International Left-Handers Day - August 13th

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Handedness of Presidents of the United States

As of 2012, five out of the last seven presidents have been left-handed. Counting as far back as Truman, the number is five (or six) out of twelve. In the 1992 election, all three major candidates – George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot – were left-handed

Amar Klar, a scientist who has worked on handedness, says that left-handed people "have a wider scope of thinking", and points to the disproportionately high number of Nobel Prize winners, writers and painters who are left-handed. The left hemisphere of the brain generally handles language, but in left-handed people, this division is less pronounced. One out of seven left-handers processes language using both sides of the brain, compared with just one out of twenty in the general (predominantly right-handed) population, perhaps because of a relationship between dexterity and language. An increased amount of space dedicated to language could account for enhanced communication skills.

The American trend, however, is not replicated in other countries; only two British post-war prime ministers have been left-handed (David Cameron and James Callaghan). Winston Churchill has often been credited with being a left-hander, although he was not. No Canadian prime minister since at least 1980 has shown this trait.