George Washington

1st President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (April 30, 1789 - March 4, 1792) | 2nd - (March 4, 1792 - March 4, 1797)

Famous for:
Helping establish the nation; Being one of the founding fathers; Leading the Continental Army; Serving as the first US president;

Biography:
George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799) was an American Founding Father, military officer, politician and statesman who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. Appointed by the Second Continental Congress as commander of the Continental Army in 1775, Washington led Patriot forces to victory in the American Revolutionary War and then served as president of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which drafted and ratified the Constitution of the United States and established the U.S. federal government. Washington has thus been called the "Father of the Nation".

John Adams

2nd President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1797 – March 4, 1801)

Famous for:
Being one of the founding fathers; Defending British Soldiers after the Boston Massacre; Being a remarkable political philosopher; Father of future president John Quincy Adams; Rivalry with Thomas Jefferson; XYZ Affair; Quasi-War; Alien and Sedition Acts;

Biography:
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, attorney, diplomat, writer, and Founding Father who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before his presidency, he was a leader of the American Revolution that achieved independence from Great Britain. During the latter part of the Revolutionary War and in the early years of the new nation, he served the U.S. government as a senior diplomat in Europe. Adams was the first person to hold the office of vice president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. He was a dedicated diarist and regularly corresponded with important contemporaries, including his wife and adviser Abigail Adams and his friend and political rival Thomas Jefferson.

Thomas Jefferson

3rd President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1801 - March 4, 1805) | 2 - (March 4, 1805 - March 4, 1809)

Famous for:
Writing the Declaration of Indepenence; Sending troops to combat the Barbary pirates; Purchasing the Louisianna teritorry.

Biography:
Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Following the American Revolutionary War and prior to becoming president in 1801, Jefferson was the nation's first U.S. secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams.

James Madison

4th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (March 4, 1809-1813) | 2nd - (1813-1817)

Famous for:
He became known as the father of the constitution after writing some of the Federalist Papers; The War of 1812; His wife, Dolly Madison, saved the portrait of George Washington from buring during the war of 1812;

Biography:
James Madison (March 16, 1751 – June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison was popularly acclaimed the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights. Madison was born into a prominent slave-owning planter family in Virginia. He served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War. Dissatisfied with the weak national government established by the Articles of Confederation, he helped organize the Constitutional Convention, which produced a new constitution designed to strengthen republican government against democratic assembly.

James Monroe

5th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1 - (1817-1820) | 2 - (1821-1825)

Famous for:
Being the last founding father to serve as president; His presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings; He issued the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of limiting European colonialism in the Americas.

Biography:
James Monroe (April 28, 1758 – July 4, 1831) was an American politician and Founding Father, who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. He was the last Founding Father to serve as president as well as the last president of the Virginia dynasty. He was a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, concluding the First Party System era of American politics. He issued the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of limiting European colonialism in the Americas. Monroe previously served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh secretary of state, and the eighth secretary of war. .

John Quincy Adams

6th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1825-1829)

Famous for:
Being the son of former president, John Adams; He was known for being a great diplomat, having been ambassador to multiple nations in his youth; He is remembered as one of the best people to ever serve as Secretary of State; His stance against slavery;

Biography:
John Quincy Adams (July 11, 1767 – February 23, 1848) was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He previously served as the eighth United States secretary of state from 1817 to 1825. During his long diplomatic and political career, Adams served as an ambassador and also as a member of the United States Congress representing Massachusetts in both chambers. He was the eldest son of John Adams, who served as the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801, and First Lady Abigail Adams. Initially a Federalist like his father, he won election to the presidency as a member of the Democratic-Republican Party, and later, in the mid-1830s, became affiliated with the Whig Party. In his prepresidential years he was one of America’s greatest diplomats (formulating, among other things, what came to be called the Monroe Doctrine), and in his postpresidential years (as a U.S. congressman, 1831–48) he conducted a consistent and often dramatic fight against the expansion of slavery.

Andrew Jackson

7th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1 - (1829-1832) | 2 - (1833-1837)

Famous for:
First man elected from Tennessee to the House of Representatives; Became a national hero after winning the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812; Signing in the Indian Removal Act; Dismantled the Second Bank of the United States; The only US president to pay off the national debt.

Biography:
Andrew "Old Hickory" Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States, serving from 1829 to 1837. Before his presidency, he gained fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses of the U.S. Congress. Sometimes praised as an advocate for working Americans and for preserving the union of states, Jackson is also criticized for his racist policies, particularly regarding Native Americans. He was co-founder of the Democratic Party; the oldest active political party in the world.

Martin Van Buren

8th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1837 - 1841)

Nicknames: The Little Magician; The Red Fox of Kinderhook

Quote:

Famous for:
Only president to have spoken English as a second language; Political organizer who built the Democratic Party and guided it to dominance in the Second Party System; Father of the Two Party System; The Panic of 1837.

Biography:
Martin Van Buren (Dutch: Maarten van Buren; December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. A primary founder of the Democratic Party, he served as New York's attorney general and U.S. senator, then briefly as the ninth governor of New York before joining Andrew Jackson's administration as the tenth United States secretary of state, minister to Great Britain, and ultimately the eighth vice president from 1833 to 1837, after being elected on Jackson's ticket in 1832. Van Buren won the presidency in 1836 against divided Whig opponents. Van Buren lost re-election in 1840, and failed to win the Democratic nomination in 1844. Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an elder statesman and an anti-slavery leader who led the Free Soil Party ticket in the 1848 presidential election.

William Henry Harrison

9th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1841 - April 4, 1841)

Famous for:
The shortest serving president in US history; Being the first president to die in office; Causing a brief constitutional crises; Being the grandfather of the 23rd US president Benjamin Harrison; The last president born as a British subject in the Thirteen Colonies;

Biography:
William Henry Harrison (born February 9, 1773, died April 4, 1841), whose Indian campaigns, while he was a territorial governor and army officer, thrust him into the national limelight and led to his election in 1840. He was the oldest man, at age 67, ever elected president up to that time, the last president born under British rule, and the first to die in office—after only one month’s service. His grandson Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president of the United States (1889–93).

John Tyler

10th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1841 - 1845)

Famous for:
Also known by the Whig party as "His Accidency"; The first vice-president to succeed succeed to the presidency; The Webster–Ashburton Treaty with Britain; The Treaty of Wanghia with China; Signed a bill offering statehood to Texas before leaving office; U.S. President with the most children. 15 in total; His first wife, Letitia, was the first, First Lady to have died in the White House; The only U.S. president to have married while in office;

Biography:
John Tyler (born March 29, 1790, Charles City county, Virginia, U.S.—died January 18, 1862, Richmond, Virginia) was the 10th president of the United States (1841–45), who took office upon the death of Pres. William Henry Harrison. A maverick Democrat who refused allegiance to the program of party leader Andrew Jackson, Tyler was rejected in office by both the Democratic Party and the Whig Party and functioned as a political independent. President Harrison died just one month after taking office, and Tyler became the first vice president to succeed to the presidency. Amid uncertainty as to whether a vice president succeeded a deceased president, or merely took on his duties, Tyler immediately took the presidential oath of office, setting a lasting precedent. He signed into law some of the Whig-controlled Congress's bills, but he was a strict constructionist and vetoed the party's bills to create a national bank and raise tariff rates. He believed that the president, rather than Congress, should set policy, and he sought to bypass the Whig establishment led by Senator Henry Clay.

James K. Polk

11th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1845 - 1849)

Famous for:
Accomplishing nearly everthing he wanted to accomplish as president; Went to war with Mexico and won the war; Accuired the Oregon Territory, California, and the Territory of New Mexico; Lowered tarrif rates; Established an independant treasury; Established the Department of the Interior; Vowed to serve only one term and kept to his vow; Died only three months after leaving his presidency.

Biography:
James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of Jacksonian democracy and extending the territory of the United States. Polk led the U.S. into the Mexican–American War, and after winning the war he annexed the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the Mexican Cession. Though he is relatively obscure today, scholars have ranked Polk in the upper tier of American presidents, mostly for his ability to promote and achieve the major items on his presidential agenda. At the same time, he has been criticized for leading the country into a war with Mexico that exacerbated sectional divides. A property owner who used slave labor, he kept a plantation in Mississippi and increased his slave ownership during his presidency. Polk's policy of territorial expansion saw the nation reach the Pacific coast and almost all its contiguous borders. He helped make the U.S. a nation poised to become a world power, but with divisions between free and slave states gravely exacerbated, setting the stage for the Civil War.

Zachary Taylor

12th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1849 - 1850)

Famous for:
Being the first president to be elected without having previously held political office; The Clayton–Bulwer Treaty; Being a renowned war hero, having served in numerous battles over the course of four wars; Dying 16 months into his term of a stomach disease; His daughter, Sarah Knox Taylor, was married to Jefferson Davis until her death at 21 from a tropical disease;

Biography:
Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850) was an American military officer and politician who was the 12th president of the United States, serving from 1849 until his death in 1850. Taylor was a career officer in the United States Army, rising to the rank of major general and becoming a national hero for his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was to preserve the Union. He died 16 months into his term from a stomach disease. Taylor had the third-shortest presidential term in U.S. history. His administration had accomplished little aside from the ratification of the Clayton–Bulwer Treaty and had made no progress on the most divisive issue in Congress and the nation: slavery. Vice President Fillmore assumed the presidency and served the remainder of his term. Historians and scholars have ranked Taylor in the bottom quartile of U.S. presidents, owing in part to his short term of office (16 months), though he has been described as "more a forgettable president than a failed one"

Millard Fillmore

13th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1850 - 1853)

Famous for:
Being the last president to have been part of the Whig party; Instrumental in passing the Compromise of 1850; His insistence on federal enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 alienated the North and led to the destruction of the Whig Party.

Biography:
Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874) was the 13th president of the United States, serving from 1850 to 1853, and was the last president to have been a member of the Whig Party while in office. A former member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Fillmore was elected the 12th vice president in 1848, and succeeded to the presidency when Zachary Taylor died in July 1850. Fillmore was instrumental in passing the Compromise of 1850, which led to a brief truce in the battle over the expansion of slavery. Throughout his career, Fillmore declared slavery evil but said it was beyond the federal government's power to end it. During the American Civil War, Fillmore denounced secession and agreed that the Union must be maintained by force if necessary, but was critical of Abraham Lincoln's war policies. After peace was restored, he supported President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction policies. Fillmore remained involved in civic interests after his presidency, including as chancellor of the University of Buffalo, which he had helped found in 1846. Historians usually rank Fillmore among the worst presidents in American history, largely for his policies regarding slavery, as well as among the least memorable. His association with the Know Nothings and support of Johnson's reconstruction policies has further tarnished his reputation.

Franklin Pierce

14th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1853 - 1857)

Famous for:
Signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act; Enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act; Signing the Gadsden Purchase of land from Mexico;

Biography:
Franklin Pierce (November 23, 1804 – October 8, 1869) was the 14th president of the United States, serving from 1853 to 1857. A northern Democrat who believed that the abolitionist movement was a fundamental threat to the nation's unity, he alienated anti-slavery groups by signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act. Conflict between North and South continued after Pierce's presidency, and, after Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the Southern states seceded, resulting in the American Civil War. Pierce was popular and outgoing, but his family life was difficult; his three children died young and his wife, Jane Pierce, suffered from illness and depression for much of her life. Their last surviving son was killed in a train accident while the family was traveling, shortly before Pierce's inauguration. A heavy drinker for much of his life, Pierce died in 1869 of cirrhosis. As a result of his support of the South, as well as failing to hold the Union together in time of strife, historians and scholars generally rank Pierce as one of the worst and least memorable U.S. presidents.

James Buchanan

15th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1857 - 1861)

Famous for:
Being the only U.S. President to never marry, although he raised several of his orphaned nieces and nephews; His niece Harriet Lane acted as the First Lady during Buchanan's administration; The Dred Scott decision; Spending most of his presidency trying to find compromise between the North and the South; Advocated for State's rights.

Biography:
James Buchanan Jr. (April 23, 1791 – June 1, 1868) was the 15th president of the United States, serving from 1857 to 1861. Buchanan also served as the secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and represented Pennsylvania in both houses of the U.S. Congress. He was an advocate for states' rights, particularly regarding slavery, and minimized the role of the federal government preceding the American Civil War. Buchanan is the only U.S. President who remained a lifelong bachelor, leading some later historians and authors to speculate that he may have had a same-sex orientation. As President, Buchanan intervened to assure the Supreme Court's majority ruling in the pro-slavery decision in the Dred Scott case. He acceded to Southern attempts to engineer Kansas' entry into the Union as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution, and angered not only Republicans, but also Northern Democrats. Buchanan honored his pledge to serve only one term and supported Breckinridge's unsuccessful candidacy in the 1860 presidential election.

Abraham Lincoln

16th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1861 - 1865)

Famous for:
Leading the United States during the Civil War and eventually to victory; He promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; The Emancipation Proclimation; His Gettysburg Address; He averted war with Britain by defusing the Trent Affair; His assassination by John Wilkes Booth. He was also the first U.S. president to be assassinated;

Biography:
Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was the 16th president of the United States, serving from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. He led the United States through the American Civil War, defending the nation as a constitutional union, defeating the Confederacy, playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, expanding the power of the federal government, and modernizing the U.S. economy. Lincoln ran for president in 1860, sweeping the North to gain victory. Pro-slavery elements in the South viewed his election as a threat to slavery, and Southern states began seceding from the nation. They formed the Confederate States of America, which began seizing federal military bases in the South. A little over one month after Lincoln assumed the presidency, Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, a U.S. fort in South Carolina. Following the bombardment, Lincoln mobilized forces to suppress the rebellion and restore the union. His Gettysburg Address became one of the most famous speeches in American history. Lincoln closely supervised the strategy and tactics in the war effort, including the selection of generals, and implemented a naval blockade of the South's trade. He suspended habeas corpus in Maryland and elsewhere, and he averted war with Britain by defusing the Trent Affair. In 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the slaves in the states "in rebellion" to be free. It also directed the Army and Navy to "recognize and maintain the freedom of said persons" and to receive them "into the armed service of the United States." Lincoln pressured border states to outlaw slavery, and he promoted the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery, except as punishment for a crime. On April 14, 1865, just five days after the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, he was attending a play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Mary, when he was fatally shot by Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth.

Andrew Johnson

17th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1865 - 1869)

Famous for:
Being the only Souther Senator to not join his state in Succeeding from the Union. His wife and daughter would be ran out of their town in Tennesee for his decision; Assuming presidency after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; Opposing the Fourteenth Amendment which gave citizenship to former slaves; Favoring the Southern States after the war and being more lenient towards them; Being the first president to be impeached. He narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate by one vote; Only U.S. president to have served in the Senate after his presidency.

Biography:
Andrew Johnson (born December 29, 1808, Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.—died July 31, 1875, near Carter Station, Tennessee) was the 17th president of the United States (1865–69), who took office upon the assassination of Pres. Abraham Lincoln during the closing months of the American Civil War (1861–65). His lenient Reconstruction policies toward the South embittered the Radical Republicans in Congress and led to his political downfall and to his impeachment, though he was acquitted. Johnson implemented his own form of Presidential Reconstruction, a series of proclamations directing the seceded states to hold conventions and elections to reform their civil governments. Southern states returned many of their old leaders and passed Black Codes to deprive the freedmen of many civil liberties, but Congressional Republicans refused to seat legislators from those states and advanced legislation to overrule the Southern actions. Johnson vetoed their bills, and Congressional Republicans overrode him, setting a pattern for the remainder of his presidency. Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment which gave citizenship to former slaves. In 1866, he went on an unprecedented national tour promoting his executive policies, seeking to break Republican opposition. As the conflict grew between the branches of government, Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act restricting Johnson's ability to fire Cabinet officials. He persisted in trying to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, but ended up being impeached by the House of Representatives and narrowly avoided conviction in the Senate. He did not win the 1868 Democratic presidential nomination and left office the following year.

Ulysses S. Grant

18th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (1869 - 1872) | 2nd - (1872 - 1877)

Famous for:
Serving with distiction during the Mexican-American war and then leading the Union Army to victory during the American Civil War; Supporting the 15th Amendment, granting African-American men the right to vote; Prosecuting the Ku Klux Klan; Creating the first Civil Service Commission; After serving his second term, he was the first former U.S. president to circumnavigate the glove.

Biography:
Ulysses S. Grant (born Hiram Ulysses Grant; April 27, 1822 – July 23, 1885) was the 18th president of the United States, serving from 1869 to 1877. In 1865, as commanding general, Grant led the Union Army to victory in the American Civil War. Grant was born in Ohio and graduated from the United States Military Academy (West Point) in 1843. He served with distinction in the Mexican–American War, but resigned from the army in 1854 and returned to civilian life impoverished. In 1861, shortly after the Civil War began, Grant joined the Union Army and rose to prominence after securing victories in the western theater. In 1863, he led the Vicksburg campaign that gave Union forces control of the Mississippi River and dealt a major strategic blow to the Confederacy. President Abraham Lincoln promoted Grant to lieutenant general and command of all Union armies after his victory at Chattanooga. As president, Grant stabilized the post-war national economy, supported congressional Reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment, and prosecuted the Ku Klux Klan. Under Grant, the Union was completely restored. An effective civil rights executive, Grant signed a bill to create the United States Department of Justice and worked with Radical Republicans to protect African Americans during Reconstruction. In 1871, he created the first Civil Service Commission, advancing the civil service more than any prior president. Grant was re-elected in the 1872 presidential election, but was inundated by executive scandals during his second term. His response to the Panic of 1873 was ineffective in halting the Long Depression, which contributed to the Democrats winning the House majority in 1874.

Rutherford B. Hayes

19th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (1877 - 1881)

Famous for:
Being a staunch abolitionist; His bravery during the American Civil War; Ending Reconstruction; The Compromise of 1877; The Great Railroad Strike of 1877; Helping secure peace among the nations of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay after the Paraguayan War; His wife Lucy Hayes was the first presidential wife to graduate from college.

Biography:
Rutherford B. Hayes (born October 4, 1822, Delaware, Ohio, U.S.—died January 17, 1893, Fremont, Ohio) was the 19th president of the United States (1877–81), who brought post-Civil War Reconstruction to an end in the South and who tried to establish new standards of official integrity after eight years of corruption in Washington, D.C. He was the only president to hold office by decision of an extraordinary commission of congressmen and Supreme Court justices appointed to rule on contested electoral ballots. Hayes won the Republican nomination for president in the 1876 United States presidential election. In the disputed general election, he defeated Democratic nominee Samuel J. Tilden while losing the popular vote. Initially, neither candidate secured enough electoral votes to win the election, but Hayes prevailed after a Congressional Commission awarded him 20 contested electoral votes in the Compromise of 1877. The electoral dispute was resolved in a backroom deal whereby both Southern Democrats and Whiggish Republican businessmen acquiesced to Hayes's election on the condition that he end both federal support for Reconstruction and the military occupation of the former Confederate States. Hayes's administration was influenced by his belief in meritocratic government and equal treatment without regard to wealth, social standing, or race. One of the defining events of his presidency was the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, which he resolved by calling in the U.S. Army against the railroad workers. It remains the deadliest conflict between workers and strikebreakers in American history. As president, Hayes implemented modest civil-service reforms that laid the groundwork for further reform in the 1880s and 1890s. He vetoed the Bland–Allison Act of 1878, which put silver money into circulation and raised nominal prices, but Congress overrode his veto. He also helped make a series of peace agreements between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay after the Paraguayan War. His policy toward western Indians anticipated the assimilationist program of the Dawes Act of 1887. At the end of his term, Hayes kept his pledge not to run for reelection and retired to his home in Ohio. Historians and scholars generally rank Hayes as an average to below-average president.

James A. Garfield

20th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1881 – September 19, 1881)

Famous for:
Being the 2nd U.S. president to be assassinated while in office; His aptitude in mathematics. Garfield even published his own proof to the Pythagorean theorem; Being the only sitting member of the House of Representitives to be elected president; Asserting his authority against senatorial courtesy in executive appointments; Purging corruption in the U.S. Postal Service;

Biography:
James A. Garfield (born November 19, 1831, near Orange [in Cuyahoga county], Ohio, U.S.—died September 19, 1881, Elberon [now in Long Branch], New Jersey) was the 20th president of the United States (March 4–September 19, 1881). He had the second shortest tenure in U.S. presidential history. When he was shot and incapacitated, serious constitutional questions arose concerning who should properly perform the functions of the presidency. Garfield was elected as a Republican member of the Ohio State Senate in 1859, serving until 1861. He opposed Confederate secession, was a major general in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and fought in the battles of Middle Creek, Shiloh, and Chickamauga. He was elected to Congress in 1862 to represent Ohio's 19th district. Throughout his congressional service, he firmly supported the gold standard and gained a reputation as a skilled orator. He initially agreed with Radical Republican views on Reconstruction but later favored a Moderate Republican–aligned approach to civil rights enforcement for freedmen. Garfield's aptitude for mathematics extended to his own proof of the Pythagorean theorem, which he published in 1876. Garfield's accomplishments as president included his assertion of presidential authority against senatorial courtesy in executive appointments, a purge of corruption in the Post Office, and his appointment of a Supreme Court justice. He advocated for agricultural technology, an educated electorate, and civil rights for African Americans. He also proposed substantial civil service reforms, which were passed by Congress in 1883 as the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act and signed into law by his successor, Chester A. Arthur. On July 2, 1881, Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed and delusional office seeker, shot Garfield at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington. The wound was not immediately fatal, but an infection caused by his doctors' unsanitary methods in treating the wound killed Garfield on September 19.

Chester A. Arthur

21st President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (September 19, 1881 – March 4, 1885)

Famous for:
Correspondence with Julia Sand; Greatly expanding and modernizing the U.S. Navy; Signing in the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882; Appointing two supreme court justices; The Immigration Act of 1882; The Tariff of 1883; The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883;

Biography:
Chester Alan Arthur (October 5, 1829 – November 18, 1886) was the 21st president of the United States, serving from 1881 to 1885. He was a Republican lawyer from New York who previously served as the 20th vice president under President James A. Garfield. Assuming the presidency after Garfield's assassination, Arthur's presidency saw the largest expansion of the U.S. Navy, the end of the so-called "spoils system", and the implementation of harsher restrictions for migrants entering from abroad. Arthur was born in Fairfield, Vermont, grew up in upstate New York and practiced law in New York City. He served as quartermaster general of the New York Militia during the American Civil War. Following the war, he devoted more time to New York Republican politics and quickly rose in Senator Roscoe Conkling's political organization. President Ulysses S. Grant appointed him as Collector of the Port of New York in 1871, and he was an important supporter of Conkling and the Stalwart faction of the Republican Party. In 1878, following bitter disputes between Conkling and President Rutherford B. Hayes over control of patronage in New York, Hayes fired Arthur as part of a plan to reform the federal patronage system. In June 1880, the extended contest between Grant, identified with the Stalwarts, and James G. Blaine, the candidate of the Half-Breed faction, led to the compromise selection of Ohio's Garfield for president. Republicans then nominated Arthur for vice president to balance the ticket geographically and to placate Stalwarts disappointed by Grant's defeat. Garfield and Arthur won the 1880 presidential election and took office in March 1881. Four months into his term, Garfield was shot by an assassin; he died 11 weeks later, and Arthur assumed the presidency. As president, Arthur presided over the rebirth of the U.S. Navy, but he was criticized for failing to alleviate the federal budget surplus which had been accumulating since the end of the Civil War. Arthur vetoed the first version of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, arguing that its twenty-year ban on Chinese immigrants to the United States violated the Burlingame Treaty, but he signed a second version, which included a ten-year ban. He appointed Horace Gray and Samuel Blatchford to the Supreme Court. He also enforced the Immigration Act of 1882 to impose more restrictions on immigrants and the Tariff of 1883 to attempt to reduce tariffs. Arthur signed into law the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act of 1883, which came as a surprise to reformers who held a negative reputation of Arthur as a Stalwart and product of Conkling's organization.

Grover Cleveland

22nd President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1885 – March 4, 1889)

Famous for:
Being the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War; Being the first U.S. president to be elected for 2 non-consequetive terms; The Haymarket Riot; His honesty and integrity; Being a formidable policy maker; Being the only president to have been married at the White House.

Biography:
Grover Cleveland (born March 18, 1837, Caldwell, New Jersey, U.S.—died June 24, 1908, Princeton, New Jersey) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States (1885–89 and 1893–97) and the first president ever to serve two discontinuous terms. Cleveland distinguished himself as one of the few truly honest and principled politicians of the Gilded Age. In 1870 he was made the sherrif of Eyrie County and as sherrif he had to oversee the executions of criminals, and when a hangman was not present he himself would pull the lever that would hang the guilty persons, he did this not because he wanted to do this, but because he saw it as his duty to do so("The Person who passes the sentence should swing the sword"). His view of the president’s function as primarily to block legislative excesses made him quite popular during his first term, but that view cost him public support during his second term when he steadfastly denied a positive role for government in dealing with the worst economic collapse the nation had yet faced. Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and governor of New York in 1882. While governor, he closely cooperated with state assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt to pass reform measures, winning national attention. He led the Bourbon Democrats, a pro-business movement opposed to high tariffs, free silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to businesses, farmers, or veterans. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the time. Cleveland also won praise for honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. His fight against political corruption, patronage, and bossism convinced many like-minded Republicans, called "Mugwumps", to cross party lines and support him in the 1884 presidential election, which he narrowly won against Republican James G. Blaine. In the 1888 election, he ran against Benjamin Harrison, winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college and therefore the election. After his loss, he returned to New York City and joined a law firm. In the 1892 election, Cleveland defeated Harrison in both the popular vote and electoral college, restoring him to the White House. As his second administration began, the Panic of 1893 sparked a severe national depression. Many voters blamed the Democrats, opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and Silverite seizure of the Democratic Party in 1896. An anti-imperialist, Cleveland opposed the push to annex Hawaii, launched an investigation into the 1893 coup against Queen Liliʻuokalani, and called for her to be restored. Cleveland was a formidable policymaker but also garnered criticism. He intervened in the 1894 Pullman Strike to keep the railroads moving, angering Illinois Democrats and labor unions nationwide; his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democrats. Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term. By the end of his second term, he was severely unpopular, even among Democrats. After leaving the White House, Cleveland served as a trustee of Princeton University and continued to voice his political views. He died in 1908. Cleveland has been praised more recently for honesty, integrity, adherence to his morals, defying party boundaries, and effective leadership and is typically ranked in the middle to upper tier of U.S. presidents.

Benjamin Harrison

23rd President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1889 – March 4, 1893)

Famous for:
Being the grandson of ninth U.S. president William Henry Harrison; His administration bringing fourth unprecedented economic legislation; Faciliting the creation of the national forest reserves; Admitting six western states to the Union during his term, more than any other U.S. president; Sustantially strengthening and modernizing the U.S. Navy.

Biography:
Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father. A Union Army veteran and a Republican, he defeated incumbent Grover Cleveland to win the presidency in 1888 and was defeated for a second term by Cleveland in 1892. A Republican, Harrison was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating the Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland in the Electoral College while losing the popular vote. Hallmarks of Harrison's administration were unprecedented economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff, which imposed historic protective trade rates, and the Sherman Antitrust Act. Harrison also facilitated the creation of the national forest reserves through an amendment to the Land Revision Act of 1891. During his administration six western states were admitted to the Union. In addition, Harrison substantially strengthened and modernized the U.S. Navy and conducted an active foreign policy, but his proposals to secure federal education funding as well as voting rights enforcement for African Americans were unsuccessful. Due in large part to surplus revenues from the tariffs, federal spending reached one billion dollars for the first time during his term. The spending issue in part led to the Republicans' defeat in the 1890 midterm elections. Cleveland defeated Harrison for reelection in 1892, due to the growing unpopularity of high tariffs and high federal spending. Harrison returned to private life and his law practice in Indianapolis. In 1899, he represented Venezuela in its British Guiana boundary dispute with Great Britain. Harrison traveled to the court in Paris as part of the case and after a brief stay returned to Indianapolis. He died at his home in Indianapolis in 1901 of complications from influenza. Many have praised Harrison's commitment to African Americans' voting rights, his work ethic, and his integrity, but scholars and historians generally rank him as an average president, due to the uneventful nature of his term.

Grover Cleveland

24th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1893 – March 4, 1897)

Famous for:
Being the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War; Being the first U.S. president to be elected for 2 non-consequetive terms; The Haymarket Riot; His honesty and integrity; Being a formidable policy maker; Being the only president to have been married at the White House.

Biography:
Grover Cleveland (born March 18, 1837, Caldwell, New Jersey, U.S.—died June 24, 1908, Princeton, New Jersey) was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States (1885–89 and 1893–97) and the first president ever to serve two discontinuous terms. Cleveland distinguished himself as one of the few truly honest and principled politicians of the Gilded Age. His view of the president’s function as primarily to block legislative excesses made him quite popular during his first term, but that view cost him public support during his second term when he steadfastly denied a positive role for government in dealing with the worst economic collapse the nation had yet faced. Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and governor of New York in 1882. While governor, he closely cooperated with state assembly minority leader Theodore Roosevelt to pass reform measures, winning national attention. He led the Bourbon Democrats, a pro-business movement opposed to high tariffs, free silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to businesses, farmers, or veterans. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the time. Cleveland also won praise for honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. His fight against political corruption, patronage, and bossism convinced many like-minded Republicans, called "Mugwumps", to cross party lines and support him in the 1884 presidential election, which he narrowly won against Republican James G. Blaine. In the 1888 election, he ran against Benjamin Harrison, winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college and therefore the election. After his loss, he returned to New York City and joined a law firm. In the 1892 election, Cleveland defeated Harrison in both the popular vote and electoral college, restoring him to the White House. As his second administration began, the Panic of 1893 sparked a severe national depression. Many voters blamed the Democrats, opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and Silverite seizure of the Democratic Party in 1896. An anti-imperialist, Cleveland opposed the push to annex Hawaii, launched an investigation into the 1893 coup against Queen Liliʻuokalani, and called for her to be restored. Cleveland was a formidable policymaker but also garnered criticism. He intervened in the 1894 Pullman Strike to keep the railroads moving, angering Illinois Democrats and labor unions nationwide; his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democrats. Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term. By the end of his second term, he was severely unpopular, even among Democrats. After leaving the White House, Cleveland served as a trustee of Princeton University and continued to voice his political views. He died in 1908. Cleveland has been praised more recently for honesty, integrity, adherence to his morals, defying party boundaries, and effective leadership and is typically ranked in the middle to upper tier of U.S. presidents.

William McKinley

25th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (March 4, 1897 – March 4, 1901) | 2nd - (March 4, 1901 - September 14, 1901)

Famous for:
Last U.S. president to have served in the American Civil War; Served alongside former president Rutherford B. Hayes, who would go on to be a friend and mentor to McKinley; Presiding over victory in the Spanish–American War of 1898; Gaining control of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; Annexing Hawaii; Restoring prosperity to the country after it faced a deep depression; Being the third U.S. president to be assassinated.

Biography:
William McKinley (born January 29, 1843, Niles, Ohio, U.S.—died September 14, 1901, Buffalo, New York) was the 25th president of the United States (1897–1901). Under McKinley’s leadership, the United States went to war against Spain in 1898 and thereby acquired a global empire, which included Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. As a member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. McKinley's presidency saw rapid economic growth. He promoted the 1897 Dingley Tariff to protect manufacturers and factory workers from foreign competition and, in 1900, secured the passage of the Gold Standard Act. He hoped to persuade Spain to grant independence to rebellious Cuba without conflict. Still, when negotiation failed, he requested and signed Congress's declaration of war to begin the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which the United States saw a quick and decisive victory. As part of the peace settlement, Spain turned over to the United States its main overseas colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, while Cuba was promised independence but remained under the control of the United States Army until May 20, 1902. The United States annexed the independent Republic of Hawaii in 1898, and it became a United States territory. McKinley defeated Bryan again in the 1900 presidential election in a campaign focused on imperialism, protectionism, and free silver. His second term ended early when he was shot on September 6, 1901, by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist. McKinley died eight days later and was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. As an innovator of American interventionism and pro-business sentiment, McKinley is generally ranked as an above-average president. However, his take-over of the Philippines is often criticized as an act of imperialism. His popularity was soon overshadowed by Roosevelt's.

Theodore Roosevelt

26th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (September 14, 1901 - March 4, 1904) | 2nd - (March 4, 1904 - March 4, 1909)

Famous for:
Being the youngest person to have become U.S. president; Forming the Rough Riders; The Square Deal; His conservation efforts; Beginning construction of the Panama Canal; Expanding the Navy; His successful efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War; Being the first U.S. president to have won a Nobel Peace Prize, notably for his efforts helping end the Russo-Japanese war.

Biography:
Theodore Roosevelt (born October 27, 1858, New York, New York, U.S.—died January 6, 1919, Oyster Bay, New York) was the 26th president of the United States (1901–09) and a writer, naturalist, and soldier. He expanded the powers of the presidency and of the federal government in support of the public interest in conflicts between big business and labor and steered the nation toward an active role in world politics, particularly in Europe and Asia. A sickly child with debilitating asthma, Roosevelt overcame health problems through a strenuous lifestyle. He was homeschooled and began a lifelong naturalist avocation before attending Harvard College. His book The Naval War of 1812 established his reputation as a historian and popular writer. Roosevelt became the leader of the reform faction of Republicans in the New York State Legislature. His first wife Alice Hathaway Lee Roosevelt and mother Martha Bulloch Roosevelt died on the same night, devastating him psychologically. He recuperated by buying and operating a cattle ranch in the Dakotas. Roosevelt served as assistant secretary of the Navy under McKinley, and in 1898 helped plan the successful naval war against Spain. He resigned to help form and lead the Rough Riders, a unit that fought the Spanish Army in Cuba to great publicity. Returning a war hero, Roosevelt was elected New York's governor in 1898. The New York state party leadership disliked his ambitious agenda and convinced McKinley to choose him as his running mate in the 1900 presidential election; the McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won a landslide victory. Roosevelt assumed the presidency aged 42, and is the youngest person to become U.S. president. As a leader of the progressive movement, he championed his "Square Deal" domestic policies, which called for fairness for all citizens, breaking bad trusts, regulating railroads, and pure food and drugs. Roosevelt prioritized conservation and established national parks, forests, and monuments to preserve U.S. natural resources. In foreign policy, he focused on Central America, beginning construction of the Panama Canal. Roosevelt expanded the Navy and sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour to project naval power. His successful efforts to end the Russo-Japanese War won him the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, the first American to win a Nobel Prize. Roosevelt was elected to a full term in 1904 and groomed William Howard Taft to succeed him in 1908. Roosevelt grew frustrated with Taft's brand of conservatism and tried, and failed, to win the 1912 Republican presidential nomination. He founded the new Progressive Party and ran in 1912; the split allowed the Democratic Woodrow Wilson to win. Roosevelt led a four-month expedition to the Amazon basin, where he nearly died of tropical disease. During World War I, he criticized Wilson for keeping the U.S. out; his offer to lead volunteers to France was rejected. Roosevelt's health deteriorated and he died in 1919. Polls of historians and political scientists rank him as one of the greatest American presidents.

William Howard Taft

27th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1909 – March 4, 1913)

Famous for:
Being the only person to have held the office of the presidency and the office of chief justice; Always preferred law to politics; Being on a commission to organize civilian government in the Philippines. Successfully arguing for the construction of the U.S. Supreme Court Building. He felt that the Supreme Court should distance itself from Congress, since it was a separate branch of the government; Being the heavyiest U.S. president, weighing over 330 pounds(149 Kilograms).

Biography:
William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857 – March 8, 1930) served from 1909 to 1913 as the 27th president of the United States and from 1921 to 1930 as the tenth chief justice of the United States, the only person to have held both offices. Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio. His father, Alphonso Taft, was a U.S. attorney general and secretary of war. Taft attended Yale and joined Skull and Bones, of which his father was a founding member. After becoming a lawyer, Taft was appointed a judge while still in his twenties. He continued a rapid rise, being named solicitor general and a judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1901, President William McKinley appointed Taft civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904, President Theodore Roosevelt made him Secretary of War, and he became Roosevelt's hand-picked successor. Despite his personal ambition to become chief justice, Taft declined repeated offers of appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States, believing his political work to be more important. With Roosevelt's help, Taft had little opposition for the Republican nomination for president in 1908 and easily defeated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency in that November's election. As president, he focused on East Asia more than European affairs and repeatedly intervened to prop up or remove Latin American governments. Taft sought reductions to trade tariffs, then a major source of governmental income, but the resulting bill was heavily influenced by special interests. His administration was filled with conflict between the Republican Party's conservative wing, with which Taft often sympathized, and its progressive wing, toward which Roosevelt moved more and more. Controversies over conservation and antitrust cases filed by the Taft administration served to further separate the two men. The 1912 presidential election was a three-way race, as Roosevelt challenged Taft for renomination. Taft used his control of the party machinery to gain a bare majority of delegates and Roosevelt bolted the party. The split left Taft with little chance of reelection, and he took only Utah and Vermont in his loss to Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson. After leaving office, Taft returned to Yale as a professor, continuing his political activity and working against war through the League to Enforce Peace. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft chief justice, an office he had long sought. Chief Justice Taft was a conservative on business issues, and under him there were advances in individual rights. In poor health, he resigned in February 1930, and died the following month. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the first president and first Supreme Court justice to be interred there. Taft is generally listed near the middle in historians' rankings of U.S. presidents.

Woodrow Wilson

28th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (March 4, 1913 - March 4, 1917) | 2nd - (March 4, 1917 - March 4, 1921)

Famous for:
His foreign policy, later known as Wilsonianism; Leading architect of the League of Nations; Authorizing the imposition of segragation in the federal bureaucracy; Opposing women's suffrage; His New Freedom agenda; Leading the U.S. during Worldl War 1.

Biography:
Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only Democrat to serve as president during the Progressive Era when Republicans dominated the presidency and legislative branches. As president, Wilson changed the nation's economic policies and led the United States into World War I. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism. Born in Staunton, Virginia, Wilson grew up in the Southern United States during the American Civil War and Reconstruction era. After earning a Ph.D. in history and political science from Johns Hopkins University, Wilson taught at several colleges prior to being appointed president of Princeton University, where he emerged as a prominent spokesman for progressivism in higher education. Wilson served as governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913, during which he broke with party bosses and won the passage of several progressive reforms. In the 1912 election, Wilson defeated incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and third-party nominee Theodore Roosevelt, becoming the first Southerner to win the presidency since the 1848 election. During his first year as president, Wilson authorized the widespread imposition of segregation inside the federal bureaucracy and his opposition to women's suffrage drew protests. His first term was largely devoted to pursuing passage of his progressive New Freedom domestic agenda. His first major priority was the Revenue Act of 1913, which began the modern income tax, and the Federal Reserve Act, which created the Federal Reserve System. At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the U.S. declared neutrality as Wilson tried to negotiate a peace between the Allied and Central Powers. Wilson was narrowly re-elected in the 1916 election, defeating Republican nominee Charles Evans Hughes. In April 1917, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of war against Germany in response to its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare that sank American merchant ships. Wilson concentrated on diplomacy, issuing the Fourteen Points that the Allies and Germany accepted as a basis for post-war peace. He wanted the off-year elections of 1918 to be a referendum endorsing his policies but instead the Republicans took control of Congress. After the Allied victory in November 1918, Wilson attended the Paris Peace Conference. Wilson successfully advocated for the establishment of a multinational organization, the League of Nations, which was incorporated into the Treaty of Versailles that he signed; back home, he rejected a Republican compromise that would have allowed the Senate to ratify the Versailles Treaty and join the League. Wilson had intended to seek a third term in office but had a stroke in October 1919 that left him incapacitated. His wife and his physician controlled Wilson, and no significant decisions were made. Meanwhile, his policies alienated German- and Irish-American Democrats and the Republicans won a landslide in the 1920 election. In February 1924, he died at age 67. Into the 21st century, historians have criticized Wilson for supporting racial segregation, although they continue to rank Wilson as an above-average president for his accomplishments in office. Conservatives in particular have criticized him for expanding the federal government, while others have praised his weakening the power of large corporations and have credited him for establishing modern liberalism.

Warren G. Harding

29th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1921 – August 2, 1923)

Famous for:
Being one of the most popular U.S. presidents while in office, though this changed after his death when numerous scandals were uncovered; 5th U.S. president to die while president. He died of a heart attack while in San Francisco; Teapot Dome scandal; Justice Department scandal; Veteran's Bureau scandal; His affair to Nan Britton;

Biography:
Warren Gamaliel Harding (November 2, 1865 – August 2, 1923) was the 29th president of the United States, serving from 1921 until his death in 1923. A member of the Republican Party, he was one of the most popular sitting U.S. presidents while in office. After his death, a number of scandals were exposed, including Teapot Dome, as well as an extramarital affair with Nan Britton, which tarnished his reputation. Harding lived in rural Ohio all his life, except when political service took him elsewhere. As a young man, he bought The Marion Star and built it into a successful newspaper. Harding served in the Ohio State Senate from 1900 to 1904, and was lieutenant governor for two years. He was defeated for governor in 1910, but was elected to the United States Senate in 1914—the state's first direct election for that office. Harding ran for the Republican nomination for president in 1920, but was considered a long shot before the convention. When the leading candidates could not garner a majority, and the convention deadlocked, support for Harding increased, and he was nominated on the tenth ballot. He conducted a front porch campaign, remaining mostly in Marion and allowing people to come to him. He promised a return to normalcy of the pre–World War I period, and defeated Democratic nominee James M. Cox in a landslide to become the first sitting senator elected president. Harding appointed a number of respected figures to his cabinet, including Andrew Mellon at Treasury, Herbert Hoover at Commerce, and Charles Evans Hughes at the State Department. A major foreign policy achievement came with the Washington Naval Conference of 1921–1922, in which the world's major naval powers agreed on a naval limitations program that lasted a decade. Harding released political prisoners who had been arrested for their opposition to World War I. In 1923, Harding died of a heart attack in San Francisco while on a western tour, and was succeeded by Vice President Calvin Coolidge. Harding died as one of the most popular presidents in history. The subsequent exposure of scandals eroded his popular regard, as did revelations of extramarital affairs. Harding's interior secretary, Albert B. Fall, and his attorney general, Harry Daugherty, were each later tried for corruption in office; Fall was convicted while Daugherty was not, and these trials greatly damaged Harding's posthumous reputation. In historical rankings of U.S. presidents during the decades after his term in office, Harding was often rated among the worst. In the subsequent decades, some historians have begun to reassess the conventional views of Harding's historical record in office.

Calvin Coolidge

30th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (August 2, 1923 - March 4, 1924) | 2nd - (March 4, 1924 - March 4, 1929)

Famous for:
Restoring public confidence in the White House after the Harding administration's many scandals; Signing into law the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924; Overseeing the U.S. during the "Roaring Twenties".

Biography:
Calvin Coolidge (born John Calvin Coolidge Jr. July 4, 1872 – January 5, 1933) was the 30th president of the United States, serving from 1923 to 1929. A Republican lawyer from Massachusetts, he previously served as the 29th vice president from 1921 to 1923 under President Warren G. Harding, and as the 48th governor of Massachusetts from 1919 to 1921. Coolidge gained a reputation as a small-government conservative with a taciturn personality and dry sense of humor that earned him the nickname "Silent Cal". Coolidge began his career as a member of the Massachusetts State House. He rose up the ranks of Massachusetts politics and was elected governor in 1918. As governor, Coolidge ran on the record of fiscal conservatism, strong support for women's suffrage, and vague opposition to Prohibition.[2] His prompt and effective response to the Boston police strike of 1919 thrust him into the national spotlight as a man of decisive action. The following year, the Republican Party nominated Coolidge as the running mate to Senator Warren G. Harding in the 1920 presidential election, which they won in a landslide. Coolidge served as vice president until Harding's death in 1923, after which he assumed the presidency. During his presidency, Coolidge restored public confidence in the White House after the Harding administration's many scandals. He signed into law the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, which granted U.S. citizenship to all Native Americans, and oversaw a period of rapid and expansive economic growth known as the "Roaring Twenties", leaving office with considerable popularity. He was known for his hands-off governing approach and pro-business stance; biographer Claude Fuess wrote: "He embodied the spirit and hopes of the middle class, could interpret their longings and express their opinions. That he did represent the genius of the average is the most convincing proof of his strength.". Coolidge chose not to run again in 1928, remarking that ten years as president would be "longer than any other man has had it—too long!". Coolidge is widely admired for his stalwart support of racial equality during a period of heightened racial tension,[5] and is highly regarded by advocates of smaller government and laissez-faire economics; supporters of an active central government generally view him far less favorably. His critics argue that he failed to use the country's economic boom to help struggling farmers and workers in other flailing industries,[6] and there is still much debate among historians about the extent to which Coolidge's economic policies contributed to the onset of the Great Depression, which began shortly after he left office.[7] Scholars have ranked Coolidge in the lower half of U.S. presidents.

Herbert Hoover

31st President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (March 4, 1929 - March 4, 1933)

Famous for:
His humanitarian actions before becomming president; His lackluster Great Depression policies; The Mexican Repatriation; The Hoover Dam; The Hoover Commission.

Biography:
Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. A wealthy mining engineer before his presidency, Hoover led the wartime Commission for Relief in Belgium and was the director of the U.S. Food Administration, followed by post-war relief of Europe. As a member of the Republican Party, he served as the U.S. Secretary of Commerce from 1921 to 1928 before being elected president in 1928. His presidency was dominated by the Great Depression, and his policies and methods to combat it were seen as lackluster. Amid his unpopularity, he decisively lost reelection to Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932. Born to a Quaker family in West Branch, Iowa, Hoover grew up in Oregon. He was one of the first graduates of the new Stanford University in 1895. Hoover took a position with a London-based mining company working in Australia and China. He rapidly became a wealthy mining engineer. In 1914, the outbreak of World War I, he organized and headed the Commission for Relief in Belgium, an international relief organization that provided food to occupied Belgium. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson appointed Hoover to lead the Food Administration. He became famous as his country's "food czar". After the war, Hoover led the American Relief Administration, which provided food to the starving millions in Central and Eastern Europe, especially Russia. Hoover's wartime service made him a favorite of many progressives, and he unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination in the 1920 U.S. presidential election. Hoover served as the secretary of commerce under Presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. Hoover was an unusually active and visible Cabinet member, becoming known as "Secretary of Commerce and Under-Secretary of all other departments." He was influential in the development of air travel and radio. Hoover led the federal response to the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927. He won the Republican nomination in the 1928 presidential election and defeated Democratic candidate Al Smith in a landslide. In 1929, Hoover assumed the presidency. However, during his first year in office, the stock market crashed, signaling the onset of the Great Depression, which dominated Hoover's presidency until its end. His response to the depression was widely seen as lackluster and he scapegoated Mexican Americans for the economic crisis. Approximately one million Mexican Americans were forcibly "repatriated" to Mexico in a forced migration campaign known as the Mexican Repatriation even though a majority of them were born in the United States. In the midst of the Great Depression, he was decisively defeated by Democratic nominee Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1932 presidential election. Hoover's retirement was over 31 years long, one of the longest presidential retirements. He authored numerous works and became increasingly conservative in retirement. He strongly criticized Roosevelt's foreign policy and the New Deal. In the 1940s and 1950s, public opinion of Hoover improved, largely due to his service in various assignments for Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower, including chairing the influential Hoover Commission. Critical assessments of his presidency by historians and political scientists generally rank him as a significantly below-average president, although Hoover has received praise for his actions as a humanitarian and public official.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

32nd President

Terms Served: 4

Terms: 1st - (March 4, 1933 - March 4, 1936) | 2nd (March 4, 1936 - March 4, 1939) | 3rd (March 4, 1939 - March 4, 1942) | 4th (March 4, 1942 - April 12, 1945)

Famous for:
Being the longest serving U.S. president; The New Deal; Leading the U.S.A. through most of WWII; Initiating the Manhatten Project; Helped lay the groundwork for the United Nations.

Biography:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served more than two terms. His initial two terms were centered on combating the Great Depression, while his third and fourth saw him shift his focus to America's involvement in World War II. A member of the prominent Delano and Roosevelt families, Roosevelt was elected to the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913 and was then the assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Woodrow Wilson during World War I. Roosevelt was James M. Cox's running mate on the Democratic Party's ticket in the 1920 U.S. presidential election, but Cox lost to Republican nominee Warren G. Harding. In 1921, Roosevelt contracted a paralytic illness that permanently paralyzed his legs. Partly through the encouragement of his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, he returned to public office as governor of New York from 1929 to 1933, during which he promoted programs to combat the Great Depression. In the 1932 presidential election, Roosevelt defeated president Herbert Hoover in a landslide victory. During his first 100 days as president, Roosevelt spearheaded unprecedented federal legislation and directed the federal government during most of the Great Depression, implementing the New Deal, building the New Deal coalition, and realigning American politics into the Fifth Party System. He created numerous programs to provide relief to the unemployed and farmers while seeking economic recovery with the National Recovery Administration and other programs. He also instituted major regulatory reforms related to finance, communications, and labor, and presided over the end of Prohibition. In 1936, Roosevelt won a landslide reelection. He was unable to expand the Supreme Court in 1937, the same year the conservative coalition was formed to block the implementation of further New Deal programs and reforms. Major surviving programs and legislation implemented under Roosevelt include the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Labor Relations Act, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and Social Security. In 1940, he ran successfully for reelection, before the official implementation of term limits. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Roosevelt obtained a declaration of war on Japan. When in turn, Japan's Axis partners, Nazi Germany and Italy, declared war on the U.S. on December 11, 1941, he secured additional declarations of war from the United States Congress. He worked closely with other national leaders in leading the Allies against the Axis powers. Roosevelt supervised the mobilization of the American economy to support the war effort and implemented a Europe first strategy. He also initiated the development of the first atomic bomb and worked with the other Allied leaders to lay the groundwork for the United Nations and other post-war institutions, even coining the term "United Nations". Roosevelt won reelection in 1944 but died in 1945 after his physical health seriously and steadily declined during the war years. Since then, several of his actions have come under criticism, such as his ordering of the internment of Japanese Americans. Nonetheless, historical rankings consistently place him among the three greatest American presidents.

Harry S. Truman

33rd President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (April 12, 1945 - March 4, 1948) | 2nd - (March 4, 1945 - January, 1953)

Famous for:
Authorizing the first use of nuclear weapons in war; Implementing the Marshall Plan; The Truman Doctrine; NATO being established under his presidency; Intervening in the Korean War; Executive Order 9981.

Biography:
Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. Serving as vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Truman implemented the Marshall Plan in the wake of World War II to rebuild the economy of Western Europe and established both the Truman Doctrine and NATO to contain the expansion of Soviet communism. A member of the Democratic Party, he proposed numerous new deal coalition liberal domestic reforms, but few were enacted by the conservative coalition that dominated Congress. Truman was raised in Independence, Missouri, and during World War I fought in France as a captain in the Field Artillery. Returning home, he opened a haberdashery in Kansas City, Missouri, and was elected as a judge of Jackson County in 1922. Truman was elected to the United States Senate from Missouri in 1934. Between 1940 and 1944, he gained national prominence as chairman of the Truman Committee, which was aimed at reducing waste and inefficiency in wartime contracts. Truman was elected vice president in the 1944 presidential election and became president upon Roosevelt's death in April 1945. Only then was he told about the ongoing Manhattan Project and the atomic bomb. Truman authorized the first and only use of nuclear weapons in war against the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman's administration engaged in an internationalist foreign policy by working closely with Britain. Truman staunchly denounced isolationism. He energized the New Deal coalition during the 1948 presidential election, despite a divided Democratic Party, and won a surprise victory against Republican Party nominee Thomas E. Dewey that secured his own presidential term. Truman presided over the onset of the Cold War in 1947. He oversaw the Berlin Airlift and Marshall Plan in 1948. With the involvement of the US in the Korean War of 1950–1953, South Korea repelled the invasion by North Korea. Domestically, the postwar economic challenges such as strikes and inflation created a mixed reaction over the effectiveness of his administration. In 1948, he proposed Congress pass comprehensive civil rights legislation. Congress refused, so Truman issued Executive Order 9980 and Executive Order 9981, which prohibited discrimination in federal agencies and desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces. Investigations revealed corruption in parts of the Truman administration, and this became a major campaign issue in the 1952 presidential election, although they did not implicate Truman himself. He was eligible for reelection in 1952 but, with poor polling, he chose not to run. Truman went into a retirement marked by the founding of his presidential library and the publication of his memoirs. It was long thought that his retirement years were financially difficult for Truman, resulting in Congress establishing a pension for former presidents, but evidence eventually emerged that he amassed considerable wealth, some of it while still president. When he left office, Truman's administration was heavily criticized. Despite this controversy, scholars rank Truman in the first quartile of U.S. presidents. In addition, critical reassessment of his presidency has improved his reputation among historians and the general population.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

34th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (January 20, 1953 - January 20, 1957) | 2nd - (January 20, 1957 - January 20, 1961)

Famous for:
Being the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force during World War II; New Look Policy; The Formosa Resolution; Providing major aid to help the French during the First Indochina War and after the French lost the war, provided aid to the state of South Vietnam; Supporting military coups in Iran and Guatemala; Approved the Bay of Pigs invasion; He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957; His administration oversaw the development and construction of the Interstate Highway System; Escalating the Space Race; The National Defense Education Act.

Biography:
Dwight David Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969), also known by his nickname Ike, was the 34th president of the United States, serving from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he was Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe and achieved the five-star rank as General of the Army. Eisenhower planned and supervised two of the most consequential military campaigns of World War II: Operation Torch in the North Africa campaign in 1942–1943 and the invasion of Normandy in 1944. Eisenhower was born in Denison, Texas, and raised in Abilene, Kansas. His family had a strong religious background, and his mother became a Jehovah's Witness. Eisenhower, however, belonged to no organized church until 1952. He graduated from West Point in 1915 and later married Mamie Doud, with whom he had two sons. During World War I, he was denied a request to serve in Europe and instead commanded a unit that trained tank crews. Between the wars he served in staff positions in the US and the Philippines, reaching the rank of brigadier general shortly before the entry of the US into World War II in 1941. After further promotion Eisenhower oversaw the Allied invasions of North Africa and Sicily before supervising the invasions of France and Germany. After the war ended in Europe, he served as military governor of the American-occupied zone of Germany (1945), Army Chief of Staff (1945–1948), president of Columbia University (1948–1953), and as the first supreme commander of NATO (1951–1952). In 1952, Eisenhower entered the presidential race as a Republican to block the isolationist foreign policies of Senator Robert A. Taft, who opposed NATO. Eisenhower won that year's election and the 1956 election in landslides, both times defeating Adlai Stevenson II. Eisenhower's main goals in office were to contain the spread of communism and reduce federal deficits. In 1953, he considered using nuclear weapons to end the Korean War and may have threatened China with nuclear attack if an armistice was not reached quickly. China did agree and an armistice resulted, which remains in effect. His New Look policy of nuclear deterrence prioritized "inexpensive" nuclear weapons while reducing funding for expensive Army divisions. He continued Harry S. Truman's policy of recognizing Taiwan as the legitimate government of China, and he won congressional approval of the Formosa Resolution. His administration provided major aid to help the French fight off Vietnamese Communists in the First Indochina War. After the French left, he gave strong financial support to the new state of South Vietnam. He supported regime-changing military coups in Iran and Guatemala orchestrated by his own administration. During the Suez Crisis of 1956, he condemned the Israeli, British, and French invasion of Egypt, and he forced them to withdraw. He also condemned the Soviet invasion during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 but took no action. He deployed 15,000 soldiers during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. Near the end of his term, a summit meeting with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was cancelled when a US spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union. Eisenhower approved the Bay of Pigs Invasion, which was left to John F. Kennedy to carry out. On the domestic front, Eisenhower governed as a moderate conservative who continued New Deal agencies and expanded Social Security. He covertly opposed Joseph McCarthy and contributed to the end of McCarthyism by openly invoking executive privilege. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent Army troops to enforce federal court orders which integrated schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. His administration undertook the development and construction of the Interstate Highway System, which remains the largest construction of roadways in American history. In 1957, following the Soviet launch of Sputnik, Eisenhower led the American response which included the creation of NASA and the establishment of a stronger, science-based education via the National Defense Education Act. The Soviet Union began to reinforce their own space program, escalating the Space Race. His two terms saw unprecedented economic prosperity except for a minor recession in 1958. In his farewell address, he expressed his concerns about the dangers of massive military spending, particularly deficit spending and government contracts to private military manufacturers, which he dubbed "the military–industrial complex". Historical evaluations of his presidency place him among the upper tier of U.S. presidents.

John F. Kennedy

35th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (January 20, 1961 - November 22, 1963)

Famous for:
Being the youngest elected U.S. president. Kennedy was elected to server as president at the age of 43; The Bay of Pigs Invasion; The Cuban Missile Crises; Signing the first nuclear weapons treaty; Presiding over the establishment of the Peace Corps; Signing a Civil Right's Bill that would be put into action during the term of his successor LBJ; His numerous affairs; His assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald;

Biography:
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), also known as JFK, was the 35th president of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president at 43 years. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress prior to his presidency. Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940, joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded PT boats in the Pacific theater. Kennedy's survival following the sinking of PT-109 and his rescue of his fellow sailors made him a war hero and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, but left him with serious injuries. After a brief stint in journalism, Kennedy represented a working-class Boston district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate, serving as the junior senator for Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy published his book, Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy ran in the 1960 presidential election. His campaign gained momentum after the first televised presidential debates in American history, and he was elected president, narrowly defeating Republican opponent Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president. Kennedy's presidency saw high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam, and the Strategic Hamlet Program began during his presidency. In 1961, he authorized attempts to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and Operation Mongoose. In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba. The resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in nuclear war. In August 1961, after East German troops erected the Berlin Wall, Kennedy sent an army convoy to reassure West Berliners of U.S. support, and delivered one of his most famous speeches in West Berlin in June 1963. In 1963, Kennedy signed the first nuclear weapons treaty. He presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation of the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon before 1970. He supported the civil rights movement but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. His vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, assumed the presidency. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination, but he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby two days later. The FBI and the Warren Commission both concluded Oswald had acted alone, but conspiracy theories about the assassination persist. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964. Kennedy ranks highly in polls of U.S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has been the focus of considerable sustained interest following public revelations in the 1970s of his chronic health ailments and extramarital affairs. Kennedy is the most recent U.S. president to have died in office. The term "Camelot" is often used to describe his presidency, reflecting both the mythic grandeur accorded Kennedy in death and powerful nostalgia for that era of American history.

Lyndon B. Johnson

36th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (November 22, 1963 - January 20, 1964) | 2nd - (January 20, 1964 – January 20, 1969)

Famous for:
The Great Society; The War on Poverty; The Social Security Amendments of 1965, which resulted in the creation of Medicare and Medicaid; Signing in numerous Civl Rights Acts; His management of the Vietnam war.

Biography:
Lyndon Baines Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served as the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963. A Southern Democrat, Johnson previously represented Texas in Congress for over 23 years, first as a U.S. representative from 1937 to 1949, and then as a U.S. senator from 1949 to 1961. Born in Stonewall, Texas, Johnson worked as a teacher and a congressional aide before winning election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1937. In 1948, he was controversially declared the winner in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate election in Texas before winning the general election. He became Senate majority whip in 1951, Senate Democratic leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1954. Senator Kennedy bested Johnson and his other rivals for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination before surprising many by offering to make Johnson his vice presidential running mate. The Kennedy–Johnson ticket won the general election. Vice President Johnson assumed the presidency in 1963, after President Kennedy was assassinated. The following year, Johnson was elected to the presidency in a landslide, winning the largest share of the popular vote for the Democratic Party in history, and the highest for any candidate since the advent of widespread popular elections in the 1820s. Johnson's Great Society was aimed at expanding civil rights, public broadcasting, access to health care, aid to education and the arts, urban and rural development, consumer protection, environmentalism, and public services. He sought to create better living conditions for low-income Americans by spearheading the war on poverty. As part of these efforts, Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments of 1965, which resulted in the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. Johnson made the Apollo program a national priority; enacted the Higher Education Act of 1965, which established federally insured student loans; and signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which laid the groundwork for U.S. immigration policy today. Johnson's stance on civil rights put him at odds with other white Southern Democrats. His civil rights legacy was shaped by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Due to his domestic agenda, Johnson's presidency marked the peak of modern American liberalism in the 20th century.[2] Johnson's foreign policy prioritized containment of communism, including in the ongoing Vietnam War. Johnson began his presidency with near-universal support, but his approval declined throughout his presidency as the public became frustrated with both the Vietnam War and domestic unrest, including race riots in major cities and increasing crime. Johnson initially sought to run for re-election in 1968; however, following disappointing results in the New Hampshire primary, he withdrew his candidacy. Johnson retired to his Texas ranch, where he died in 1973. Public opinion and academic assessments of Johnson's legacy have fluctuated greatly. Historians and scholars rank Johnson in the upper tier for his accomplishments regarding domestic policy. His administration passed many major laws that made substantial changes in civil rights, health care, welfare, and education. Conversely, Johnson is heavily criticized for his foreign policy, namely escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War. Scholars have viewed Johnson through the lens of both his legislative achievements and his lack of success in the Vietnam War. His overall rating among historians has remained relatively steady, and his average ranking is higher than any of the eight presidents who followed him, although similar to Reagan and Clinton.[368] In public polling of presidential favorability of Johnson and the presidents who succeeded him Johnson tends to appear more toward the bottom of lists, typically excepting George W. Bush and Richard Nixon, and sometimes Gerald Ford.

Richard Nixon

37th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (January 20, 1969 - January 20, 1972) | 2nd - (January 20, 1972 - August 9, 1974)

Famous for:
The Hiss Case; Extending the Vietnam War to Cambodia and Laos; Reducing U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; Cooling relations with the Soviet Union and China; The Apollo 11 Moon Landing, which won the U.S. the Space Race; Signed in numerous enviromental acts and founded the EPA; The Watergate Scandal; The only U.S. president to resign from the presidency.

Biography:
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913 – April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 until his resignation in 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and as the 36th vice president from 1953 to 1961 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. His presidency saw the reduction of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, détente with the Soviet Union and China, the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Nixon's second term ended early when he became the only U.S. president to resign from office, as a result of the Watergate scandal. Nixon was born into a poor family of Quakers in Yorba Linda, Southern California. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Whittier College in 1934 and a Juris Doctor from Duke University in 1937, practiced law in California, and then moved with his wife Pat to Washington, D.C., in 1942 to work for the federal government. After serving active duty in the Naval Reserve during World War II, he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1946. His work on the Alger Hiss case established his reputation as a leading anti-communist. In 1950, he was elected to the Senate. Nixon was the running mate of Eisenhower, the Republican Party's presidential nominee in the 1952 election, and served for eight years as vice president. He narrowly lost the 1960 presidential election to John F. Kennedy. After his loss in the 1962 race for governor of California, he announced his retirement from politics. However, in 1968, he made another run for the presidency and narrowly defeated the Democratic incumbent vice president Hubert Humphrey. Seeking to bring the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, Nixon ordered military operations and carpet bombing campaigns in Cambodia. He covertly aided Pakistan during the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971 and ended American combat involvement in Vietnam in 1973 and the military draft the same year. His visit to China in 1972 eventually led to diplomatic relations between the two nations, and he then finalized the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with the Soviet Union. Domestically, Nixon pushed for the Controlled Substances Act and began the war on drugs. Nixon's first term took place at the height of the American environmental movement and enacted many progressive environmental policy shifts; his administration created the Environmental Protection Agency and passed legislation such as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air Acts. He implemented the ratified Twenty-sixth Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18, and enforced the desegregation of Southern schools. Under Nixon, relations with Native Americans improved, seeing an increase in self-determination for Native Americans and his administration rescinded the termination policy. Nixon imposed wage and price controls for 90 days, began the war on cancer, and presided over the Apollo 11 Moon landing, which signaled the end of the Space Race. He was re-elected in 1972, when he defeated George McGovern in one of the largest landslide victories in American history. In his second term, Nixon ordered an airlift to resupply Israeli materiel losses in the Yom Kippur War, a conflict which led to the oil crisis at home. From 1973, ongoing revelations from the Nixon administration's involvement in Watergate eroded his support in Congress and the country. The scandal began with a break-in at the Democratic National Committee office, ordered by administration officials, and escalated despite cover-up efforts by the Nixon administration, of which he was aware. On August 9, 1974, facing almost certain impeachment and removal from office, Nixon resigned. Afterward, he was issued a controversial pardon by his successor, Gerald Ford. During nearly 20 years of retirement, Nixon wrote nine books and undertook many foreign trips, rehabilitating his image into that of an elder statesman and leading expert on foreign affairs. On April 18, 1994, he suffered a debilitating stroke, and died four days later. Rankings of his time in office have proven complex, with the successes of his presidency contrasted against the circumstances of both his ascension and his departure from office.

Gerald Ford

38th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (August 9, 1974 – January 20, 1977)

Famous for:
Becoming the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment; Pardoning the former president Ricard Nixon after the Watergate Scandal; Signed the Helsinki Accords; Being the only person to serve as president without winning an election for president or vice president;

Biography:
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006) was an American politician and lawyer who was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party, Ford assumed the presidency after the resignation of President Richard Nixon, under whom he had served as the 40th vice president from 1973 to 1974 following Spiro Agnew's resignation. Prior to that, he served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1949 to 1973. Ford was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan, where he played for the university football team, before eventually attending Yale Law School. Afterward, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve from 1942 to 1946. Ford began his political career in 1949 as the U.S. representative from Michigan's 5th congressional district, serving in this capacity for nearly 25 years, the final nine of them as the House minority leader. In December 1973, two months after Spiro Agnew's resignation, Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment. After the subsequent resignation of Nixon in August 1974, Ford immediately assumed the presidency. Domestically, Ford presided over the worst economy in the four decades since the Great Depression, with growing inflation and a recession. In one of his most controversial acts, he granted a presidential pardon to Nixon for his role in the Watergate scandal. Foreign policy was characterized in procedural terms by the increased role Congress began to play, and by the corresponding curb on the powers of the president. Ford signed the Helsinki Accords, which marked a move toward détente in the Cold War. With the collapse of South Vietnam nine months into his presidency, U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War essentially ended. In the 1976 Republican presidential primary, he defeated Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination, but narrowly lost the presidential election to the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter. Ford remains the only person to serve as president without winning an election for president or vice president. Following his years as president, Ford remained active in the Republican Party, but his moderate views on various social issues increasingly put him at odds with conservative members of the party in the 1990s and early 2000s. He also set aside the enmity he had felt towards Carter following the 1976 election and the two former presidents developed a close friendship. After experiencing a series of health problems, he died in Rancho Mirage, California in 2006. Surveys of historians and political scientists have ranked Ford as a below-average president, though retrospective public polls on his time in office were more positive.

Jimmy Carter

39th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (January 20, 1977 – January 20, 1981)

Famous for:
Pardoning all Vietnam draft evaders; The Camp David Accords; The Panama Canal Treaties; Establishing diplomatic relations with China; Creating the Departments of Energy and Education; Establishing the Carter Center after his presidency; Being the first former U.S. president to reach the age of 100.

Biography:
James Earl Carter Jr. (October 1, 1924 – December 29, 2024) was an American politician and humanitarian who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party, Carter served as the 76th governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975 and in the Georgia State Senate from 1963 to 1967. He was the longest-lived president in U.S. history and the first to reach the age of 100. Born in Plains, Georgia, Carter graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946 and joined the submarine service before returning home to tend to the family peanut farm. He was active in the civil rights movement, then served as state senator and governor before running for president in 1976. He secured the Democratic nomination as a dark horse before narrowly defeating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford in the general election. As president, Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft evaders and negotiated several major foreign policy agreements, including the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, and he established diplomatic relations with China. He also confronted stagflation. He created a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. He created the Departments of Energy and Education. The later years of his presidency were marked by several foreign policy crises, including the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (leading to the end of détente and the 1980 Olympics boycott) and the fallout of the Iranian revolution (including the Iran hostage crisis and 1979 oil crisis). Carter sought reelection in 1980, defeating a primary challenge by Senator Ted Kennedy, but lost the election to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan. Polls of historians and political scientists have ranked Carter's presidency below average. His post-presidency—the longest in U.S. history—is viewed more favorably. After Carter's presidential term ended, he established the Carter Center to promote and expand human rights, earning him the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize. He traveled extensively to conduct peace negotiations, monitor elections, and end neglected tropical diseases, becoming a major contributor to the eradication of dracunculiasis. Carter was a key figure in the nonprofit housing organization Habitat for Humanity. He also wrote political memoirs and other books, commentary on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and poetry.

Ronald Reagan

40th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (January 20, 1981 – January 20, 1985) | 2nd - (January 20, 1985 – January 20, 1989)

Famous for:
The Reagan Era; Reaganomics; Escalting the Arms Race; 1983 invasion of Grenada; Expanded the war on drugs; 1986 bombing of Libya; The Iran-Contra affair; The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; Contributing to the end of the Cold War.

Biography:
Ronald Wilson Reagan[a] (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party and became an important figure in the American conservative movement. His presidency is known as the Reagan era. Born in Illinois, Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 and was hired the next year as a sports broadcaster in Iowa. In 1937, he moved to California where he became a well-known film actor. During his acting career, Reagan was president of the Screen Actors Guild twice, from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960. In the 1950s, he hosted General Electric Theater and worked as a motivational speaker for General Electric. Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech during the 1964 presidential election launched his rise as a leading conservative figure. After being elected governor of California in 1966, he raised state taxes, turned the state budget deficit into a surplus and implemented harsh crackdowns on university protests. Following his loss to Gerald Ford in the 1976 Republican Party presidential primaries, Reagan won the Republican Party's nomination and then a landslide victory over President Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential election. In his first term as president, Reagan began implementing "Reaganomics", which involved economic deregulation and cuts in both taxes and government spending during a period of stagflation. On the world stage, he escalated the arms race, increased military spending, transitioned Cold War policy away from the policies of détente with the Soviet Union, and ordered the 1983 invasion of Grenada. He also survived an assassination attempt, fought public-sector labor unions, expanded the war on drugs, and was slow to respond to the AIDS epidemic. In the 1984 presidential election, he defeated former vice president Walter Mondale in another landslide victory. Foreign affairs dominated Reagan's second term, including the 1986 bombing of Libya, the secret and illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the Contras, and engaging in negotiations with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which culminated in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. Reagan left the presidency in 1989 with the American economy having seen a significant reduction of inflation, the unemployment rate having fallen, and the U.S. having entered its then-longest peacetime expansion. At the same time, the national debt had nearly tripled since 1981 as a result of his cuts in taxes and increased military spending, despite cuts to domestic discretionary spending. Reagan's foreign policies also contributed to the end of the Cold War. Though he planned an active post-presidency, it was hindered, after he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994, and his physical and mental capacities gradually deteriorated, leading to his death in 2004. His tenure constituted a realignment toward conservative policies in the United States, and he is often considered an icon of American conservatism. Historical rankings of U.S. presidents have typically placed Reagan in the upper tier, and his post-presidential approval ratings by the general public are usually high.

Georoge H.W. Bush

41st President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (January 20, 1989 – January 20, 1993)

Famous for:
Playing a large role in the reunification of Germany; The Invasion of Panama; The Gulf War; The North American Free Trade Agreement; Signing three bipartisan pieces of legislation, The Americans with Disabilities Act, The Immigration Act and the Clean Air Act Amendments.

Biography:
George Herbert Walker Bush (June 12, 1924 – November 30, 2018) was the 41st president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. A member of the Republican Party, he also served as the 43rd vice president from 1981 to 1989 under Ronald Reagan and previously in various other federal positions. Born into a wealthy, established family in Milton, Massachusetts, Bush was raised in Greenwich, Connecticut. He attended Phillips Academy and served as a pilot in the United States Navy Reserve during World War II before graduating from Yale and moving to West Texas, where he established a successful oil company. Following an unsuccessful run for the United States Senate in 1964, he was elected to represent Texas's 7th congressional district in 1966. President Richard Nixon appointed Bush as the ambassador to the United Nations in 1971 and as chairman of the Republican National Committee in 1973. President Gerald Ford appointed him as the chief of the Liaison Office to the People's Republic of China in 1974 and as the director of Central Intelligence in 1976. Bush ran for president in 1980 but was defeated in the Republican presidential primaries by Reagan, who then selected Bush as his vice presidential running mate. In the 1988 presidential election, Bush defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis. Foreign policy drove Bush's presidency as he navigated the final years of the Cold War and played a key role in the reunification of Germany. He presided over the invasion of Panama and the Gulf War, ending the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in the latter conflict. Though the agreement was not ratified until after he left office, Bush negotiated and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which created a trade bloc consisting of the United States, Canada and Mexico. Domestically, Bush reneged on a 1988 campaign promise by enacting legislation to raise taxes to justify reducing the budget deficit. He championed and signed three pieces of bipartisan legislation in 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Immigration Act and the Clean Air Act Amendments. He also appointed David Souter and Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court. Bush lost the 1992 presidential election to Democrat Bill Clinton following an economic recession, his turnaround on his tax promise, and the decreased emphasis of foreign policy in a post–Cold War political climate. After leaving office in 1993, Bush was active in humanitarian activities, often working alongside Clinton. With the victory of his son, George W. Bush, in the 2000 presidential election, the two became the second father–son pair to serve as the nation's president, following John Adams and John Quincy Adams. Another son, Jeb Bush, unsuccessfully sought the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 primaries. Historians generally rank Bush as an above-average president.

Bill Clinton

41st President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (January 20, 1993 – January 20, 1996) | 2nd - (January 20, 1996 - January 20, 2001)

Famous for:
Signing into law the North American Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA), the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act and the State Children's Health Insurance Program; Appointing Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court; U.S. Intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo Wars. He also eventually signed the Dayton Peace agreement; Expanding NATO; The Iraq Liberation Act; During his presidency, the U.S. had the largest bugdet surpluses in the country's history; The Clinton–Lewinsky scandal.

Biography:
William Jefferson Clinton (né Blythe; born August 19, 1946) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the attorney general of Arkansas from 1977 to 1979 and as the governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981, and again from 1983 to 1992. Clinton, whose policies reflected a centrist "Third Way" political philosophy, became known as a New Democrat. Born and raised in Arkansas, Clinton graduated from Georgetown University in 1968, and later from Yale Law School, where he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham. After graduating from law school, Clinton returned to Arkansas and won election as state attorney general, followed by two non-consecutive tenures as Arkansas governor. As governor, he overhauled the state's education system and served as chairman of the National Governors Association. Clinton was elected president in the 1992 election, defeating the incumbent Republican Party president George H. W. Bush, and the independent businessman Ross Perot. He became the first president to be born in the Baby Boomer generation. Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in American history. He signed into law the North American Free Trade Agreement and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act but failed to pass his plan for national health care reform. Starting in the mid-1990s, he began an ideological evolution as he became much more conservative in his domestic policy, advocating for and signing the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, the State Children's Health Insurance Program and financial deregulation measures. He appointed Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the U.S. Supreme Court. In foreign policy, Clinton ordered U.S. military intervention in the Bosnian and Kosovo wars, eventually signing the Dayton Peace agreement. He also called for the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe and many former Warsaw Pact members joined NATO during his presidency. Clinton's foreign policy in the Middle East saw him sign the Iraq Liberation Act which gave aid to groups against Saddam Hussein. He also participated in the Oslo I Accord and Camp David Summit to advance the Israeli–Palestinian peace process, and assisted the Northern Ireland peace process. Clinton won re-election in the 1996 election, defeating Republican nominee Bob Dole and Reform Party nominee Perot. In his second term, Clinton made use of permanent normal trade. Most of the accomplishments of his second term were overshadowed by the Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, when it was revealed in early 1998 that he had been engaging in an eighteen month-long sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.[1] This scandal escalated throughout the year, culminating in December when Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives, becoming the first U.S. president to be impeached since Andrew Johnson. The two impeachment articles that the House passed were centered around perjury and Clinton using the powers of the presidency to commit obstruction of justice. In January 1999, Clinton's impeachment trial began in the Senate, where he was acquitted two months later on both charges. During the last three years of Clinton's presidency, the Congressional Budget Office reported a budget surplus—the first such surplus since 1969. Clinton left office in 2001 with the joint-highest approval rating of any U.S. president. His presidency ranks among the middle to upper tier in historical rankings of U.S. presidents. However, his personal conduct and misconduct allegations, as well as his association with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, have made him the subject of substantial scrutiny. Since leaving office, Clinton has been involved in public speaking and humanitarian work. He created the Clinton Foundation to address international causes such as the prevention of HIV/AIDS and global warming. In 2009, he was named the United Nations special envoy to Haiti. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Clinton founded the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He has remained active in Democratic Party politics, campaigning for his wife's 2008 and 2016 presidential campaigns. Following Jimmy Carter's death in December 2024, he is the earliest-serving living former U.S. president and the only living president to have served in the 20th century.

George W. Bush

43rd President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2005) | 2nd - (January 20, 2005 - January 20, 2009)

Famous for:
Being the president during the 9/11 attacks; No Child Left Behind education-reform bill; Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act; The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief; Appointing John Roberts and Samuel Alito as Supreme Court Justices; Started the War on Terror; Created the Department of Homeland Security; The Invasion of Afghanistan; The Invasion of Iraq; The Patriot Act; The Medicare Modernization Act; The Great Recession.

Biography:
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party, he was the 46th governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000. The eldest son of the 41st president, George H. W. Bush, he flew warplanes in the Texas Air National Guard in his twenties. After graduating from Harvard Business School in 1975, he worked in the oil industry. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers, of Major League Baseball, before being elected governor of Texas in 1994. As governor, Bush successfully sponsored legislation for tort reform, increased education funding, set higher standards for schools, and reformed the criminal justice system. He also helped make Texas the leading producer of wind-generated electricity in the United States. In the 2000 presidential election, he won over Democratic incumbent Vice President Al Gore, while losing the popular vote after a narrow and contested Electoral College win, which involved a Supreme Court decision to stop a recount in Florida. In his first term, Bush signed a major tax-cut program and an education-reform bill, the No Child Left Behind Act. He pushed for socially conservative efforts such as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act and faith-based initiatives. He also initiated the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, in 2003, to address the AIDS epidemic. The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 decisively reshaped his administration, resulting in the start of the war on terror and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Bush ordered the invasion of Afghanistan in an effort to overthrow the Taliban, destroy al-Qaeda, and capture Osama bin Laden. He signed the Patriot Act to authorize surveillance of suspected terrorists. He also ordered the 2003 invasion of Iraq to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime on the false belief that they possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties with al-Qaeda. Bush later signed the Medicare Modernization Act, which created Medicare Part D. In 2004, Bush was re-elected president in a close race, beating Democratic opponent John Kerry and winning the popular vote. During his second term, Bush made free trade agreements. He appointed John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. He sought major changes to Social Security and immigration laws, but both efforts failed in Congress. Bush was widely criticized for his administration's handling of Hurricane Katrina and revelations of torture against detainees at Abu Ghraib. Amid his unpopularity, the Democrats regained control of Congress in the 2006 elections. The Afghanistan and Iraq wars continued; in January 2007, Bush launched a surge of troops in Iraq. By December, the U.S. entered the Great Recession, prompting the Bush administration to get congressional approval for economic programs intended to preserve the country's financial system, including the Troubled Asset Relief Program. After his second term, Bush returned to Texas, where he has maintained a low public profile. At various points in his presidency, he was among both the most popular and the most unpopular presidents in U.S. history. He received the highest recorded approval ratings in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and one of the lowest ratings during the 2007–2008 financial crisis. Bush initially left office as one of the most unpopular U.S. presidents, but public opinion of him has improved since then. Scholars and historians rank Bush in the lower half of presidents.

Barack Obama

44th President

Terms Served: 2

Terms: 1st - (January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2013) | 2nd - (January 20, 2013 - January 20, 2017)

Famous for:
The First African-American president; Being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2009; The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009; Obamacare; Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act; Appointed two Supreme Court Justices, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan; Overssing the end of the Iraq War; Ordering Operation Neptune Spear; Ordering the 2011 military intervention in Libya; Signing the Paris Agreement; Affordable Care Act; Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action;

Biography:
Barack Hussein Obama II[a] (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African-American president in U.S. history. Obama previously served as a U.S. senator representing Illinois from 2005 to 2008 and as an Illinois state senator from 1997 to 2004. Obama was born in Honolulu, Hawaii. He graduated from Columbia University in 1983 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and later worked as a community organizer in Chicago. In 1988, Obama enrolled in Harvard Law School, where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. He became a civil rights attorney and an academic, teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. In 1996, Obama was elected to represent the 13th district in the Illinois Senate, a position he held until 2004, when he successfully ran for the U.S. Senate. In the 2008 presidential election, after a close primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, he was nominated by the Democratic Party for president. Obama selected Joe Biden as his running mate and defeated Republican nominee John McCain. Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for efforts in international diplomacy, a decision which drew both criticism and praise. During his first term, his administration responded to the 2007–2008 financial crisis with measures including the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, a major stimulus package to guide the economy in recovering from the Great Recession; a partial extension of the Bush tax cuts; legislation to reform health care; and the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, a major financial regulation reform bill. Obama also appointed Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, the former being the first Hispanic American on the Supreme Court. He oversaw the end of the Iraq War; and ordered Operation Neptune Spear, the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the September 11 attacks. Obama downplayed Bush's counterinsurgency model, expanding air strikes and making extensive use of special forces, while encouraging greater reliance on host-government militaries. He also ordered the 2011 military intervention in Libya to implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, contributing to the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi. Obama defeated Republican opponent Mitt Romney in the 2012 presidential election. In his second term, Obama advocated for gun control in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, took steps to combat climate change, signing the Paris Agreement, a major international climate agreement, and an executive order to limit carbon emissions. Obama also presided over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act and other legislation passed in his first term. He initiated sanctions against Russia following the invasion in Ukraine and again after Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, ordered military intervention in Iraq in response to gains made by ISIL following the 2011 withdrawal from Iraq, negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (a nuclear agreement with Iran), and normalized relations with Cuba. The number of American soldiers in Afghanistan decreased during Obama's second term, though U.S. soldiers remained in the country throughout the remainder of his presidency. Obama promoted inclusion for LGBT Americans, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to publicly support same-sex marriage. Obama left office in 2017 with high approval ratings both within the United States and among foreign advisories. He continues to reside in Washington D.C. and remains politically active, campaigning for candidates in various American elections, including in Biden's successful presidential bid in the 2020 presidential election. Outside of politics, Obama has published three books: Dreams from My Father (1995), The Audacity of Hope (2006), and A Promised Land (2020). His presidential library began construction in the South Side of Chicago in 2021. Historians and political scientists rank Obama among the upper tier in historical rankings of U.S. presidents.

Donald Trump

45th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (January 20, 2017 – January 20, 2021)

Famous for:
The Apprentice; Make America Great Again; The U.S.-Mexico Border Wall; Starting a Trade War with China; Appointing three Supreme Court Justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett; His mismanagement of the Covid 19 Pandemic; Signing the CARES Act; Iniating the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan; His 2019 Impeachment which later ended up being aquited; His sentencing to a penalty-free discharge; The 2021 Capitol rioters, who he would go on to pardon in 2025; His mass deportation program; Starting a trade war with Canada and Mexico.

Biography:
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman serving as the 47th president of the United States since January 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021. Born in New York City, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became president of his family's real estate business in 1971, and oriented it to luxury accommodation. After a series of bankruptcies in the 1990s, he launched side ventures, acquired golf courses, and until 2015, hosted and co-produced the reality television series The Apprentice. A political outsider, Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. During his first term, he imposed a travel ban on six Muslim-majority countries and expanded the U.S.–Mexico border wall; he also briefly implemented a family separation policy. He rolled back several federal regulations, including environmental policies, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, began a trade war with China in 2018, and appointed three Supreme Court justices. He withdrew the U.S. from international agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program. Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without an agreement on denuclearization. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he downplayed its severity, contradicted guidance from public health officials, and signed the CARES Act stimulus. Trump was impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection; the Senate acquitted him in both cases. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked Trump one of the worst presidents in American history. Trump is the central figure of Trumpism and the "Make America Great Again" movement. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged, racist, or misogynistic. He has made false and misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election but refused to concede, falsely claiming electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results, including through his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021. In civil proceedings, he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, and financial fraud in 2024. In May 2024 he was found guilty of falsifying business records, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony. Following his victory in the 2024 presidential election against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he was sentenced to a penalty-free discharge, and two other felony indictments against him were dismissed. Trump began his second presidency by pardoning approximately 1,500 January 6 rioters, implementing his mass deportation program, and starting a trade war with Canada and Mexico.

Joe Biden

46th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (January 20, 2021 – January 20, 2025)

Famous for:
American Rescue Plan Act; Signing numerous bipartisan bills on infrastructure and manufacturing; Reentering the U.S. in the Paris Agreements; Oversaw the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan; Imposiing sanctions on Russia for their war on Ukraine; Provinding Military and Civilian Aid to Ukraine; Supporting Israel during the Gaza/Hamas War; His cognitive decline that would eventually make him withdraw his candidacy in the 2024 election.

Biography:
Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who served as the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice president from 2009 to 2017 under President Barack Obama, and represented Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009. Born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden moved with his family to Delaware in 1953. He graduated from the University of Delaware in 1965 and the Syracuse University College of Law in 1968. He was elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and the U.S. Senate in 1972. As a senator, Biden drafted and led the effort to pass the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act and the Violence Against Women Act. He also oversaw six U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings, including the contentious hearings for Robert Bork and Clarence Thomas. Biden ran unsuccessfully for the 1988 and 2008 Democratic presidential nominations. In 2008, Obama chose Biden as his running mate, and he was a close counselor to Obama during his two terms as vice president. In the 2020 presidential election, the Democratic Party nominated Biden for president. He selected Kamala Harris as his running mate, and they defeated Republican incumbents Donald Trump and Mike Pence. He became the first president to serve with a female vice president. As president, Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent recession. He signed bipartisan bills on infrastructure and manufacturing. He proposed the Build Back Better Act, which failed in Congress, but aspects of which were incorporated into the Inflation Reduction Act that he signed into law in 2022. Beginning in March 2021, Biden confronted elevated inflation rates, which peaked at 9.1% in June 2022 and declined to 2.9% by the end of his term. Biden appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. He worked with congressional Republicans to resolve the 2023 debt-ceiling crisis by negotiating a deal to raise the debt ceiling. Biden responded to record levels of illegal border crossings with extensive use of humanitarian parole and deportations. In his foreign policy, the U.S. reentered the Paris Agreement. Biden oversaw the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan that ended the war in Afghanistan, leading to the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban seizing control. He responded to the Russian invasion of Ukraine by imposing sanctions on Russia and authorizing civilian and military aid to Ukraine. During the Gaza war, Biden condemned the actions of Hamas as terrorism, strongly supported Israel's military efforts, and sent limited humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip. A ceasefire proposal he backed was adopted shortly before he left office. Concerns about Biden's age and health persisted throughout his term. He initially ran for reelection and, after the Democratic primaries, became the party's presumptive nominee in the 2024 presidential election. After his performance in the first presidential debate, renewed scrutiny from across the political spectrum about his cognitive ability led him to withdraw his candidacy. Gallup found that Biden had an average approval rating of 42.2% throughout his presidency. He was replaced as the nominee by Vice President Harris, who lost to Trump in the general election. During his term, historians and political scientists ranked Biden in the second quartile of U.S. presidents, diverging from public assessments of his tenure.

Donald Trump

47th President

Terms Served: 1

Terms: 1 - (January 20, 2025 – Incumbant)

Famous for:
The Apprentice; Make America Great Again; The U.S.-Mexico Border Wall; Starting a Trade War with China; Appointing three Supreme Court Justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett; His mismanagement of the Covid 19 Pandemic; Signing the CARES Act; Iniating the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan; His 2019 Impeachment which later ended up being aquited; His sentencing to a penalty-free discharge; The 2021 Capitol rioters, who he would go on to pardon in 2025; His mass deportation program; Starting a trade war with Canada and Mexico.

Biography:
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman serving as the 47th president of the United States since January 2025. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as the 45th president from 2017 to 2021. Born in New York City, Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He became president of his family's real estate business in 1971, and oriented it to luxury accommodation. After a series of bankruptcies in the 1990s, he launched side ventures, acquired golf courses, and until 2015, hosted and co-produced the reality television series The Apprentice. A political outsider, Trump won the 2016 presidential election against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. During his first term, he imposed a travel ban on six Muslim-majority countries and expanded the U.S.–Mexico border wall; he also briefly implemented a family separation policy. He rolled back several federal regulations, including environmental policies, signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, began a trade war with China in 2018, and appointed three Supreme Court justices. He withdrew the U.S. from international agreements on climate, trade, and Iran's nuclear program. Trump met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un without an agreement on denuclearization. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, he downplayed its severity, contradicted guidance from public health officials, and signed the CARES Act stimulus. Trump was impeached in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and in 2021 for incitement of insurrection; the Senate acquitted him in both cases. After his first term, scholars and historians ranked Trump one of the worst presidents in American history. Trump is the central figure of Trumpism and the "Make America Great Again" movement. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged, racist, or misogynistic. He has made false and misleading statements and promoted conspiracy theories to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election but refused to concede, falsely claiming electoral fraud and attempting to overturn the results, including through his involvement in the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021. In civil proceedings, he was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in 2023, and financial fraud in 2024. In May 2024 he was found guilty of falsifying business records, making him the first U.S. president convicted of a felony. Following his victory in the 2024 presidential election against Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he was sentenced to a penalty-free discharge, and two other felony indictments against him were dismissed. Trump began his second presidency by pardoning approximately 1,500 January 6 rioters, implementing his mass deportation program, and starting a trade war with Canada and Mexico.