William Howard Taft was a large man. As president, he reached 332 pounds and a special bathtub was constructed for him in the White House after he got stuck in the existing one.

Taft graduated from Yale and practiced law in his hometown of Cincinnati before receiving several Republican judiciary appointments. He preferred the law to politics but wife Helen Herron Taft felt otherwise.

In 1900, Taft moved his family to the Philippines after President McKinley appointed him civil administrator. In 1904, he became President Theodore Roosevelt’s secretary of war and then the Republican presidential nominee in 1908 with Roosevelt’s full backing.

As president, Taft antagonized Progressives by not carrying out Roosevelt’s conservation policies and alienated conservatives by continuing Roosevelt’s “trust-busting” initiatives. In 1912, he was challenged by his one-time mentor Roosevelt, running as the Progressive Party candidate. The GOP vote split, making Woodrow Wilson the victor.

Taft returned to the law and, in 1921, President Warren Harding appointed him Supreme Court chief justice, the only president to serve in this role, one which he relished until February 1930. Less than a month after he retired, he died.