidency and the vice presidency were filled by people who had not been chosen by either popular vote or the majority of the Electoral College. And there children, is your historical trivia for the day.