April 25, 1947: President Truman inaugurated the White House bowling alley. Truman, who said he hadn't bowled since he was 19, rarely used it (preferring to play poker, often with reporters), but White House staffers formed a bowling league. The two-lane alley (paid for by friends from Truman's home state of Missouri) was in the West Wing. Dwight Eisenhower replaced it with a mimeograph room in 1955. Another alley was built next door in the Old Executive Office Building. President Nixon had an additional one-lane bowling alley installed directly under the North Portico of the White House.
"The guns and the bombs, the rockets and the warships, are all symbols of human failure." —Lyndon B. Johnson
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