It's not a surprise that our 44th president is a lefty. We remember Barack Obama scribbling notes with his left hand during the zillion debates that led up to the 2008 election.

But we were reminded of this fact when we saw him sign important documents last week before television cameras as he hunched over a desk, almost awkwardly, to put down his John Hancock.

He's believed to be just the eighth left-handed president by the count of some groups -- not all agree that Ronald Reagan and Herbert Hoover were true southpaws. The others were James Garfield, Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

Roughly 13 percent of the population leads by its left, a fairly elite group that excels in the music, literary and artistic communities (including big hitters Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Picasso).

Other famous southpaws from across the spectrum: Paul McCartney, Marilyn Monroe, Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, Benjamin Franklin, Natalie Cole, Dorothy Hamill, Steve McQueen, Clarence Darrow, Jimi Hendrix, Jay Leno and SpongeBob SquarePants.

Lefties are smart, too. There is a higher percentage of left-handed people with IQs over 140 than right-handed people, according to research by Alan Searleman from St. Lawrence University.

Inventive, too. Four of the five original designers of the Macintosh computer were left-handed.

Among strange facts about lefties:

• They adjust more quickly to seeing underwater.

• They excel particularly in tennis, baseball, swimming and fencing.

• One in four Apollo astronauts were lefties. That's about double what's normally found in the general population.

• They reach puberty, on average, four to five months later than right-handers.

• In the United Kingdom, six out of 10 left-handers pass their driving test on the first try -- an obvious advantage where you drive on the left side of the road.

• Most left-handers draw figures facing to the right.

• They are better typists because the most-used letters -- A, E, R, S and T -- are on the left side.

"The Simpsons" is a venerable fount of left-handedness. That's because its creator Matt Groening is a lefty.

Each character has appeared left-handed at least once. (Believe it or not there are Web sites that track such things.) The Simpsons' next-door neighbor, Ned Flanders, opened up the Leftorium in the Springfield Mall that sold stuff for lefties.

The first real left-handed shop in the world was Anything Left-Handed that opened in London's West End in 1968. It's now offers a wealth of items for lefties online only at www.anythingleft-handed.co.uk/.

International Left-Handers Day is Aug. 13, a tradition started by the 19-year-old Left Handers Club in 1992. Each year the club, based in England, picks a left-hander of the year. Can you guess who won last year?

Barack Obama.

Sources: Left-Hander's Club at www.lefthandersday.com; The Left-Hander's Calendar; Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind.; and Post-Gazette research.