American History: every president and the events that made the US

The First Americans (At least c. 21,000 BC (footprints dated 23,000 to 21,000 years ago; disputed) to c. 11,000 BC (Clovis))

For decades the standard answer was that Clovis hunters, whose fluted stone spear points date to roughly 11,000 BC, were the first Americans. Older sites in Chile, Oregon and Texas have since overturned that idea. In 2021 a team reported human footprints at White Sands, New Mexico, that they dated to about 23,000 to 21,000 years ago. Other scientists challenged the dating, and the argument has not been closed. Two routes are most often proposed: an ice-free corridor through Canada, and a coastal route along the Pacific.

• The White Sands footprints were mostly made by teenagers and children, judging by their size and the walking speed they imply, according to the National Park Service.
• Some White Sands human tracks lie inside the tracks of a giant ground sloth, which suggests people were stalking it. The National Park Service notes there is no evidence the hunt succeeded.
• Human feces from Paisley Caves in Oregon have been dated to about 14,300 years ago, and a coprolite there yielded human DNA at about 14,500 years, which is older than the oldest Clovis sites.

Sources: Bennett et al., 'Evidence of humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum', Science, 2021 (author manuscript, Bournemouth University repository); National Park Service: Fossilized Footprints, White Sands National Park; Wikipedia: Settlement of the Americas

Cahokia, the Great Mississippian City (c. 1050 to c. 1350)

Cahokia stood on the Mississippi River floodplain in what is now southwestern Illinois. The city grew quickly around 1050 and drew people from the surrounding countryside. Its centre was Monks Mound, the largest earthen structure north of Mexico, set among plazas, smaller mounds and a circle of wooden posts that tracked the sun. The Cahokians left no written record, so what we know comes from excavation. Maize farming and long-distance trade in copper and marine shell supported the city.

• Workers built Monks Mound by carrying earth in baskets. National Geographic puts the total at about 22 million cubic feet.
• Between about 1175 and 1275 the residents built and rebuilt a wooden stockade around the city, which suggests conflict was a recurring worry.
• A burial in Mound 72, long read as two powerful men on a bird-shaped bed of shell beads, was reanalysed in 2016. The authors found male and female pairs, numerous females and at least one child, and said earlier readings should be reexamined.

Sources: Emerson et al., 'Paradigms Lost: Reconfiguring Cahokia's Mound 72 Beaded Burial', American Antiquity, 2016 (Cambridge University Press abstract); National Park Service: Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, World Heritage Site; National Geographic: This American Indian metropolis was mysteriously abandoned; Wikipedia: Cahokia

The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy (Founding date disputed (c. 1142 to c. 1450); Tuscarora joined c. 1722)

The Haudenosaunee Confederacy united the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca. Tradition says the Peacemaker, with Hiawatha, brought them the Great Law of Peace and ended a cycle of feuding. The Grand Council had fifty chiefs, each representing a clan. When the founding happened is unsettled: oral history and scholarship give dates from the 12th century to the 17th, and many archaeologists favour about 1450. The Tuscarora joined around 1722, making the Six Nations.

• Clan mothers traditionally appointed the chiefs and could remove one who proved unsound or ignored the people.
• In 1751 Benjamin Franklin wrote to James Parker that it would be strange if six nations of 'ignorant savages' could form and keep a union, yet ten or a dozen English colonies could not. Historians disagree about how far the league shaped the U.S. Constitution. The writer Charles C. Mann, who argues for a wider Native influence on colonial thinking, concedes the Constitution as enacted was 'not at all like the Great Law'.
• A popular claim says the Great Law tells leaders to think seven generations ahead. The words 'seventh generation' do not appear in the written text of the Great Law, which does ask leaders to consider future generations. Onondaga Faithkeeper Oren Lyons told the United Nations in 1992 that leaders were instructed to decide for the seventh generation to come.

Sources: The Constitution of the Iroquois Confederacy (Gayanashagowa), Parker 1916 text (Fordham Internet Modern History Sourcebook); Benjamin Franklin to James Parker, 20 March 1750/1 (Founders Online); Chief Oren Lyons's December 1992 address to the United Nations (SMU archive copy); Historical Society of the New York Courts: How the Great Law of Peace Helped Shape New York and American Democracy; History News Network: Charles C. Mann, What the Founding Fathers Owed to the Iroquois; Wikipedia: Haudenosaunee

Columbus Reaches the Caribbean and the Columbian Exchange (October 12, 1492, and the exchange that followed)

Columbus left Palos in Spain on August 3, 1492 with three ships. He made landfall in the Bahamas on October 12, at an island he called San Salvador and the Lucayan people called Guanahani. Scholars still disagree about which modern island that was. He went on to Cuba and Hispaniola, and returned to Spain in March 1493. He believed he had reached Asia. Over the next century, maize, potatoes and tomatoes spread to the Old World, and horses, cattle, wheat and sugarcane to the New. Old World diseases, smallpox above all, killed most of the Native population in many regions.

• On April 30, 1492, months before he sailed, the Spanish Crown promised Columbus the offices of admiral, viceroy and perpetual governor over any lands he might discover. The grant depended on his finding them.
• The Library of Congress notes that by 1550 the Taino, whom Columbus met first, had been nearly wiped out, mostly by disease brought from Europe.
• The historian Alfred Crosby coined the term 'Columbian exchange' in a 1972 book. One widely cited estimate puts the death toll among Native Americans at 80 to 95 percent within 100 to 150 years of 1492, and Mexico's population is said to have fallen from about 20 million to barely more than a million in the 16th century.

Sources: Privileges and Prerogatives Granted by Their Catholic Majesties to Christopher Columbus, 1492 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Christopher Columbus: Extracts from Journal (Las Casas abstract; Fordham Internet Medieval Sourcebook); Library of Congress: Columbus and the Taino (Exploring the Early Americas); Wikipedia: Columbian exchange

St. Augustine Founded, 1565 (September 8, 1565 (British rule from 1763))

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded the settlement on September 8, 1565, on the site of the Timucua village of Seloy, after landing on August 28. He had raced the French to Florida and overran their Fort Caroline later that month. Work on a stone fort, the Castillo de San Marcos, ran from 1672 to 1695, and it was built of coquina. St. Augustine stayed Spanish, apart from raids and sieges, until the Treaty of Paris of 1763 gave Florida to Britain.

• The National Park Service says St. Augustine's founders held a Mass of Thanksgiving and shared a meal with local Native people 55 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth.
• The English privateer Sir Francis Drake sacked and burned the town in May 1586, after its residents had fled. In 1702 Governor James Moore of Carolina besieged the town for about seven weeks, from November 10 to December 30, but the Castillo held.
• In 1738 the Spanish governor, Manuel de Montiano, gave land about two miles north of St. Augustine to Black refugees, many from the Carolinas, who built Fort Mose. The National Park Service calls it North America's first free, legally sanctioned Black community.

Sources: Definitive Treaty of Peace, Paris, 1763, Article XX: Spain cedes Florida (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); National Park Service: Stories, Castillo de San Marcos National Monument; National Park Service: Fort Mose, Fort Matanzas National Monument; Wikipedia: St. Augustine, Florida

Roanoke, the Lost Colony (1584 to 1590)

Queen Elizabeth I's charter to Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584 allowed him to claim and settle lands in North America. A first military colony in 1585 failed. In 1587 John White led 118 men, women and children to Roanoke Island, off today's North Carolina. White sailed for England in late August to fetch supplies. War with Spain delayed his return until August 18, 1590, when he found the settlement empty. The fate of the colonists has never been proved.

• According to the National Park Service, the fleet's captain, Simon Fernandes, refused to take the colonists farther up the coast, arguing it was too late in the year, so they stayed on Roanoke Island. Other accounts say the order came from a gentleman on the flagship acting for him.
• The settlers had planned to leave a message if they moved. In 1590 White found 'CRO' cut into a tree and 'CROATOAN' carved into a palisade, but no sign of a struggle or hasty departure.
• A storm kept White from sailing to Croatoan, and he returned to England. He never learned what became of the colonists, who included his granddaughter Virginia Dare, born August 18, 1587 and described by the National Park Service as the first English child born in the Americas.

Sources: Charter to Sir Walter Raleigh, 1584 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); National Park Service: 1587, The Lost Colony (Fort Raleigh); National Park Service: 1590 Rescue Voyage (Fort Raleigh)

Jamestown, 1607 (May 1607, and the winter of 1609 to 1610)

Settlers from three ships, the Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery, landed on the James River in 1607 under Captain Christopher Newport. The colony rested on a royal charter of 1606 to the Virginia Company. It survived disease, drought and conflict with the Powhatan, then nearly died in the winter of 1609 to 1610, the 'starving time'. Jamestown served as the colony's capital until 1699.

• The first charter promised colonists and their children born in the colony the same liberties as if they had been born in England.
• During the starving time, colonists ate their horses and, as George Percy wrote, other animals including dogs, cats and mice. In 2012 archaeologists found the first forensic evidence of survival cannibalism in a European colony in North America.
• On June 7, 1610 Thomas Gates announced the colonists would abandon Jamestown, but the arrival of Lord De la Warr's ship, with a new governor, blocked their departure.

Sources: The First Charter of Virginia, 1606 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Historic Jamestowne: The Starving Time; Wikipedia: Jamestown, Virginia

The First Enslaved Africans at Point Comfort, 1619 (Late August 1619)

The National Park Service dates the landing to August 25, 1619. The White Lion, an English privateer sailing with Dutch letters of marque, had seized the people from a Portuguese slave ship, the Sao Joao Bautista, off the coast of Campeche on Mexico's Gulf coast. They came from the kingdom of Ndongo, in present-day Angola. John Rolfe wrote that a 'Dutch man of Warr' brought 'twenty and odd' Africans, whom the governor and the cape merchant bought for food. A second English ship, the Treasurer, arrived a few days later.

• Rolfe called the ship Dutch. Encyclopedia Virginia says it was an English privateer carrying Dutch letters of marque from Maurice, Prince of Orange, and sailing out of Vlissingen.
• The Treasurer, under Captain Daniel Elfrith, arrived three or four days after the White Lion. Elfrith sold two or three Africans in Virginia and sailed on to Bermuda with about 25 more.
• Records of the colony counted 32 Africans in March 1620 and 21 in 1624. Encyclopedia Virginia notes that English and Virginia law had not yet established race-based slavery when the first Africans arrived.

Sources: John Rolfe to Sir Edwin Sandys, January 1619/1620, 'Twenty and odd Negroes' (Encyclopedia Virginia); National Park Service: Arrival of the First Africans in 1619; Encyclopedia Virginia: Virginia's First Africans

The Mayflower and Plymouth, 1620 (November 11, 1620 (old style; November 21 new style))

The Mayflower left Plymouth, England on September 16, 1620 (new style) with 102 passengers. It anchored off Cape Cod, outside the land covered by the Virginia-based patent the settlers held. Before anyone went ashore, the adult men signed the Mayflower Compact, agreeing to form a 'civil Body Politick'. Illness killed about half the passengers over the first winter. In 1621 the colony made a peace treaty with the Wampanoag leader Massasoit, and William Bradford later led it for most of its early years.

• The original Compact is lost. Its wording survives only through William Bradford's writings, and 41 names are listed as signers.
• The Mayflower first sailed with a second ship, the Speedwell, but that ship leaked three times and was abandoned. About 20 of its passengers joined the Mayflower.
• Squanto, or Tisquantum, was a Patuxet man who had been sold into slavery in Spain in 1614, reached England and learned English. He returned in 1619 to find his village nearly emptied by an epidemic. The Pilgrims later settled on its site, and he served as their interpreter.

Sources: Mayflower Compact, 1620 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Pilgrim Hall Museum: The Mayflower Compact; Pilgrim Hall Museum: Tisquantum (Squanto); Wikipedia: Mayflower

King Philip's War (1675 to 1676 (fighting in northern New England until 1678))

Tension over land and authority came to a head in June 1675, when Plymouth hanged three Wampanoag men for the killing of John Sassamon. Metacom, whom the English called King Philip, led a Wampanoag-Nipmuc alliance, and the Narragansett entered the war after the Great Swamp Fight of December 19, 1675. Raids attacked dozens of settlements, and colonial forces struck back. Metacom was shot dead on August 12, 1676. Fighting in the north ended with the Treaty of Casco in 1678.

• Mary Rowlandson, taken captive at Lancaster, Massachusetts, wrote that her ransom of twenty pounds was raised by Boston gentlemen and Mrs. Usher. Her six-year-old daughter Sarah died in captivity.
• Plymouth and Rhode Island each lost about a tenth of their men of military age, according to Wikipedia. At the Great Swamp Fight colonial militia killed about 600 Narragansett people, including women and children, by the same account.
• Plymouth sold more than 1,000 Wampanoags and their allies into slavery in Bermuda and the West Indies, says the World History Encyclopedia. Metacom's head was displayed on a pole at Plymouth for about two decades.

Sources: Mary Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration (1682), Project Gutenberg; World History Encyclopedia: King Philip's War; Wikipedia: King Philip's War

The Salem Witch Trials (February 1692 to May 1693)

The accusations began in Salem Village in February 1692, when girls in the household of the minister Samuel Parris had fits. Governor William Phips set up a Court of Oyer and Terminer, and the first execution, of Bridget Bishop, took place on June 10. At least 155 people were arrested and 30 convicted. Nineteen were hanged. The court allowed spectral evidence, testimony that an accused person's spirit had been seen harming someone. Phips dissolved the court in October 1692, and remaining cases went to a new court that did not allow it.

• Giles Corey refused to enter a plea and was pressed to death with stones in September 1692. Five more accused people died in jail.
• The first person hanged, Bridget Bishop, was not among the 22 people named when the colony reversed convictions in 1711, though a petition for restitution on her behalf was filed in 1710. The Massachusetts legislature cleared her name in 2001.
• The last convicted person, Elizabeth Johnson Jr., was officially exonerated in 2022.

Sources: Petition for restitution for Bridget Bishop, Sept. 9, 1710 (Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive, University of Virginia); An Act to reverse the attainders of George Burroughs and others for Witchcraft, October 17, 1711 (reprinted from Woodward, Records of Salem Witchcraft); Salem Witch Trials Digital Archive: How and Why (Benjamin Ray, University of Virginia); HISTORY: Salem Witch Trials; Wikipedia: Salem witch trials

The Great Awakening (c. 1730s to 1740s)

The revivals began in Northampton, Massachusetts, under Jonathan Edwards in 1734 and 1735 and spread through New England and the Middle Colonies. The English preacher George Whitefield toured in 1739 and 1740, drawing very large open-air crowds. Supporters, called New Lights, clashed with opponents, the Old Lights, and congregations divided. The emphasis on a personal 'new birth' crossed denominational lines and gave many colonists a shared religious experience.

• According to Wikipedia, Whitefield drew about 8,000 people outside Boston's First Church in September 1740, about 15,000 the next day, and about 30,000 on his return in October.
• Edwards preached 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God' at Enfield, Connecticut, on July 8, 1741. He told listeners that God holds the unconverted over hell 'much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire'.
• In New England roughly one-third of churches were New Light, one-third Old Light and one-third saw merit in both. Baptists gained most, with over 300 Baptist churches in New England by 1804.

Sources: Jonathan Edwards, 'Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God', preached July 8, 1741 (Christian Classics Ethereal Library); American Battlefield Trust: The First Great Awakening; Wikipedia: First Great Awakening

The French and Indian War, 1754 to 1763 (1754 to 1763)

The war began over the upper Ohio River valley. On May 28, 1754 a Virginia force under George Washington ambushed a French patrol at Jumonville Glen, and Washington surrendered at Fort Necessity on July 3. It became part of the global Seven Years' War, which Britain formally declared on France in 1756. The British took Quebec in 1759 and Montreal in 1760. The Treaty of Paris of February 10, 1763 gave Britain Canada and French land east of the Mississippi, and Spain ceded Florida.

• In the same 1763 treaty, Britain returned Havana and Cuba to Spain, while Spain ceded Florida to Britain.
• France kept only the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon in North America. By the secret Treaty of Fontainebleau of 1762, France had already given Louisiana west of the Mississippi to Spain, and the 1763 treaty set the Mississippi as the boundary, with New Orleans kept by France.
• Britain's war debt and its limits on western settlement, such as the Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763, added to colonial resentment, which the Office of the Historian lists among the roots of the American Revolution.

Sources: Definitive Treaty of Peace, Paris, 1763 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); The Royal Proclamation of 1763 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Office of the Historian: French and Indian War / Seven Years' War, 1754 to 63; Wikipedia: French and Indian War

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 (October 7, 1763)

After Britain won the Seven Years' War, George III issued a proclamation to govern the lands it had taken from France and Spain. It created four new governments: Quebec, East Florida, West Florida and Grenada. It also reserved the lands west of the Appalachian watershed for Native nations and barred private buyers from purchasing them. Land speculators and would-be settlers resented the limit, and historians still argue over how much it mattered to the coming of the Revolution.

• Under the proclamation only the Crown could buy land from Native nations, and only at a public meeting called by a colonial governor. Private deals were forbidden.
• The text names Grenada, a Caribbean island, as one of the four new governments, alongside Quebec and the two Floridas.
• The line did not hold. Treaties signed in 1768 and 1770 moved the boundary west, and Virginia's surveyed line ended up hundreds of miles beyond what had been agreed, adding roughly 10 million acres to the colony.

Sources: The Royal Proclamation of October 7, 1763 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Encyclopedia Virginia: The Proclamation of 1763; Wikipedia: Royal Proclamation of 1763

The Stamp Act and the Stamp Act Congress (March 1765 to March 1766)

Parliament passed the Stamp Act on March 22, 1765, to help pay for the British troops stationed in North America. It taxed legal documents, newspapers, pamphlets, playing cards and dice, and it took effect on November 1, 1765. It was the first direct tax Parliament had placed on the colonies. Crowds forced most stamp agents to resign, merchants organised boycotts, and in October 1765 delegates from nine colonies met in New York as the Stamp Act Congress. Parliament repealed the tax in March 1766 but passed the Declaratory Act the same day, claiming the right to make laws for the colonies 'in all cases whatsoever'.

• The Stamp Act Congress did not use the slogan 'taxation without representation'. Its resolutions of October 19, 1765 said that no taxes should be imposed on the colonists 'but with their own consent, given personally, or by their representatives'.
• Twenty-seven delegates from nine colonies attended. New Hampshire sent none, and Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia were not represented.
• The highest single charge in the act was 10 pounds, for an attorney's licence, and payment had to be made in British currency. Stamp sales raised little: Jamaica produced the most revenue of any colony, about 2,000 pounds.

Sources: Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress, October 19, 1765 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Encyclopedia.com: Stamp Act; Wikipedia: Stamp Act 1765

The Boston Massacre (March 5, 1770)

British troops had been stationed in Boston since October 1768, and tension with the townspeople ran high. On the night of March 5, 1770, a dispute between a wigmaker's apprentice and a sentry outside the Custom House on King Street drew a crowd. Captain Thomas Preston led a squad to help the sentry, and soldiers fired into the crowd. Eleven men were hit and five died. Preston and eight soldiers were tried for murder, and the colonist John Adams led their defence.

• The five dead were Samuel Gray, James Caldwell and Crispus Attucks, who died that night, Samuel Maverick, who died the next morning, and Patrick Carr, who died on March 14.
• Preston was acquitted. Six of the eight soldiers were acquitted too, and two, Hugh Montgomery and Matthew Kilroy, were convicted of manslaughter and branded on the thumb. Four civilians also charged were acquitted.
• Paul Revere's famous engraving of the scene was mostly a copy of a print by Henry Pelham, who wrote to accuse Revere of stealing it. Revere added political touches of his own, such as the words 'Butcher's Hall' above the Custom House.

Sources: Account of the Boston Massacre, March 12, 1770 (American Battlefield Trust primary source); American Battlefield Trust: The Boston Massacre; Paul Revere House: A Glorious Tribute which Embalms the Dead; Wikipedia: Boston Massacre

The Boston Tea Party and the Intolerable Acts (December 16, 1773, and 1774)

In 1773 the Tea Act let the East India Company sell tea directly in the colonies, and colonists in many ports refused to let it be landed. In Boston, Governor Thomas Hutchinson would not let three ships leave. After a mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House on December 16, 1773, a crowd of Sons of Liberty, some in Mohawk-style disguises, boarded the ships and dumped the tea into the harbor. Parliament responded in 1774 with a set of punishing laws, which colonists called the Intolerable Acts. The first, the Boston Port Act, closed the harbor from June 1, 1774.

• The Tea Act actually lowered the price of legal tea. The Townshend duty of three pence a pound stayed in place, and that tax was the point of the protest.
• More than 90,000 pounds of tea went into the harbor, according to HISTORY. One tally of the East India Company invoice gives 92,616 pounds. Counts of chests vary by source, from 340 to 342.
• Nobody called it the Boston Tea Party at the time. The name came into use in the 1830s, and earlier the event was usually called the destruction of the tea.

Sources: The Boston Port Act, March 31, 1774 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); American Battlefield Trust: The Boston Tea Party; HISTORY: Boston Tea Party; Wikipedia: Boston Tea Party

The First Continental Congress (September 5 to October 26, 1774)

In response to the Intolerable Acts, 56 delegates from twelve colonies met at Carpenters' Hall in Philadelphia. Georgia did not attend. Peyton Randolph was elected president of the Congress. On October 14 it adopted a Declaration and Resolves that claimed the rights of English subjects and objected to specific acts of Parliament. It also agreed a plan of non-importation, non-consumption and non-exportation, known as the Association, to take effect from December 1, 1774. Delegates planned to meet again in 1775 if Britain did not respond.

• Joseph Galloway proposed a plan of union with an American legislative body that would share power with Parliament. Delegates tabled it, and it was later removed from the record.
• The Association created local committees to enforce the boycott. Fifty-three of the 56 delegates signed it, and imports from Britain fell by about 97 percent in 1775.
• The Congress accepted Parliament's regulation of external trade but rejected taxes raised in America without colonial consent.

Sources: Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress, October 14, 1774 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); National Archives, Pieces of History: The First Continental Congress Convenes; Wikipedia: First Continental Congress

Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775)

On the night of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott carried word that British regulars were marching out of Boston toward Concord, where the Massachusetts militia stored arms and powder. At dawn on April 19 about 77 Lexington militiamen faced the British column on the village green. A shot was fired, the British fired a volley, and eight colonists died. At Concord about 400 militiamen met the British at the Old North Bridge, and the army then fought its way back to Boston under fire from militia along the road.

• Historians cannot say who fired first at Lexington. Witnesses on both sides gave conflicting accounts.
• Revere never finished his ride. A British patrol captured him in Lincoln, and only Samuel Prescott got through to Concord. In his own account Revere says the riders were to 'allarm all the Inhabitents'. The famous line 'The British are coming!' does not appear in it.
• Over the whole day the British lost 73 killed, 174 wounded and 53 missing. The colonists lost 49 killed, 39 wounded and 5 missing.

Sources: Paul Revere's account of the ride (Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections Online); American Battlefield Trust: Lexington and Concord; National Archives, The Text Message: The 250th Anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord; Wikipedia: Battles of Lexington and Concord

The Battle of Bunker Hill (June 17, 1775)

During the siege of Boston, American troops under Colonel William Prescott dug in on the Charlestown peninsula overnight. They had been ordered to fortify Bunker Hill but chose the nearer Breed's Hill, where most of the fighting took place. General William Howe led British regulars up the slope in three assaults. The defenders ran out of powder and the British took the position, but at a heavy cost. The Americans retreated to Cambridge.

• The battle was fought mainly on Breed's Hill, not Bunker Hill. The name comes from the hill the Americans were first told to fortify.
• British casualties were about 226 killed and 828 wounded, roughly 40 percent of the attackers. American losses were about 450 killed, wounded and captured.
• Scholars regard the order 'don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes' as legend. Nobody can show it was said at the battle, and the idea is older than 1775.

Sources: Abigail Adams to John Adams, June 18-20, 1775 (Massachusetts Historical Society, Adams Family Papers); American Battlefield Trust: Bunker Hill; Wikipedia: Battle of Bunker Hill

Common Sense (January 10, 1776)

Thomas Paine had reached the colonies only in November 1774. His pamphlet Common Sense was published in Philadelphia on January 10, 1776, by Robert Bell, and at first carried no name. It argued that independence was the only logical course and attacked monarchy itself, in language aimed at ordinary readers rather than lawyers. It was reprinted many times and in newspapers, and was widely discussed.

• The pamphlet was published anonymously. The Connecticut Courant printed it in full on February 19, 1776.
• Nobody knows how many copies sold. Paine claimed 120,000 in three months, one biographer estimates 500,000 in the first year, and sceptics put the limit at about 75,000.
• Paine meant to use his share of the profits to buy mittens for General Montgomery's troops in Quebec, but the publisher's accounts showed no profit. He never made money from it.

Sources: Common Sense, by Thomas Paine, 1776 (Project Gutenberg); Library of Congress blog: 250 Years Ago, Thomas Paine's Common Sense; Wikipedia: Common Sense (pamphlet)

The Declaration of Independence (July 2 to August 2, 1776)

On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee moved in Congress that the colonies be free and independent states. A committee of five, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Robert R. Livingston and Roger Sherman, was named on June 11, and Jefferson wrote most of the draft. Congress voted for independence on July 2, with twelve colonies in favour and New York abstaining, and approved the final wording on July 4. The handwritten copy was signed mostly on August 2.

• Congress cut about a quarter of Jefferson's draft, including his passage blaming King George III for the slave trade.
• The document lists about 27 charges against the king, beginning with 'He has refused his Assent to Laws'. It closes with a pledge of 'our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor'.
• The famous printed version was the Dunlap broadside, widely distributed after the vote. The engrossed parchment was written out by Timothy Matlack, and 56 delegates signed it.

Sources: The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription (National Archives); Office of the Historian: The Declaration of Independence, 1776; National Park Service: Assembly Room of Independence Hall; Wikipedia: United States Declaration of Independence

Washington Crosses the Delaware: Trenton (December 25 to 26, 1776)

By late 1776 the Continental Army had lost New York and retreated across New Jersey. On the night of December 25, Washington crossed the Delaware River in a winter storm. Ice and weather stopped two of the three planned crossings, so the main force of about 2,400 men crossed alone, roughly nine miles above Trenton. They marched to the town and attacked the garrison of about 1,500 Hessian troops under Colonel Johann Rall at dawn on December 26. About 800 to 900 were taken prisoner.

• The American losses in the battle itself were tiny: five wounded, among them the future president James Monroe. Two men died of exposure on the march.
• The popular claim that the Hessians were drunk is disputed. Historian David Hackett Fischer cites a Patriot witness who said no liquor was drunk that night, and Edward Lengel calls the legend untrue.
• Emanuel Leutze painted the famous scene in 1851, 75 years later, and it is not a reliable picture of the crossing. Thomas Paine's pamphlet The Crisis, which opens 'These are the times that try men's souls', appeared the same month.

Sources: The Writings of Thomas Paine, Volume 1: The American Crisis (Project Gutenberg); American Battlefield Trust: Trenton; Wikipedia: Battle of Trenton

Saratoga and the French Alliance (September 19, 1777 to February 6, 1778)

In 1777 General John Burgoyne led about 7,500 men south from Canada to take the Hudson valley. American forces under Horatio Gates stopped him at Freeman's Farm on September 19 and at Bemis Heights on October 7. Burgoyne surrendered on October 17. News of the surrender reached France in December, and the foreign minister, the Comte de Vergennes, offered an alliance rather than wait for Spain. On February 6, 1778, Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee signed a Treaty of Alliance and a Treaty of Amity and Commerce.

• Benedict Arnold was badly wounded in the left leg at Bemis Heights. He was hailed as a hero at Saratoga and defected to the British in 1780.
• Article 8 of the alliance said neither France nor the United States could make a truce or peace with Britain without the other's formal consent.
• Franklin's reputation in Paris as a model of republican simplicity and honesty helped win support for the alliance, according to the State Department's historians.

Sources: Treaty of Alliance between the United States and France, February 6, 1778 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); National Park Service: Saratoga National Historical Park, History and Culture; Office of the Historian: French Alliance, French Assistance, and European Diplomacy, 1778-1782; American Battlefield Trust: Saratoga

Valley Forge (December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778)

After losing the battles for Philadelphia, Washington's army went into winter quarters at Valley Forge, on the Schuylkill River about 18 miles northwest of the city, on December 19, 1777. Soldiers built huts and struggled with shortages of food, clothing and organised supply. An estimated 1,700 to 2,000 men died over the winter, mostly of disease, and most in general hospitals outside the camp. The Prussian officer Baron von Steuben trained the army in drill, and it marched out in June 1778 as a more disciplined force.

• Washington's February 1777 order to inoculate the army has been called the first mass immunization policy in American history. At Valley Forge, an investigation found 3,000 to 4,000 troops still not inoculated, and he ordered inoculations for those at risk.
• On December 22 Brigadier General James Varnum reported that his men had gone three days without bread, and wrote 'The Men must be supplied, or they cannot be commanded.' Washington warned Congress the army would 'Starve, dissolve, or disperse.'
• Martha Washington arrived in early February 1778 and stayed about four months. A five-man congressional delegation visited the camp on January 24.

Sources: December 1777: From the Journals of Valley Forge (National Park Service); National Park Service: Valley Forge, History and Culture; History of Vaccines: Washington's War Against Smallpox; Wikipedia: Valley Forge

The Siege of Yorktown (September 28 to October 19, 1781)

In 1781 Lord Cornwallis brought his army to Yorktown, Virginia, to set up a naval base. Washington and the French general Rochambeau marched south from the Hudson, while Admiral de Grasse's fleet defeated the Royal Navy at the Battle of the Capes on September 5 and cut Cornwallis off by sea. The allies besieged the town. On October 14 they stormed Redoubts 9 and 10, and on October 19 the British garrison surrendered. It was the last major battle of the war, and it led to peace talks.

• Cornwallis did not attend the surrender, citing illness. Brigadier General Charles O'Hara offered his sword first to Rochambeau and then to Washington, who both redirected him, and Major General Benjamin Lincoln accepted it.
• The British band is said to have played 'The World Turned Upside Down'. Even a standard reference calls that story possibly apocryphal.
• Washington refused to grant the honours the British wanted, citing the earlier surrender at Charleston. The articles of capitulation had the British march out with 'colors cased', and the allies rejected the request to protect Loyalists from punishment.

Sources: Articles of Capitulation, Yorktown, October 1781 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); National Park Service: Yorktown Battlefield, History and Culture; American Battlefield Trust: Yorktown; Wikipedia: Siege of Yorktown

The Treaty of Paris (September 3, 1783 to May 12, 1784)

The treaty ended the Revolutionary War. David Hartley signed for Britain, and John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and John Jay for the United States, at the Hotel d'York in Paris on September 3, 1783. Britain recognised the thirteen states as free, sovereign and independent and set the borders from Nova Scotia through the Great Lakes to the Mississippi and the Florida line. Congress ratified it on January 14, 1784, at Annapolis, and the ratified copies were exchanged in Paris on May 12, 1784.

• Article 8 said the Mississippi from its source to the ocean would 'forever remain free and open' to British subjects and American citizens.
• Creditors on both sides were promised the right to recover prewar debts. Congress agreed only to recommend that the states restore confiscated Loyalist property, and many states ignored it.
• Only Article 1, recognising American independence, is still in force. Britain kept eight forts in U.S. territory until the Jay Treaty.

Sources: Definitive Treaty of Peace, September 3, 1783 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Office of the Historian: Treaty of Paris, 1783; Wikipedia: Treaty of Paris (1783)

Shays' Rebellion (August 1786 to February 1787)

After the war, western Massachusetts farmers, many of them veterans, faced heavy taxes, a shortage of hard money and foreclosures. When the legislature did not act on their petitions, armed crowds began blocking county courts in August 1786. Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran, was one of the leaders, though some historians say his role has been overstated. On January 25, 1787, about 1,500 rebels tried to take the federal arsenal at Springfield, and militia under General William Shepard fired on them. A privately funded militia force under General Benjamin Lincoln scattered the rebels in early February.

• Shepard's militia fired warning shots and then grapeshot at Springfield, killing four rebels and wounding about 20.
• Eighteen men were sentenced to death, but most sentences were commuted or pardoned. John Bly and Charles Rose were hanged on December 6, 1787. Shays fled to Vermont, was pardoned in 1788, and died poor in New York in 1825.
• The Hampshire County rebels' own address listed four grievances: the costly way of collecting debts, tax money going to domestic securities, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the sweeping powers of the Riot Act.

Sources: Address to the people of the towns of Hampshire County, 'now in arms', 1786 (TeachingAmericanHistory.org); American Battlefield Trust: Shays' Rebellion; HISTORY: Shays' Rebellion; Wikipedia: Shays' Rebellion

The Constitutional Convention and Ratification (May 25, 1787 to June 21, 1788)

The convention met in the Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. It was called to revise the Articles of Confederation, but James Madison and others pushed for a new government. Fifty-five delegates from twelve states attended, Rhode Island sending none, and George Washington was elected to preside. The delegates agreed the Connecticut Compromise on representation and the Three-Fifths Compromise, and 39 of them signed on September 17. Article VII said ratification by nine state conventions would be enough. New Hampshire became the ninth on June 21, 1788.

• The proceedings were secret. Madison's notes were not published until 1840, four years after his death.
• As the delegates signed, Benjamin Franklin said, according to the National Park Service, that the sun carved on the back of Washington's chair was 'a rising and not a setting sun'.
• Delaware ratified first, unanimously, on December 7, 1787. Virginia followed on June 25, 1788, by 89 to 79, and New York on July 26 by 30 to 27. Rhode Island was last, in May 1790.

Sources: The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription (National Archives); National Park Service: Assembly Room of Independence Hall; Wikipedia: Constitutional Convention (United States)

George Washington (1789 to 1797)

George Washington, 1st President of the United States, 1st · No party (Federalist-leaning)

Washington was a Virginia planter and the commander of the Continental Army before he became president. He took the oath in New York City on April 30, 1789, with no model to follow. He chose a cabinet, backed Hamilton's financial plan, kept the country out of Europe's wars through a Proclamation of Neutrality in 1793, and in 1794 sent a militia army against armed resistance to the whiskey tax. He then stepped down after two terms, which set a custom that held for well over a century.

How they came to power: The first Electoral College elected him unanimously in 1789 and again in 1792. He took no party label, though his policies leaned toward Hamilton and the Federalists.

How it ended: He left office on March 4, 1797, after declining a third term. He died at Mount Vernon on December 14, 1799, at age 67, after about two days of illness with a severe throat infection. His doctors bled him repeatedly. Modern physicians think acute epiglottitis, an infection that blocks the airway, was the most likely cause, and some argue the heavy bloodletting made it worse. His will freed his valet William Lee at once and provided that the 123 people he owned outright be freed after Martha's death; she freed them on January 1, 1801.

• At his first inauguration in 1789 Washington had only one natural tooth left. His dentures were made of materials such as hippopotamus ivory, brass, gold, lead, and animal and human teeth, but not wood. The wooden-teeth story likely grew from stained ivory that looked like wood grain.
• In September 1794, as the Whiskey Rebellion grew, Washington left Philadelphia on September 30 to review the militia he had called out. He met western representatives at Bedford, Pennsylvania, on October 9, then went on to Fort Cumberland, Maryland, before turning back. Historian Joseph Ellis calls it the first and only time a sitting president has led troops in the field.
• In his first inaugural address Washington said he wished to take no personal pay for the presidency, asking only that Congress cover his actual expenses.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of George Washington, April 30, 1789 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: George Washington; Mount Vernon: Status of Enslaved People in Washington's Will; The mysterious death of George Washington (National Constitution Center); Wikipedia: George Washington's teeth

The Bill of Rights (September 25, 1789 to December 15, 1791)

Many Americans opposed the new Constitution partly because it had no bill of rights, a point George Mason pressed in a widely read pamphlet. Supporters first called one unnecessary, then agreed to consider amendments to win ratification in states such as Massachusetts. James Madison introduced proposals in the First Congress on June 8, 1789. The House passed 17 amendments, the Senate cut them to 12, and Congress sent 12 to the states. On December 15, 1791, Virginia's ratification gave the necessary three-quarters of states to ten of them, which became the first ten amendments.

• Madison first opposed adding a bill of rights, then supported one, partly because he thought it might head off more drastic changes to the Constitution.
• Only ten of the twelve proposed articles were ratified in 1791. The second one, on congressional pay, finally became the 27th Amendment in 1992, after more than two centuries.
• Massachusetts, Georgia and Connecticut ratified the Bill of Rights in 1939, as part of its 150th anniversary, because they had not formally done so in 1791.

Sources: The Bill of Rights: A Transcription (U.S. National Archives); The Bill of Rights: How Did it Happen? (U.S. National Archives); Wikipedia: United States Bill of Rights

The Whiskey Rebellion (1791 to 1794 (climax July to November 1794))

In March 1791 Congress passed an excise tax on distilled spirits to help pay the national debt. Many western farmers, who turned grain into whiskey that was easier to carry to market, resented it. Tax officers were threatened, and on July 16 and 17, 1794, armed men attacked General John Neville's fortified home at Bower Hill; a militiaman was mortally wounded in the first exchange and Major James McFarlane, who led the rebels, was killed. On August 7 Washington issued a proclamation ordering the insurgents to disperse by September 1, and then called out militia from several states. The force of roughly 13,000 met no armed resistance, as rebel leaders fled before it arrived. Only two men were convicted of treason, and Washington pardoned both. The tax stayed on the books until 1802.

• About 7,000 people gathered at Braddock's Field near Pittsburgh on August 1, 1794, during the crisis.
• Washington travelled west to meet western representatives at Bedford, Pennsylvania, on October 9, 1794, then returned to Philadelphia and left General Henry Lee in command of the army.
• Of ten men tried for treason, only Philip Wigle and John Mitchell were convicted and sentenced to death, and both were later pardoned.

Sources: August 7, 1794: Proclamation against Opposition to Execution of Laws and Excise Duties in Western Pennsylvania (Miller Center); HISTORY: Whiskey Rebellion; Wikipedia: Whiskey Rebellion

John Adams (1797 to 1801)

John Adams, 2nd President of the United States, 2nd · Federalist

Adams was a leading voice for independence in the Continental Congress and Washington's vice president for eight years. As president he faced an undeclared naval conflict with France, called the Quasi-War, and built up the army and navy while still keeping the country out of a formal war. He also signed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which critics saw as an attack on political opponents and the press. He was the first president to live in the White House.

How they came to power: He won the 1796 election as a Federalist and succeeded Washington. Under the original rules, runner-up Thomas Jefferson became his vice president.

How it ended: Jefferson beat him in the 1800 election, and he left office on March 4, 1801. He died at Quincy, Massachusetts, on July 4, 1826, aged 90, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

• Years before he was president, Adams defended the British soldiers charged after the Boston Massacre of 1770. Their captain was acquitted in a separate trial; of the eight soldiers, six were acquitted and two were convicted of manslaughter.
• Adams died on the same day as Thomas Jefferson, July 4, 1826.
• On November 2, 1800, the day after arriving at the unfinished President's House, Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: 'I pray Heaven to bestow the best of Blessings on this House and all that shall hereafter inhabit it.'

Sources: Inaugural Address of John Adams, March 4, 1797 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); John Adams to Abigail Adams, November 2, 1800 (Massachusetts Historical Society); Miller Center: John Adams; Wikipedia: John Adams

Thomas Jefferson (1801 to 1809)

Thomas Jefferson, 3rd President of the United States, 3rd · Democratic-Republican

Jefferson was a Virginia planter, the main author of the Declaration of Independence, and Adams's vice president. He is remembered for the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which doubled the country's size, and for sending Lewis and Clark to explore it. He pursued limited federal spending, and in 1807 he signed the Embargo Act in an attempt to protect American shipping, a measure widely seen as costly to the economy. Jefferson held enslaved people throughout his life, a tension with his writing on liberty that historians still examine.

How they came to power: In 1800 he and Aaron Burr tied with 73 electoral votes each, and the House of Representatives settled the contest in his favor on its thirty-sixth ballot, on February 17, 1801.

How it ended: He retired in 1809 after two terms. He died at Monticello on July 4, 1826, aged 83, hours before John Adams.

• In his first inaugural address Jefferson said, 'We are all Republicans, we are all Federalists,' a plea to calm party feeling after a bitter election.
• After the British burned Washington in 1814, Jefferson sold his second library, which had grown to nearly 6,500 volumes, to the U.S. government in 1815 for $23,950.
• Around 1820 he assembled his own version of the Gospels, known as the Jefferson Bible, by cutting passages from printed Bibles.

Sources: Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Thomas Jefferson; On this day, a true constitutional crisis ends in the Washington (National Constitution Center); Wikipedia: Thomas Jefferson

Marbury v. Madison (February 24, 1803)

In his last hours in office, President Adams appointed William Marbury a justice of the peace for the District of Columbia, but the commission was never delivered. Jefferson's administration refused to hand it over, and Marbury asked the Supreme Court to order delivery under the Judiciary Act of 1789. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that Marbury had a right to the commission, but the Court could not grant the writ because the section of the act that gave the Court that power conflicted with the Constitution. The decision, 4 to 0 with two justices absent, established judicial review.

• Marshall had been Adams's Secretary of State and was the one who failed to deliver all the commissions before Jefferson took office, yet he did not recuse himself from the case.
• The opinion contains the line that it is 'emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.'
• The legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky argues that the Court did not strike down another federal law until Dred Scott v. Sandford in 1857, though other scholars, such as Keith Whittington, say the Court reviewed federal statutes in the meantime.

Sources: Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) (Cornell Legal Information Institute); Marbury v. Madison (National Constitution Center); Wikipedia: Marbury v. Madison

The Louisiana Purchase (April 30, 1803 (Senate ratification October 20, 1803))

Spain had held Louisiana since 1762; France took possession in 1802. Jefferson sent James Monroe to join Robert Livingston in Paris with instructions to buy New Orleans and West Florida for up to $10 million. Napoleon, whose plan to retake the sugar colony of St. Domingue had collapsed under yellow fever and a slave rebellion, and who faced war with England, offered all of Louisiana for $15 million instead. The envoys accepted. The Senate ratified the treaty 24 to 7 on October 20, 1803. The land was home to many Native nations, whose claims were not part of the deal.

• The price works out to less than three cents per acre, counted over roughly 530 million acres.
• Jefferson doubted that the Constitution gave the government power to buy territory and considered seeking an amendment, but his cabinet talked him out of it.
• The envoys exceeded their instructions: Livingston and Monroe were authorized to spend up to $10 million for New Orleans and West Florida, not to buy the whole territory.

Sources: Louisiana Purchase Treaty, April 30, 1803 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Louisiana Purchase, 1803 (Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State); The Senate Approves for Ratification the Louisiana Purchase Treaty (U.S. Senate); Wikipedia: Louisiana Purchase

The Lewis and Clark Expedition (May 14, 1804 to September 23, 1806)

On June 20, 1803, Jefferson gave Meriwether Lewis written instructions to explore the Missouri River and seek a water route toward the Pacific. Lewis chose William Clark as co-commander, and the Corps of Discovery left Camp Dubois, near St. Louis, on May 14, 1804. It crossed the plains and the Rockies with the help of Native nations and the interpreter Sacagawea, reached the Pacific coast in late 1805, and returned to St. Louis on September 23, 1806. The party's maps and notes became the basis for American knowledge of the region, though no practical all-water route existed.

• Sergeant Charles Floyd, who died on August 20, 1804, apparently of appendicitis, was the only member of the expedition to die.
• Sacagawea gave birth to Jean Baptiste Charbonneau on February 11, 1805, and travelled on with the infant.
• On November 24, 1805, the party voted on where to camp for the winter, and both Sacagawea, a Native woman, and York, an enslaved man owned by Clark, took part in the vote.

Sources: Thomas Jefferson's Instructions to Meriwether Lewis, June 20, 1803 (Encyclopedia Virginia); History and Culture: Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail (National Park Service); Wikipedia: Lewis and Clark Expedition

James Madison (1809 to 1817)

James Madison, 4th President of the United States, 4th · Democratic-Republican

Madison, five feet four inches tall, was Jefferson's Secretary of State and the main author of the Bill of Rights in the First Congress. His presidency is defined by the War of 1812, which he asked Congress to declare on June 1, 1812, citing British seizure of sailors and interference with American trade. The capital was burned in 1814, yet the war ended in 1815 with the Treaty of Ghent and a surge of national confidence. He left office as the country's attention turned to roads, banks and growth.

How they came to power: He was elected in 1808 as Jefferson's chosen successor and re-elected in 1812.

How it ended: He retired in 1817 to his Virginia home, Montpelier, and died there on June 28, 1836, aged 85.

• Madison is often called the 'Father of the Constitution' for his role at the 1787 convention, and he was the primary author of the Bill of Rights.
• After the American defeat at Bladensburg in August 1814, Madison fled Washington and spent the night in Brookeville, Maryland.
• His wife, Dolley, organized staff to save valuables from the White House before the British arrived, including a portrait of George Washington; accounts differ on who took it down.

Sources: James Madison's First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1809 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: James Madison; Wikipedia: James Madison

The War of 1812 (June 18, 1812 to February 17, 1815)

Caught between Napoleonic France and Britain, the United States found its neutral trade restricted by both, while Britain also pressed sailors from American ships into the Royal Navy. Madison asked Congress for war on June 1, 1812, and the declaration came on June 18. Western expansion and conflict with Native peoples also fed the war. An American invasion of Canada failed, and Tecumseh, whose confederacy fought alongside the British, was killed in 1813. In August 1814 British forces defeated the Americans at Bladensburg and on August 24 burned the Capitol and the White House, occupying Washington for about 26 hours. The Treaty of Ghent was signed on December 24, 1814, and restored prewar boundaries. The Senate approved it unanimously on February 16, 1815, and the two sides exchanged ratifications on February 17.

• Andrew Jackson's victory at New Orleans in January 1815 came after the treaty was signed, but before news of peace reached the region.
• The burning of Washington destroyed the contents of the Library of Congress, then housed in the Capitol; Congress then bought Jefferson's library to replace it.
• The Hartford Convention, where New England Federalists met to discuss grievances, became linked in memory with talk of secession and hurt that party's reputation.

Sources: President Madison's War Message, June 1, 1812 (Teaching American History); Treaty of Ghent, 1814 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); War of 1812-1815 (Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State); Wikipedia: Burning of Washington

James Monroe (1817 to 1825)

James Monroe, 5th President of the United States, 5th · Democratic-Republican

Monroe was wounded at the Battle of Trenton, served as a diplomat, and helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase. His presidency coincided with what a Boston newspaper called the Era of Good Feelings, a period without organized party opposition. It also saw the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, which secured Florida from Spain, the Missouri Compromise in 1820, and in 1823 the statement later called the Monroe Doctrine.

How they came to power: He won the presidency in 1816 as Madison's chosen successor, and in 1820 faced no organized opposition.

How it ended: He left office on March 4, 1825. He died in New York City on July 4, 1831, the third president to die on that date.

• Monroe was wounded at the Battle of Trenton when a musket ball severed an artery, and he nearly died.
• In 1820 Monroe ran unopposed and won all but one electoral vote. The lone dissenter was New Hampshire elector William Plumer, who voted for John Quincy Adams. A later story said Plumer wanted Washington to remain the only unanimous choice, but he did not mention Washington in his speech explaining his vote, and Wikipedia reports he thought Monroe was incompetent.
• Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, is named in his honor.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of James Monroe, March 4, 1817 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: James Monroe; Wikipedia: James Monroe

The Missouri Compromise (March 6, 1820)

In February 1819 Representative James Tallmadge proposed barring further slavery in Missouri, setting off a fierce national debate. The compromise, passed by Congress on March 3 and signed by Monroe on March 6, 1820, admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, keeping the Senate balanced, and banned slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of 36 degrees 30 minutes. The line held for 34 years, until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 effectively repealed it. In 1857 the Supreme Court ruled in Dred Scott v. Sandford that Congress had no power to bar slavery in the territories.

• Jefferson wrote on April 22, 1820, to John Holmes that the Missouri question, like a 'fire bell in the night,' awakened and filled him with terror.
• Missouri's 1820 constitution required exclusion of free Black residents; a second compromise in 1821 declared that clause could not be used to impair the privileges of U.S. citizens.
• The Senate Historical Office says the compromise showed that the slavery question would have to be settled in the Senate, which inspired men such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun to join it.

Sources: Missouri Compromise (1820) (U.S. National Archives, Milestone Documents); Missouri Compromise Ushers in New Era for the Senate (U.S. Senate); Wikipedia: Missouri Compromise

The Monroe Doctrine (December 2, 1823)

In 1823 British Foreign Minister George Canning proposed that Britain and the United States jointly warn other powers off Latin America. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams opposed a joint declaration, partly fearing it would limit future U.S. expansion, so the message became a unilateral one. In his seventh annual message to Congress on December 2, 1823, Monroe said the American continents were not to be considered subjects for future colonization by any European power, and that the United States would view attempts to extend European systems to this hemisphere as dangerous to its safety. It was little noticed at first; it was not named the Monroe Doctrine until 1850.

• Secretary of State John Quincy Adams shaped the policy and is often credited as its principal author, though the words appeared in Monroe's message.
• For many years after 1823, the British Royal Navy was in practice the only force that enforced the doctrine, since the U.S. Navy was small.
• Monroe's message also pledged that the United States would not interfere in existing European colonies or in European affairs.

Sources: Monroe Doctrine, December 2, 1823 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Monroe Doctrine, 1823 (Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State); Wikipedia: Monroe Doctrine

John Quincy Adams (1825 to 1829)

John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States, 6th · Democratic-Republican (National Republican)

Adams was a diplomat, Monroe's Secretary of State, and a principal architect of what became the Monroe Doctrine. As president he proposed roads, canals, and federal investment in internal improvements, but met a hostile Congress. His term was shadowed by the charge that he had made a 'corrupt bargain' to win. After leaving the White House he returned to the House of Representatives, where he served until his death.

How they came to power: In the 1824 election Andrew Jackson won 99 electoral votes to Adams's 84, but nobody had a majority. On February 9, 1825, the House chose Adams on the first ballot, with 13 of 24 state delegations.

How it ended: Jackson defeated him in 1828. Adams served in the House from March 4, 1831, until his death. He collapsed on the House floor on February 21, 1848, and died two days later in the Capitol.

• Adams remains the only former president elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for the rest of his life.
• In 1841, at age 73, he argued before the Supreme Court on behalf of the enslaved men who had seized the ship Amistad.
• He kept a diary from 1779 almost until his death in 1848.

Sources: Inaugural Address of John Quincy Adams, March 4, 1825 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: John Quincy Adams; Wikipedia: John Quincy Adams

Andrew Jackson (1829 to 1837)

Andrew Jackson, 7th President of the United States, 7th · Democratic

Jackson was a frontier lawyer and a general who won the Battle of New Orleans. His supporters saw him as the champion of ordinary voters, and the Democratic Party grew around him. He vetoed the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1832, faced down South Carolina's attempt to nullify a federal tariff, and signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Admirers credit him with widening political participation; critics point to the suffering his Native policy caused and to his own slaveholding.

How they came to power: He won the most votes in 1824 but lost in the House, then defeated John Quincy Adams in a landslide in 1828.

How it ended: He left office on March 4, 1837, and died at his Tennessee home, the Hermitage, near Nashville on June 8, 1845.

• In 1806 Charles Dickinson fired first in a duel with Jackson and hit him in the chest, though by Wikipedia's account the bullet shattered against his breastbone. Jackson then returned fire and killed Dickinson.
• On January 30, 1835, a man named Richard Lawrence aimed two pistols at him outside the Capitol, and both misfired; Jackson struck at him with his cane.
• In 1835 the federal government paid off the national debt, and Jackson is the only president under whom that has happened.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of Andrew Jackson, March 4, 1829 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Andrew Jackson; Wikipedia: Andrew Jackson

The Indian Removal Act and the Trail of Tears (May 28, 1830 to March 24, 1839)

The Indian Removal Act, signed by Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorized the president to negotiate treaties moving tribes east of the Mississippi to land in the West. It passed the Senate 28 to 19 and the House by 101 to 97. The Choctaw were the first to sign a removal treaty, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, on September 27, 1830. The Cherokee fought removal in court and won Worcester v. Georgia in 1832, but a minority faction signed the Treaty of New Echota in December 1835 without Principal Chief John Ross. In 1838, under Martin Van Buren, General Winfield Scott led about 3,000 troops in rounding up and moving the Cherokee. Over 16,000 were removed in 17 detachments, and the last detachment reached Indian Territory on March 24, 1839.

• The National Archives says about 4,000 of the 16,000 Cherokee died on the removal in 1838 and 1839. Other estimates are higher, and historians continue to debate the total.
• Davy Crockett, then a Tennessee congressman, spoke against the bill.
• The Treaty of New Echota was signed in December 1835 by a minority faction of Cherokee, the Treaty Party, and principal chief John Ross did not sign it.

Sources: President Andrew Jackson's Message to Congress 'On Indian Removal' (1830) (U.S. National Archives); Trail of Tears National Historic Trail (National Park Service); 175th year of Trail of Tears' end commemorated (Cherokee Phoenix); Wikipedia: Indian Removal Act

Nat Turner's Rebellion (August 21 to 23, 1831)

Nat Turner, an enslaved preacher in Southampton County, Virginia, began an uprising on the night of August 21, 1831. The rebels killed 55 white men, women and children over about a day before militia stopped them. White Virginians then killed roughly three dozen Black people in Southampton County without trial, and other accounts give higher totals. Turner hid for about ten weeks before being found by Benjamin Phipps on October 30, and was hanged on November 11. Nineteen others were executed. Virginia's legislature debated slavery in 1831 and 1832, rejected ending it, and passed laws restricting enslaved and free Black people.

• Thirty enslaved people and one free Black man were condemned to death, and twelve of the sentences were commuted by Governor John Floyd.
• The lawyer Thomas R. Gray published Turner's 'Confessions' in 1831; historians still debate how much of it reflects Turner's own words versus Gray's shaping.
• About 2,000 Virginians petitioned the legislature to act on slavery, but a committee reported that ending it was 'inexpedient.'

Sources: The Confessions of Nat Turner, 1831 (Documenting the American South, UNC); Nat Turner's Revolt (1831) (Encyclopedia Virginia); Wikipedia: Nat Turner's Rebellion

Martin Van Buren (1837 to 1841)

Martin Van Buren, 8th President of the United States, 8th · Democratic

Van Buren was a New York political organizer, Jackson's Secretary of State and vice president, and the first president born after the Declaration of Independence. He inherited the Panic of 1837, when banks stopped converting paper money into gold and silver on May 10, 1837, setting off a depression that lasted into the 1840s. In 1838 he oversaw the final phase of the Cherokee removal. He opposed congressional action against slavery in the District of Columbia, a stance stated in his inaugural address.

How they came to power: He was Jackson's vice president and, with Jackson's backing, won the 1836 election.

How it ended: He lost the 1840 election to William Henry Harrison and left office on March 4, 1841. He ran again in 1848 as the Free Soil Party's nominee. He died of asthma at his home in Kinderhook, New York, on July 24, 1862.

• Van Buren was raised speaking Dutch and is the only president whose first language was not English.
• In his inaugural address he said that, unlike the presidents before him, the Revolution had been achieved 'at the period of my birth.'
• During his 1840 campaign, his nickname 'Old Kinderhook' helped spread the abbreviation 'OK' as a slogan of support.

Sources: Martin Van Buren, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1837 (Teaching American History); Miller Center: Martin Van Buren; Wikipedia: Martin Van Buren

William Henry Harrison (March 4 to April 4, 1841)

William Henry Harrison, 9th President of the United States, 9th · Whig

Harrison was an Indiana Territory governor and general who led U.S. forces against Tecumseh's confederacy at the Battle of Tippecanoe on November 7, 1811. His Whig campaign in 1840, with the slogan 'Tippecanoe and Tyler Too,' presented him as a plain man of the frontier. He delivered a very long inaugural address, more than 8,000 words, and died of illness on April 4, 1841, one month after taking office, the shortest presidency in U.S. history.

How they came to power: He was the Whig candidate in 1840 and beat Martin Van Buren.

How it ended: He fell ill on March 27, 1841, about three weeks after his inauguration, and died at the White House on April 4, 1841. His physicians reported pneumonia. In 2014 Jane McHugh and Philip Mackowiak argued the cause was enteric (typhoid) fever from contaminated water. Historians have not settled the question.

• Harrison was born on February 9, 1773, in the British colony of Virginia, and is the last president born as a British subject.
• The popular story that his long speech in cold weather killed him does not fit the timeline, since his illness began about three weeks later.
• In their 2014 article, the researchers pointed to a marsh near the White House where untreated waste collected close to the city's water supply.

Sources: Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison, March 4, 1841 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: William Henry Harrison; What really killed the first President to die in office? (National Constitution Center); Wikipedia: William Henry Harrison

John Tyler (1841 to 1845)

John Tyler, 10th President of the United States, 10th · Whig, expelled from the party

Tyler was a Virginia states'-rights politician who became president when Harrison died. He insisted he held the full powers of the office, not merely those of an acting president, setting what is called the Tyler precedent. Opponents mocked him as 'His Accidency.' He vetoed Whig bank bills, and on September 13, 1841, Whig members of Congress expelled him from the party. Just before leaving office he signed the joint resolution offering Texas statehood.

How they came to power: He was elected vice president in 1840 on the Whig ticket and took the presidential oath after Harrison's death on April 4, 1841.

How it ended: He left office on March 4, 1845. He later supported the Confederacy and was elected to its House of Representatives, but died in Richmond on January 18, 1862, before it assembled.

• Tyler had 15 children, the most of any president.
• He was the first president whose veto was overridden by Congress.
• His grandson Harrison Ruffin Tyler died on May 25, 2025, at age 96, which means a grandson of a president born in 1790 was alive well into the 21st century.

Sources: Address to the People of the United States, April 9, 1841, in Richardson's Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Vol. 4 (Project Gutenberg); Miller Center: John Tyler; Harrison Ruffin Tyler, grandson of 10th U.S. president and longtime Richmonder, dies at 96 (The Richmonder); Wikipedia: John Tyler

James K. Polk (1845 to 1849)

James K. Polk, 11th President of the United States, 11th · Democratic

Polk was a Tennessee Democrat and Jackson's protege who pledged to serve only one term. His administration annexed Texas, settled the Oregon dispute with Britain along the 49th parallel, lowered tariffs with the Walker Tariff of 1846, re-established an independent Treasury, and fought the war with Mexico that added the Southwest and California. Supporters point to his achievements; critics point to the war's origins and its role in reviving fights over slavery's expansion.

How they came to power: He emerged as the dark-horse nominee at the deadlocked 1844 Democratic convention, often described as the first, and narrowly won the general election that year.

How it ended: He kept his one-term pledge and left office in March 1849. He died of cholera in Nashville on June 15, 1849, 103 days later.

• Polk was the first president elected despite losing his home state of Tennessee, and he lost his birth state of North Carolina as well.
• A photograph of Polk and his Cabinet, taken in 1846, is described as the first photograph taken in the White House and the first of a presidential Cabinet.
• He died 103 days after leaving the White House, the shortest post-presidency of any president who did not die in office.

Sources: Inaugural Address of James Knox Polk, March 4, 1845 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: James K. Polk; Wikipedia: James K. Polk

The Mexican-American War (April 25, 1846 to February 2, 1848)

Texas and Mexico disagreed about the border: Texas claimed the Rio Grande, Mexico the Nueces. In July 1845 Polk ordered General Zachary Taylor's army into the land between them. John Slidell, sent in November 1845 with an offer to buy the disputed area and more, was turned away by Mexico. After skirmishes, Polk's message of May 11, 1846, said Mexico had shed American blood on American soil, and Congress declared war on May 13. U.S. forces captured Mexico City in September 1847. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed February 2, 1848, Mexico ceded more than 525,000 square miles, and the United States paid $15 million and assumed up to $3.25 million in claims. The war was contested at home and revived the dispute over slavery in new territory.

• About 13,283 Americans died in the war, but only 1,733 were killed in action; 11,550 died of disease.
• The Senate removed Article X, which protected Mexican land grants, before ratifying the treaty on March 10, 1848.
• The Wilmot Proviso of 1846 would have barred slavery in any territory gained from Mexico. It passed the House but not the Senate, and it became a major political controversy.

Sources: War Message to Congress, May 11, 1846 (Miller Center); Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) (U.S. National Archives, Milestone Documents); The Annexation of Texas, the Mexican-American War, and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State); Wikipedia: Mexican-American War

The Seneca Falls Convention (July 19 and 20, 1848)

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott and Mary Ann M'Clintock, among others, organized a two-day convention at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19 and 20, 1848. More than 300 people attended. Stanton's Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, listed grievances and called for equal rights for women. The meeting adopted resolutions on rights including the vote, and 100 people signed the Declaration, 68 women and 32 men. A second convention met in Rochester two weeks later.

• Frederick Douglass, the only African American attendee, argued for keeping the women's suffrage resolution after several participants, including Lucretia Mott, urged its removal. It was kept.
• The first day was announced for women only, but about 40 men attended and were allowed to stay if they stayed silent.
• Charlotte Woodward was the only signer still alive in 1920, when the Nineteenth Amendment passed, and she was not well enough to vote.

Sources: Declaration of Sentiments: The First Women's Rights Convention (National Park Service); Declaration Park and Waterwall (Women's Rights National Historical Park, NPS); Wikipedia: Seneca Falls Convention

Zachary Taylor (1849 to 1850)

Zachary Taylor, 12th President of the United States, 12th · Whig

Zachary Taylor spent about forty years in the army and became a national hero in the Mexican-American War. He was known as “Old Rough and Ready.” He was a wealthy slaveholder with properties in Louisiana, Kentucky and Mississippi. His short presidency was dominated by one question: whether slavery would be allowed to spread into California, New Mexico and Utah. He died before that fight was settled.

How they came to power: Taylor won the 1848 election as the Whig candidate with 163 of 290 electoral votes and about 47 percent of the popular vote, against Democrat Lewis Cass and Free Soil candidate Martin Van Buren. He was sworn in on March 5, 1849, because March 4 fell on a Sunday.

How it ended: Taylor fell ill and died at the White House on July 9, 1850, of a stomach illness, after about sixteen months in office. Vice President Millard Fillmore succeeded him and backed the Compromise of 1850.

• Taylor had not voted before 1848 and had never publicly revealed his political beliefs, yet his war fame was enough to win him the presidency. He was the first president elected without any earlier political office.
• His daughter Sarah Knox Taylor married Jefferson Davis in June 1835 and died of malaria about three months later, at age 21.
• When he bought Cypress Grove plantation in Mississippi in 1842 it came with 81 enslaved people; by his death the number there had grown to 127.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Zachary Taylor, March 5, 1849 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Zachary Taylor; Wikipedia: Zachary Taylor

Millard Fillmore (1850 to 1853)

Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States, 13th · Whig

Millard Fillmore had very little formal schooling and read law as a young man, joining the bar in 1823. As president he backed the Compromise of 1850, a package of five laws meant to settle the fight over slavery in the lands won from Mexico. He signed the Fugitive Slave Act and enforced it, believing his oath and the bargain required it. That cost him support in the North, and the Whig Party denied him renomination in 1852.

How they came to power: Fillmore was Taylor’s vice president. After Taylor died on July 9, 1850, Fillmore took the oath on July 10 at a joint session of Congress, administered by William Cranch, chief judge of the federal court in Washington.

How it ended: His term ended on March 4, 1853, when Franklin Pierce was inaugurated. Fillmore ran again in 1856 on the American (Know Nothing) ticket and lost to James Buchanan. He died in Buffalo, New York, on March 8, 1874.

• He held the Fugitive Slave bill on his desk for two days until Attorney General John J. Crittenden advised him that it was constitutional.
• He helped found the University of Buffalo in 1846 and served as its first chancellor, a post he held until his death in 1874.
• His wife Abigail, a former teacher, got Congress to appropriate $2,000 for a White House library and chose the books. She died on March 30, 1853, of pneumonia that followed a cold she likely caught at Franklin Pierce’s outdoor inauguration.

Sources: Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, signed by Fillmore (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Millard Fillmore; Abigail Powers Fillmore (White House Historical Association); Wikipedia: Millard Fillmore

The Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive Slave Act (September 9 to 20, 1850)

After the Mexican-American War, California asked to join the Union as a free state, which threatened the balance between slave and free states. Henry Clay proposed a package of resolutions on January 29, 1850. His combined “omnibus” bill failed on July 31, and Stephen A. Douglas then steered the pieces through Congress as separate bills. President Fillmore signed them between September 9 and 20. California entered as a free state, Utah and New Mexico became territories where settlers would decide on slavery, Texas gave up some land claims in return for $10 million in federal payments, and the slave trade (not slavery) was banned in Washington, D.C. The Fugitive Slave Act of September 18 made officials and citizens in every state responsible for returning escaped slaves.

• Under the Fugitive Slave Act a commissioner was paid $10 if he ruled for the person claiming ownership and $5 if he did not, and the accused person’s own testimony was not admitted.
• Anyone who knowingly helped a fugitive faced a fine of up to $1,000 and up to six months in prison, plus $1,000 in civil damages for each person lost.
• John C. Calhoun was too weak to deliver his last big speech on the compromise in March 1850; Senator James M. Mason of Virginia read it for him while Calhoun sat wrapped in a blanket. Calhoun died before the year was out.

Sources: Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Compromise of 1850, Milestone Documents (National Archives); Wikipedia: Compromise of 1850

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) (March 20, 1852)

Stowe wrote the novel in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. It first ran as a serial in the abolitionist newspaper The National Era for forty weeks, from June 5, 1851, to April 1, 1852. John P. Jewett published it as a two-volume book on March 20, 1852, and about 3,000 copies sold that day. Its picture of families torn apart by sale brought many Northern readers face to face with slavery. Southern writers answered with a wave of rebuttal novels, and the book was staged, translated and widely pirated.

• The story was meant to be short, but it grew to forty weekly installments, and readers wrote in to protest when an issue skipped it.
• By 1857 the novel had been translated into twenty languages, and more than a million copies, most of them unauthorised, were in circulation in Britain within a few years.
• The famous line that Lincoln greeted Stowe as “the little lady who started this great war” is probably apocryphal; Stowe’s own letter about the meeting does not mention it.

Sources: Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life among the Lowly, full text (Project Gutenberg); 1850 to 1900, Books That Shaped America (Library of Congress); Abolition and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy, African American Odyssey (Library of Congress); Wikipedia: Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Franklin Pierce (1853 to 1857)

Franklin Pierce, 14th President of the United States, 14th · Democratic

Franklin Pierce was a New Hampshire Democrat who served as a brigadier general in the Mexican War. His inaugural address called the Compromise of 1850 laws “strictly constitutional” and said they should be carried into effect. As president he signed the Gadsden Purchase, bought land from Mexico, and supported the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which cancelled the Missouri Compromise line. Northern anger at the act sharply reduced his popularity. His diplomats’ Ostend Manifesto, urging the annexation of Cuba, was widely criticised.

How they came to power: Pierce won the 1852 election over Whig general Winfield Scott by 254 electoral votes to 42, with 50.9 percent of the popular vote.

How it ended: The Democrats did not renominate him in 1856, and his term ended on March 4, 1857. He died in Concord, New Hampshire, on October 8, 1869, of cirrhosis of the liver.

• On January 6, 1853, two months before his inauguration, Pierce’s 11-year-old son Benjamin was killed when the family’s train derailed near Andover, Massachusetts; Pierce and his wife Jane survived.
• Pierce affirmed his oath of office instead of swearing it, and he delivered his inaugural address from memory, which no earlier president had done.
• His college friend Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his 1852 campaign biography, and after the election Pierce made Hawthorne U.S. consul at Liverpool.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Franklin Pierce, March 4, 1853 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Franklin Pierce; Wikipedia: Franklin Pierce

The Kansas-Nebraska Act and Bleeding Kansas (May 30, 1854 (violence 1854 to 1861))

Senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced the Nebraska bill on January 4, 1854, partly to clear the way for a northern transcontinental railroad. To win Southern votes, the bill was revised into two territories, Kansas and Nebraska, and dropped the Missouri Compromise ban on slavery north of 36°30′ in favour of “popular sovereignty,” leaving the question to settlers. The Senate passed it 37 to 14 and the House 113 to 100, and Pierce signed it on May 30, 1854. Free-state and pro-slavery settlers then competed to control Kansas. About 56 people were killed in the fighting there between 1854 and 1861, and the act helped split the Whigs and build the Republican Party.

• Kansas had 107,209 residents in the 1860 census, which counted only two enslaved people and 625 free Black residents, even though slavery was the cause of the fighting.
• The Senate passed the bill 37 to 14 after an all-night session, at about 5 a.m. on March 4, 1854.
• Lawrence, founded in July 1854 by New England emigrants, became the centre of free-state activity, while pro-slavery Missourians founded Atchison and Leavenworth.

Sources: Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854, Milestone Documents (National Archives); The Kansas-Nebraska Act (U.S. Senate Historical Office); Bleeding Kansas (Kansapedia, Kansas Historical Society); Wikipedia: Kansas-Nebraska Act

James Buchanan (1857 to 1861)

James Buchanan, 15th President of the United States, 15th · Democratic

James Buchanan, a Democrat, was the first president from Pennsylvania. In his inaugural address he called the question of slavery in the territories a judicial one and promised to accept whatever the Supreme Court decided. The Dred Scott ruling came two days later. He backed the pro-slavery Lecompton Constitution for Kansas, which the House rejected, and he opposed federal stimulus after the Panic of 1857. In November 1857 he sent troops to Utah in what critics called Buchanan’s Blunder. The Union broke apart during his final months in office.

How they came to power: Buchanan won the 1856 election with 174 of 296 electoral votes and about 45 percent of the popular vote, carrying every slave state except Maryland plus five free states. His opponents were Republican John C. Frémont and Millard Fillmore of the American Party.

How it ended: His term ended on March 4, 1861, when Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated, with civil war threatening. Buchanan died near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, on June 1, 1868, aged 77.

• Buchanan never married, and his niece Harriet Lane acted as the White House’s First Lady.
• Before his inauguration, Justice John Catron wrote to him about the pending Dred Scott case, and Buchanan wrote to fellow Pennsylvanian Justice Robert Grier, who joined the majority; historians such as Paul Finkelman see this as improper contact with the Court.
• In August 1858 Queen Victoria sent him a message over the new Atlantic cable; it took about 16 hours to transmit.

Sources: Buchanan’s Inaugural Address, March 4, 1857 (Teaching American History); Miller Center: James Buchanan; Wikipedia: James Buchanan

Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) (March 6, 1857)

Dred Scott, an enslaved man, sued for his freedom in St. Louis in 1846 on the ground that he had lived in free territory. The case reached the Supreme Court, where Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote the majority opinion. The Court held that Scott, as a descendant of enslaved Africans, was not a citizen and could not sue in federal court. It also held that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in federal territories. Many antislavery leaders denounced the decision, and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments later reversed its main holdings.

• Justice Benjamin Curtis’s 67-page dissent argued that free Black men could vote in five of the thirteen states when the Constitution was adopted. It led Taney to delay the ruling and add 18 pages of rebuttal.
• Taney wrote that when the Constitution was adopted, Black people were regarded as so inferior that they “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect,” and he used that claim in reading the Constitution.
• Scott and his family were freed on May 26, 1857, when Henry Taylor Blow filed manumission papers, but Dred Scott died of tuberculosis in St. Louis on September 17, 1858.

Sources: Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1857) (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School); Dred Scott v. Sandford, Milestone Documents (National Archives); Wikipedia: Dred Scott v. Sandford

John Brown’s Raid on Harpers Ferry (October 16 to 18, 1859)

John Brown, an abolitionist who had fought in Kansas, planned to arm enslaved people and create a free stronghold in the Appalachians. On the night of October 16 he led a small group, about twenty men, into Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and seized the federal armory and arsenal. No large number of enslaved people joined them. Militia pinned the raiders down, and on October 18 a Marine detachment commanded by Robert E. Lee stormed the engine house where Brown had taken refuge. The assault took about three minutes.

• Northern backers supplied 198 Sharps carbines, nicknamed “Beecher’s Bibles,” and Brown ordered 950 pikes that were never used.
• Brown asked both Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass to join him; illness kept Tubman away, and Douglass declined because he thought the plan would fail.
• Brown was tried in Charles Town for treason against Virginia, murder and inciting a slave insurrection. He was sentenced on November 2 and hanged on December 2, 1859, and John Wilkes Booth was among those who watched.

Sources: John Brown’s address to the court, November 2, 1859 (PBS, Africans in America); Stories: John Brown’s Raid (Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, NPS); Wikipedia: John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry

Secession and Fort Sumter (December 1860 to April 1861)

After Lincoln’s election in 1860, South Carolina adopted a declaration of the causes of its secession on December 24, 1860. It cited “increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery” and warned that the incoming party would wage war against slavery. Mississippi’s declaration stated, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.” Union Major Robert Anderson commanded the garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Confederate forces under Brigadier General P. G. T. Beauregard opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861. The bombardment lasted about 34 hours, and Anderson surrendered on April 13. Lincoln then called for 75,000 volunteers, and four more slave states joined the Confederacy.

• Beauregard had been Anderson’s artillery student at West Point.
• No one was killed in the bombardment. During the surrender salute on April 14, an accidental explosion mortally wounded two privates, Daniel Hough and Edward Galloway, who became the first military deaths of the war.
• Anderson carried the fort’s flag north, and on April 14, 1865, exactly four years later, he returned to Sumter and raised the same flag over the ruined fort.

Sources: Declaration of the Causes of Secession of South Carolina, December 24, 1860 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Declaration of the Causes of Secession of Mississippi (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park (NPS); Wikipedia: Battle of Fort Sumter

Abraham Lincoln (1861 to 1865)

Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States, 16th · Republican (National Union ticket in 1864)

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809 in what was then Hardin County, Kentucky (now LaRue County). He lost the 1858 Senate race to Stephen A. Douglas but gained a national name in their debates. As president he held the Union together through four years of war, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, and backed the Thirteenth Amendment. His Second Inaugural Address, with its closing call of “malice toward none,” set a tone of reconciliation that his death left unfulfilled.

How they came to power: Lincoln was elected in 1860 as the Republican nominee and took office on March 4, 1861, as the Union was breaking apart. He was re-elected in 1864 on the National Union ticket with Andrew Johnson.

How it ended: John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, five days after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. Lincoln died the next morning in the Petersen House across the street. He is buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield, Illinois.

• Lincoln is the only president to hold a patent: in 1849 he patented a device to help riverboats move through shallow water, though it was never produced.
• In 1833 he co-owned a general store that became a tavern; his partner William Berry obtained the licences for both men, since a licence was needed to sell alcohol.
• According to his biographers, his reputation for strength began with a wrestling match in which he beat the leader of the Clary’s Grove boys, a rough local gang.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1861 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Abraham Lincoln; Wikipedia: Abraham Lincoln

The Battle of Antietam (September 17, 1862)

Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia invaded Maryland in September 1862. Union Major General George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac met it at Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg. The Union lost about 12,400 men and the Confederates about 10,300, roughly 23,000 casualties in twelve hours of fighting. The battle was a tactical draw, but Lee withdrew across the Potomac on the night of September 18, and it counts as a strategic Union victory. Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation five days later, and the result helped discourage Britain and France from recognising the Confederacy.

• Union soldiers from the 27th Indiana found a copy of Lee’s Special Orders No. 191 wrapped around cigars in a field near Frederick, Maryland, on September 13, and the plans reached McClellan by noon.
• McClellan waited about 18 hours before acting on the captured plans, a delay historians still argue about.
• Clara Barton brought a wagonload of medical supplies to the battlefield and later founded the American Red Cross.

Sources: Special Orders No. 191 by Robert E. Lee, September 9, 1862 (Encyclopedia Virginia); Antietam National Battlefield (NPS); Special Orders No. 191 (Monocacy National Battlefield, NPS); Wikipedia: Battle of Antietam

The Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 1862, and January 1, 1863)

Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation on September 22, 1862, after the Union success at Antietam, warning that enslaved people in any area still in rebellion on January 1 would be declared free. The final proclamation followed on that date. He relied on his war powers as commander in chief, calling it “warranted by the Constitution, upon military necessity.” It applied only to the designated Confederate areas and exempted the loyal border states and parts of the Confederacy already under Union control. It also announced that Black men would be received into the armed service, and almost 200,000 Black soldiers and sailors served by the war’s end. The proclamation did not itself end slavery nationwide; the Thirteenth Amendment did that in December 1865.

• In an August 1862 letter, Lincoln wrote that his paramount object in the struggle was to save the Union, not either to save or to destroy slavery.
• The proclamation exempted specific Louisiana parishes, 48 West Virginia counties and several Virginia counties and cities that were under Union control.
• Slavery stayed legal in Delaware and Kentucky until the Thirteenth Amendment took effect in December 1865.

Sources: Transcript of the Emancipation Proclamation (National Archives); The Emancipation Proclamation, Milestone Documents (National Archives); Wikipedia: Emancipation Proclamation

Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address (July 1 to 3 and November 19, 1863)

Lee’s second invasion of the North ended at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where Union forces under George G. Meade held the high ground over three days. Confederate attacks failed at Little Round Top and Culp’s Hill, and on July 3 Pickett’s Charge, roughly 12,000 men, was repelled. Total casualties are put at 46,000 to 51,000. Lee retreated on July 4, the day Vicksburg surrendered to Grant. On November 19, about 15,000 people gathered to dedicate the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. Edward Everett spoke for two hours, and Lincoln, asked to make “a few appropriate remarks,” spoke for about two minutes. His ten sentences redefined the war’s purpose as a “new birth of freedom.”

• The story that Lincoln scribbled the speech on an envelope on the train is a myth, probably popularised by a 1906 book; he wrote it in Washington and revised it in Gettysburg the evening before.
• Five manuscript copies survive, and the Bliss copy is the standard text; the earlier Nicolay and Hay copies lack the words “under God.”
• Lincoln was later diagnosed with a mild case of smallpox, and some modern clinicians think he was in the early stage of the illness when he gave the address.

Sources: Gettysburg Address (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Gettysburg Address (Library of Congress exhibition); Gettysburg National Military Park (NPS); Wikipedia: Gettysburg Address

Sherman’s March to the Sea (November 15 to December 21, 1864)

After capturing Atlanta, Major General William T. Sherman marched about 60,000 men across Georgia to the port of Savannah. His Special Field Orders No. 120 ordered that “the army will forage liberally on the country.” The goal was to destroy railroads, mills and stores and to show Georgians that the Confederate government could not protect them. Confederate resistance was small, and the army wrecked about 300 miles of railroad. Savannah fell on December 21, and on December 22 Sherman wired Lincoln offering it as a Christmas gift. Historians debate whether the march was “total war” or “hard war,” and how much was destroyed.

• The same order said soldiers must not enter the dwellings of the inhabitants or commit any trespass, though the foraging parties known as bummers often ignored such limits.
• At Ebenezer Creek on December 9, General Jefferson C. Davis removed the pontoon bridge before formerly enslaved people following the army could cross, and many drowned.
• In his telegram to Lincoln, Sherman offered Savannah as a Christmas gift, along with 150 heavy guns and about 25,000 bales of cotton.

Sources: Special Field Orders No. 120, in Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman (Project Gutenberg); Sherman’s March to the Sea (New Georgia Encyclopedia); Wikipedia: Sherman’s March to the Sea

Appomattox: Lee Surrenders to Grant (April 9, 1865)

After the fall of Petersburg and Richmond, Lee’s army tried to escape west. Union cavalry under Philip Sheridan cut off its retreat, and Union infantry arrived in support. On the afternoon of April 9, Lee and Grant met in the McLean House at Appomattox Court House and agreed to surrender. Grant’s terms paroled the men and let each officer and man return home “not to be disturbed by United States authority” so long as they kept their paroles. Grant also let the men who owned a horse or mule take it home for spring planting, and he supplied rations. About 28,000 Confederates were paroled. Johnston’s army surrendered to Sherman in North Carolina on April 26.

• Wilmer McLean owned the house; he had moved to Appomattox to escape the war after the First Battle of Bull Run was fought near his home at Manassas.
• Custer and other Union officers bought furniture from the room as souvenirs.
• At the arms-stacking ceremony on April 12, Joshua Chamberlain is said to have ordered his troops to salute the passing Confederates; the story comes from John B. Gordon’s recollection and historian William Marvel disputes it.

Sources: Terms of Lee’s Surrender at Appomattox, 1865 (Modern History Sourcebook, Fordham); Appomattox Court House National Historical Park (NPS); Wikipedia: Battle of Appomattox Court House

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln (April 14 to 15, 1865)

John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, had first planned to kidnap Lincoln. After the Confederacy collapsed, he decided to kill him. On the night of April 14, 1865, Booth shot Lincoln once in the back of the head with a .44-caliber Deringer in the presidential box at Ford’s Theatre, then jumped to the stage and escaped. Lincoln was carried across the street to the Petersen House, where he died on the morning of April 15. The same night Lewis Powell wounded Secretary of State William Seward, while George Atzerodt never attacked Vice President Johnson. Booth was killed in Virginia on April 26. On July 7, 1865, four conspirators were hanged at the Washington Arsenal (now Fort McNair).

• Ulysses and Julia Grant had been invited to sit with the Lincolns that night but declined.
• Mary Surratt, one of the four hanged on July 7, was the first woman executed by the United States federal government.
• A Washington police blotter entry from 11 p.m. on April 14 reports the shooting and names the suspect as “J. Wilks” Booth, with the name misspelled.

Sources: Lincoln Assassination Report, D.C. Metropolitan Police blotter, April 14, 1865 (National Archives); Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site: History and Culture (NPS); Booth’s Deringer (Ford’s Theatre Society); Wikipedia: Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Andrew Johnson (1865 to 1869)

Andrew Johnson, 17th President of the United States, 17th · Democrat, elected on the National Union ticket

Andrew Johnson was a Tennessee Democrat. As president he favoured a quick, lenient Reconstruction and clashed with Republicans in Congress. On March 27, 1866, he vetoed the Civil Rights Act, arguing that it overreached on citizenship and state powers. He opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, and Congress overrode him on major Reconstruction bills. When he tried to dismiss Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, the House impeached him in 1868 for violating the Tenure of Office Act.

How they came to power: Johnson was Lincoln’s running mate on the 1864 National Union ticket and became president on April 15, 1865, after Lincoln died.

How it ended: The Senate acquitted him in 1868 by one vote, and his term ended on March 4, 1869. Elected to the Senate again in 1875, he is the only former president to serve there; he died on July 31, 1875, five months into the term.

• Johnson was apprenticed to a tailor at about age ten, never attended school, and learned arithmetic and better writing from his wife Eliza.
• At his inauguration as vice president on March 4, 1865, he took whiskey beforehand and gave a rambling, nearly incoherent speech.
• Congress passed the Tenure of Office Act in 1867 to limit his power to fire cabinet officials, and his attempt to dismiss Secretary of War Stanton led to his impeachment.

Sources: Andrew Johnson, Veto of the Civil Rights Act, March 27, 1866 (American Presidency Project); Miller Center: Andrew Johnson; Wikipedia: Andrew Johnson

Juneteenth (June 19, 1865)

Enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation was slow in Texas, the most remote Confederate state. On June 19, 1865, Union Major General Gordon Granger and his troops reached Galveston, and Granger announced General Order No. 3, which began by announcing that all slaves were free. It said former owners and the freed were now equal in personal and property rights, with the relationship becoming that of employer and hired labor. It advised the freed to stay at their homes and work for wages. The Galveston Tri-Weekly News printed the order on June 20. Freed people began holding annual celebrations, called Jubilee Day, in 1866; the name Juneteenth came into use in the 1890s. Texas recognised the day by proclamation in 1938 and by legislation in 1979. Congress made it a federal holiday in 2021.

• The order warned that the freed would not be allowed to collect at military posts or be supported in idleness.
• The Galveston Historical Foundation describes Juneteenth as the oldest continually celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery.
• The 2021 holiday was the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was adopted in 1983.

Sources: General Order No. 3, Galveston, June 19, 1865 (American Battlefield Trust primary sources); Galveston’s Juneteenth Story: And Still We Rise (Galveston Historical Foundation); Wikipedia: Juneteenth

The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments (1865 to 1870)

The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude “except as a punishment for crime.” The Senate passed it in April 1864 and the House, by 119 to 56, on January 31, 1865; it was ratified on December 6, 1865. The Fourteenth Amendment, passed by Congress on June 13, 1866, and ratified in July 1868, made everyone born or naturalized in the United States and under its jurisdiction a citizen. It barred states from depriving anyone of life, liberty or property without due process, and from denying equal protection of the laws. The Fifteenth, passed on February 26, 1869, and ratified on February 3, 1870, said the right to vote could not be denied “on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It gave Congress power to enforce it by legislation.

• Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment bars anyone who swore an oath to support the Constitution and then engaged in rebellion from office, unless Congress lifts the ban by a two-thirds vote of each house.
• President Andrew Johnson opposed the Fourteenth Amendment.
• From about 1890 to 1910, Southern states used poll taxes, literacy tests and, in some states, grandfather clauses to remove nearly all Black voters from the rolls. The Supreme Court struck down grandfather clauses in 1915, but most Black Southerners did not regain the vote until the federal civil rights laws of the mid-1960s.

Sources: 13th Amendment: Abolition of Slavery, 1865, Milestone Documents (National Archives); 14th Amendment: Civil Rights, 1868, Milestone Documents (National Archives); 15th Amendment: Voting Rights, 1870, Milestone Documents (National Archives); 14th Amendment (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School); Wikipedia: Reconstruction Amendments

Ulysses S. Grant (1869 to 1877)

Ulysses S. Grant, 18th President of the United States, 18th · Republican

Ulysses S. Grant accepted Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and then took the presidency with no prior political experience. He supported Reconstruction and the Fifteenth Amendment and used federal power to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan. He signed the bill creating the Department of Justice. In his first inaugural address he said the best way to repeal bad laws was “stringent execution,” and he urged paying the national debt and a course toward Native Americans “which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship.” His second term was hit by executive scandals, including the impeachment and resignation of War Secretary William W. Belknap, and by the Panic of 1873.

How they came to power: Grant was unanimously nominated by the Republicans in 1868 and won the presidency that year. He was re-elected in 1872.

How it ended: He left office in March 1877 as the nation settled the disputed election of 1876. He became the first president to travel around the world. He died of throat cancer at Grant Cottage in Moreau, New York, on July 23, 1885, aged 63.

• He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant, on April 27, 1822, in Point Pleasant, Ohio.
• While dying of throat cancer he wrote his memoirs, which were published after his death and became a critical and financial success.
• When Congressman Thomas Hamer nominated him to West Point he altered the name, so Grant was enrolled as “U. S. Grant”; the initials also earned him the army nickname “Sam.”

Sources: First Inaugural Address of Ulysses S. Grant, March 4, 1869 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Ulysses S. Grant; Wikipedia: Ulysses S. Grant

The Transcontinental Railroad (May 10, 1869)

The Pacific Railway Act of July 1, 1862, signed by Lincoln, authorised the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific to build a railroad and telegraph line to the Pacific, with federal bonds and land grants. The Central Pacific built east from Sacramento, about 690 miles, and the Union Pacific built west from the Missouri River, about 1,085 miles. Chinese workers did most of the heavy labor for the Central Pacific, and the Union Pacific relied on Irish workers, Civil War veterans and Mormon crews in Utah. The lines met at Promontory Summit, Utah, on May 10, 1869, when the “last spike” was driven. A trip across the country that had taken months now took days. The project was also tied to the Crédit Mobilier scandal, in which Union Pacific insiders profited from construction deals.

• The Central Pacific broke ground in January 1863, but the Union Pacific did not begin laying track until July 1865, after Civil War delays.
• The Union Pacific contracted several thousand Mormon workers to build through Utah’s Weber River Canyon, and some Union Pacific officers later declined to pay the full agreed costs.
• Golden Spike National Historical Park recreates the champagne photograph each May 10 and moves locomotives to the last spike site daily to recreate the “marriage of the rails.”

Sources: Pacific Railway Act, 1862, Milestone Documents (National Archives); Golden Spike National Historical Park (NPS); Wikipedia: First transcontinental railroad

The Battle of the Little Bighorn (June 25 to 26, 1876)

The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie set aside the Great Sioux Reservation, including the Black Hills. After Custer led a military expedition into the Black Hills in 1874 and gold was found, miners moved onto Sioux land, and the army set out to force Lakota and Cheyenne bands onto reservations. On June 25–26, 1876, Lt. Col. George A. Custer’s 7th Cavalry attacked a very large village on the Little Bighorn River. Custer divided his regiment, Major Reno’s attack failed, and five of the regiment’s twelve troops, including Custer’s, were wiped out. Reno and Benteen’s men held a hilltop until General Terry arrived on June 27. The Lakota call the fight the Battle of the Greasy Grass. The government took the Black Hills in 1877.

• The Army lost 268 dead and 55 severely wounded; Native losses are estimated at 31 to 100 killed.
• About 350 7th Cavalry soldiers survived at the Reno-Benteen entrenchment, while only 40 to 50 of Custer’s original 210 men were cornered on the hill where the monument now stands.
• Custer’s widow Libbie worked to build his heroic image; that image declined after her death in 1933 and a 1934 book that portrayed him unheroically.

Sources: Treaty of Fort Laramie, 1868, Milestone Documents (National Archives); Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument (NPS); Wikipedia: Battle of the Little Bighorn

The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction (January to April 1877)

Democrat Samuel J. Tilden won about 50.9 percent of the popular vote in 1876, but electoral votes in Florida, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oregon were disputed. Congress created a 15-member Electoral Commission in January 1877, which voted 8 to 7 along party lines to award all 20 disputed votes to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. The final decision came on March 2, 1877, giving Hayes 185 electoral votes to Tilden’s 184. Hayes then withdrew the last federal troops from South Carolina and Louisiana, which historians generally treat as the end of Reconstruction. Whether a formal deal was made is debated. C. Vann Woodward argued in 1951 that Southern Democrats accepted Hayes in return for federal concessions, while Allan Peskin argued in 1973 that most of the concessions were never delivered.

• No written record of a bargain has been found, and its terms are debated. Southern Democrats in the House tried to delay the count, but Speaker Samuel J. Randall refused their dilatory motions.
• In his March 5, 1877, inaugural, Hayes said that only a local government that “recognizes and maintains inviolate the rights of all is a true self-government.”
• By about 1905, most African Americans in every Southern state were effectively disenfranchised.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Rutherford B. Hayes, March 5, 1877 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); The Election of 1876 (American Battlefield Trust); Wikipedia: Compromise of 1877

Rutherford B. Hayes (1877 to 1881)

Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th President of the United States, 19th · Republican

Hayes was an Ohio lawyer who rose to general in the Union Army and then served as governor of Ohio. His presidency is remembered for the end of federal Reconstruction in the South, a fight over patronage in the New York Custom House, and the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. He vetoed the Bland-Allison silver bill, but Congress overrode him. He had promised to serve only one term, and he kept the promise.

How they came to power: Samuel Tilden won the popular vote in 1876, but 20 electoral votes were disputed. A special Electoral Commission voted 8 to 7 along party lines to give all 20 to Hayes, which made the final count 185 to 184.

How it ended: He left office on March 4, 1881, as he had promised. He died at his home, Spiegel Grove, in Fremont, Ohio, on January 17, 1893, aged 70.

• March 4, 1877 fell on a Sunday, so Hayes took the oath privately in the Red Room of the White House on March 3, the first president to do so in the Executive Mansion. He repeated the oath in public on March 5.
• His wife, Lucy Hayes, became known as Lemonade Lucy after the White House stopped serving alcohol. Wine was still served at the first big event, a dinner for Grand Duke Alexis of Russia, and the ban began after it. The public credited Lucy, though accounts say Hayes also saw political value in winning temperance support.
• Critics called him Rutherfraud and His Fraudulency because of the disputed election. Hayes himself had been wounded five times in the Civil War, most seriously at South Mountain.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Rutherford B. Hayes, March 5, 1877 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Rutherford B. Hayes; Wikipedia: Rutherford B. Hayes

The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 (July to September 1877)

In July 1877 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad cut pay again, and workers at Martinsburg, West Virginia, stopped freight trains. The strike spread through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois and Missouri, and historians call it the first major rail strike and the first general strike in U.S. history. State militia fired on crowds in Baltimore and Pittsburgh, and strikers burned railroad property. President Hayes issued proclamations for West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania and sent federal troops. The strike was broken within a few weeks.

• On July 11, 1877, a B&O notice announced a dividend increase for stockholders, in the same weeks that the company cut workers' wages.
• Governors in ten states called out about 60,000 militia members during the strike.
• In Pittsburgh the official death toll was 26, though the real number was probably higher, and some counts put it near 40. Strikers there destroyed 39 buildings, 104 locomotives and more than 1,200 freight cars, and the Pennsylvania Railroad claimed more than $4 million in losses.

Sources: Proclamation 236, Law and Order in the State of West Virginia, July 18, 1877 (American Presidency Project); Library of Congress: The Start of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877; Digital History (University of Houston): The Great Railroad Strike; Wikipedia: Great Railroad Strike of 1877

James A. Garfield (March 4 to September 19, 1881)

James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States, 20th · Republican

Garfield was a scholar, the principal of a small Ohio school that became Hiram College, a Union general and a longtime member of Congress. He had not sought the presidency in 1880. His inaugural address called for universal education, a monetary system based on both gold and silver, and civil service reform. His presidency lasted less than seven months, and he spent the last 79 days of it dying.

How they came to power: The 1880 Republican convention deadlocked, and delegates chose Garfield as a compromise candidate on the 36th ballot. He narrowly defeated the Democrat Winfield Scott Hancock in November, and Chester A. Arthur was his running mate.

How it ended: On July 2, 1881, Charles Guiteau, a disappointed office-seeker, shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac railroad station in Washington. Garfield died on September 19 in Elberon, New Jersey, from infection and its complications. Most historians and medical experts think he would probably have survived with more capable care. Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882.

• Doctors probed for the bullet with unsterilized fingers and instruments, and most American doctors of the day did not accept antiseptic methods.
• Alexander Graham Bell built a metal detector to find the bullet. It failed, partly because of the metal bedframe and partly because the lead doctor, Willard Bliss, let Bell search only Garfield's right side.
• After the shooting Guiteau cried, I am a Stalwart of the Stalwarts! Arthur is President now! Separately, Garfield had published his own proof of the Pythagorean theorem in 1876.

Sources: Garfield's Inaugural Address, March 4, 1881 (Miller Center, Presidential Speeches); Miller Center: James A. Garfield; Wikipedia: Assassination of James A. Garfield

Chester A. Arthur (1881 to 1885)

Chester A. Arthur, 21st President of the United States, 21st · Republican

Arthur was a New York lawyer who rose in Senator Roscoe Conkling's Stalwart Republican machine. President Hayes removed him as head of the New York Custom House in 1878 during a fight over patronage. As president he signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act in 1883 and oversaw a large expansion of the U.S. Navy. He vetoed the first Chinese exclusion bill, which would have banned Chinese immigrant laborers for 20 years, and then signed a 10-year version in 1882.

How they came to power: Republicans put Arthur on the 1880 ticket as vice president. He became president when Garfield died on September 19, 1881. Judge John R. Brady swore him in at his New York home early on September 20, and he took the oath again before Chief Justice Morrison Waite in Washington on September 22.

How it ended: The Republicans chose James G. Blaine instead of Arthur in 1884, and his term ended on March 4, 1885. He died in New York City on November 18, 1886, aged 57.

• A political rival, Arthur P. Hinman, claimed that Arthur was born in Ireland, and later that he was born in Canada. Neither claim gained credence.
• Arthur redecorated the White House and had a fifty-foot glass screen by Louis Comfort Tiffany installed.
• President Hayes removed Arthur as head of the New York Custom House in July 1878 after Arthur refused to obey an order barring political assessments on Custom House employees. Three years later Arthur was president.

Sources: Arthur's Address Upon Assuming the Office of President, September 22, 1881 (American Presidency Project); Miller Center: Chester A. Arthur; Wikipedia: Chester A. Arthur

The Chinese Exclusion Act (May 6, 1882)

Chinese workers began arriving in the 1850s, and anti-Chinese feeling grew, especially in the West. A treaty in 1880 allowed the United States to suspend Chinese immigration. Congress first passed a 20-year ban, which President Arthur vetoed because the treaty allowed only a reasonable suspension. The 10-year version became law on May 6, 1882. It suspended the entry of Chinese laborers, required Chinese travelers to carry certificates, and barred courts from granting citizenship to Chinese immigrants. Congress renewed it in 1892 with the Geary Act, extended it with no end date in 1902, and repealed the exclusion laws in 1943.

• At one point Chinese men made up nearly a quarter of California's wage-earning workers.
• The Chinese population in the United States fell from about 105,000 in 1880 to about 89,000 in 1900 and about 61,000 in 1920.
• The repeal in 1943 still left a quota of only 105 Chinese immigrants a year. The Senate (2011) and the House (2012) later passed resolutions expressing regret for the act.

Sources: Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) (National Archives, Milestone Documents); Office of the Historian: Chinese Immigration and the Chinese Exclusion Acts; Wikipedia: Chinese Exclusion Act

Grover Cleveland (1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897)

Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States, 22nd and 24th · Democrat

Cleveland rose quickly from mayor of Buffalo to governor of New York to president. His first term was known for a steady use of the veto, and he used it 414 times, more than four times as often as any earlier president. He lost the 1888 election, then won the rematch in 1892. His second term opened with the Panic of 1893 and a severe depression, and he sent federal troops to Chicago and other rail centers during the Pullman strike in 1894.

How they came to power: In 1884 he defeated James G. Blaine after a campaign in which Republicans chanted Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? about a child whose support Cleveland admitted paying. In 1888 he won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College to Benjamin Harrison. In 1892 he beat Harrison in a rematch.

How it ended: He left office on March 4, 1897, at the end of his second term. He died in Princeton, New Jersey, on June 24, 1908, aged 71.

• During the Civil War he paid George Brinski, a Polish immigrant, $150 to serve in his place.
• As sheriff of Erie County, New York, he personally carried out two hangings, in 1872 and 1873.
• On July 1, 1893, surgeons removed a cancerous growth and part of his upper left jaw aboard a friend's yacht, the Oneida, in Long Island Sound. Reporters were told first that he had rheumatism and then that he had a mild dental problem. Surgeon William Keen published a first-hand account after another member of the team, Joseph Bryant, died in 1914.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of Grover Cleveland, March 4, 1885 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Grover Cleveland; New York Academy of Medicine: The Secret Surgeries of Grover Cleveland; Wikipedia: Grover Cleveland

The Statue of Liberty is dedicated (October 28, 1886)

The statue was a gift from the people of France. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi designed it, and Gustave Eiffel designed the iron framework inside it. Americans had to pay for the pedestal, and by August 11, 1885, a fund-raising drive in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World had passed $100,000, mostly in gifts of about a dollar or less. On October 28, 1886, President Grover Cleveland accepted the statue on behalf of the American people. Emma Lazarus's sonnet The New Colossus, written in 1883 for a fund-raising auction, was not placed on the pedestal until 1903.

• The statue's copper skin is 3/32 of an inch (about 2.4 mm) thick, the thickness of two pennies placed together.
• Lazarus died in 1887. Her poem faded from public memory until a friend, Georgina Schuyler, revived it in 1901, and lines from it were put on a bronze plaque in the pedestal in 1903.
• About 125,000 people gave to the pedestal fund, most of them $1 or less, and the World printed the name of every contributor.

Sources: Cleveland's Remarks on the Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty, October 28, 1886 (American Presidency Project); National Park Service: Emma Lazarus; National Park Service: Joseph Pulitzer and the pedestal fund; National Park Service: Statue of Liberty statistics; Wikipedia: Statue of Liberty

The Haymarket affair (May 4, 1886)

On May 4, 1886, a rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago supported strikers who demanded an eight-hour workday. As police moved to break up the meeting, someone threw a dynamite bomb. The blast and the gunfire that followed killed seven police officers and at least four civilians. The bomb thrower was never identified. Eight men described as anarchists were convicted in connection with the bombing, and seven were sentenced to death. Four were hanged on November 11, 1887. In 1893 Illinois Governor John Peter Altgeld pardoned the three still in prison and criticized the trial. The affair is generally seen as the origin of International Workers' Day on May 1.

• None of the eight men on trial was shown to have thrown the bomb. The trial transcript runs to 3,323 pages.
• Governor Richard Oglesby commuted two of the death sentences to life in prison. Another defendant, Louis Lingg, killed himself in his cell before the hangings.
• Only one officer, Mathias Degan, was killed by the blast itself. Historians disagree about how many of the other police deaths came from police gunfire: Paul Avrich argued most did, while Timothy Messer-Kruse says friendly fire cannot be ruled out but that some officers were probably shot by protesters.

Sources: The Haymarket Digital Collection, trial transcript and contemporary documents (Chicago Historical Society); The Dramas of Haymarket (Chicago Historical Society and Northwestern University); Wikipedia: Haymarket affair

Benjamin Harrison (1889 to 1893)

Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States, 23rd · Republican

Harrison was an Indiana lawyer and Republican senator. His four years produced the Sherman Antitrust Act, the McKinley Tariff and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the 51st Congress was nicknamed the Billion-Dollar Congress for its spending. He signed the Dependent and Disability Pension Act, the General Revision Act of 1891, which let presidents set aside forest reserves, and the Immigration Act of 1891, which set up federal control of immigration. His Federal Elections Bill to protect Black voting rights failed in the Senate. In foreign affairs, a dispute with Chile in 1891 nearly led to war before Chile apologized.

How they came to power: In 1888 he won the Electoral College by 233 to 168 even though he received about 90,000 fewer popular votes than the president he beat, Grover Cleveland.

How it ended: Cleveland beat him in the 1892 rematch, which made Harrison the first president to be succeeded by his predecessor. He died in Indianapolis on March 13, 1901.

• Six states joined the Union during his term, more than under any other president: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington in 1889, and Idaho and Wyoming in 1890.
• He was the grandson of William Henry Harrison, the 9th president, who died 31 days after taking office.
• He served as colonel of the 70th Indiana in the Civil War and was confirmed as a brevet brigadier general in 1865.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Benjamin Harrison, March 4, 1889 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Benjamin Harrison; Wikipedia: Presidency of Benjamin Harrison

Wounded Knee (December 29, 1890)

In late 1890 the Ghost Dance movement alarmed the Army and Indian agents on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Sitting Bull was killed in mid-December during an attempt to arrest him. A Miniconjou Lakota band under Chief Big Foot (Spotted Elk) was stopped by the 7th Cavalry and camped at Wounded Knee Creek. On the morning of December 29, soldiers tried to disarm the band. A shot rang out, and accounts differ on who fired it and why. The soldiers then fired into the camp, with Hotchkiss guns joining in. Estimates of Lakota dead range from about 150 to 300, and about 25 soldiers died. The 7th Cavalry's role and the Medals of Honor given to soldiers afterward are still debated.

• Four Lakota men, Turning Hawk, Captain Sword, Spotted Horse and American Horse, gave their accounts to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington on February 11, 1891, and a stenographer took them down word for word.
• The Army awarded 19 Medals of Honor for Wounded Knee, though some sources say 20. Efforts to revoke them have not succeeded so far.
• In 1990, on the centennial, both houses of Congress passed a resolution expressing deep regret for the massacre. The Library of Congress notes that the event was first called a battle and only later a massacre.

Sources: Lakota Accounts of the Massacre at Wounded Knee, from the 1891 council transcript (James Mooney, reproduced by SERC, Carleton College); Library of Congress: Wounded Knee Massacre, Topics in Chronicling America; National Park Service: A Chronology of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (entry for December 29, 1890); Wikipedia: Wounded Knee massacre

Ellis Island opens (January 1892)

The Immigration Act of 1891 put the federal government in charge of inspecting immigrants. The station on Ellis Island in New York Harbor opened on January 1, 1892, and Annie Moore of Ireland was the first immigrant processed. A fire in June 1897 destroyed the wooden buildings, and a fireproof main building opened on December 17, 1900. About 1.2 million people were examined in 1907, the peak year. Inspections took an average of three to seven hours. The last detainees were removed on November 12, 1954.

• The National Park Service says passenger manifests for about 25 million immigrants, passengers and crew are held in the Ellis Island records center and searchable online.
• The island grew from its original 3.3 acres to 27.5 acres through landfill.
• The National Park Service says about 40 percent of Americans can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island.

Sources: Immigration Act of 1891, excerpts from the Statutes at Large (Immigration History project); National Park Service: Ellis Island History and Culture; National Park Service: Ellis Island Chronology; Wikipedia: Ellis Island

Plessy v. Ferguson (May 18, 1896)

Louisiana's 1890 Separate Car Act required equal but separate accommodations for white and Black railway passengers. A New Orleans civil rights group, the Comite des Citoyens, chose Homer Plessy, who was seven-eighths white, to challenge it. On June 7, 1892, Plessy sat in a whites-only car and was arrested. On May 18, 1896, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 1, with Justice Brewer not taking part, that the law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Henry Billings Brown wrote that separation did not by itself mean one race was inferior. Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented: Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and later decisions ended state-required school and public segregation.

• The arrest was planned. The citizens' committee organized the challenge with the railroad's cooperation, and Plessy was arrested on a train as a test of the law.
• The phrase separate but equal, so closely linked with the case, does not appear in Justice Brown's majority opinion. The majority quotes the Louisiana statute's own phrase, equal but separate accommodations. The words separate but equal appear in Harlan's dissent, describing the statute.
• Plessy was never expressly overruled by name. Brown v. Board of Education and later cases undermined it so thoroughly that it is usually treated as overruled in practice.

Sources: Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896) (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School); National Archives: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Milestone Documents; Wikipedia: Plessy v. Ferguson

William McKinley (1897 to 1901)

William McKinley, 25th President of the United States, 25th · Republican

McKinley was an Ohio congressman, the author of the 1890 McKinley Tariff, and governor of Ohio. As president he signed the Dingley Tariff in 1897 and the Gold Standard Act in 1900. After the Spanish-American War of 1898 the United States gained Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, and Hawaii was annexed the same year. Historians see his 1896 victory as a realigning election that began a long run of Republican dominance.

How they came to power: With the strong backing of Mark Hanna, McKinley won the Republican nomination in 1896 and beat the Democrat William Jennings Bryan on a platform of sound money (the gold standard) and high tariffs. He beat Bryan again in 1900.

How it ended: On September 6, 1901, at a reception in the Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, Leon Czolgosz shot him twice in the abdomen. Czolgosz was an anarchist who considered McKinley a symbol of oppression. McKinley seemed to recover, but his condition worsened and he died at 2:15 a.m. on September 14. Gangrene was the cause given at the time, though some modern scholars point to pancreatic damage. Czolgosz was executed on October 29, 1901. Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him.

• McKinley enlisted as a private in the Poland Guards in June 1861, a unit that became part of the 23rd Ohio Infantry, and he ended the Civil War as a brevet major.
• Czolgosz hid his revolver under a handkerchief. A primitive X-ray machine was on display at the exposition, but it was not used on McKinley.
• Roswell Park, the best surgeon in Buffalo, was away at Niagara Falls when McKinley arrived at the exposition hospital. The operation was done by Matthew Mann, a gynecologist with no experience of abdominal wounds, and Mann could not find the bullet.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of William McKinley, March 4, 1897 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: William McKinley; Wikipedia: Assassination of William McKinley

The Spanish-American War (April to August 1898)

Cuba had been in revolt against Spain for years when the battleship Maine blew up in Havana harbor on February 15, 1898. The Navy's inquiry blamed an external explosion, and Spain's inquiry said it started inside the ship. On April 11 McKinley asked Congress for authority to intervene, citing humanity, the protection of Americans, damage to trade and the danger to American peace. On April 20 Congress passed a resolution that recognized Cuban independence, demanded that Spain leave, disclaimed any intent to annex Cuba, and authorized force. The fighting ended in August. In the Treaty of Paris, signed December 10, 1898, Spain gave up Cuba, gave Puerto Rico and Guam to the United States, and sold the Philippines for $20 million.

• The Senate ratified the Treaty of Paris on February 6, 1899, by a single vote.
• The Teller Amendment, part of the April resolution, said the United States had no intention of taking sovereignty or control over Cuba.
• Of about 2,446 American deaths, 385 came in combat and 2,061 from disease.

Sources: McKinley's Message to Congress Requesting a Declaration of War With Spain, April 11, 1898 (American Presidency Project); Office of the Historian: The Spanish-American War, 1898; Wikipedia: Spanish-American War

Theodore Roosevelt (1901 to 1909)

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, 26th · Republican

Roosevelt was a sickly child with asthma who built himself up through what he called the strenuous life. Before the presidency he served in the New York Assembly, on the Civil Service Commission, as New York City police commissioner, as assistant secretary of the Navy, as leader of the Rough Riders and as governor of New York. His Square Deal program stressed fairness, trust-busting, railroad regulation and pure food and drug laws. He expanded conservation, began the Panama Canal, sent the Great White Fleet on a world tour and won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for helping end the Russo-Japanese War.

How they came to power: He was McKinley's vice president for about six months. When McKinley died on September 14, 1901, he became president at 42. He won a full term in 1904 and was inaugurated on March 4, 1905.

How it ended: He left office on March 4, 1909. He ran again in 1912 as the Progressive (Bull Moose) candidate and lost to Woodrow Wilson. He died on January 6, 1919, aged 60, and is buried at Oyster Bay, New York.

• On October 14, 1912, in Milwaukee, John Schrank shot him in the chest. The bullet passed through a steel eyeglass case and a folded copy of his speech, and Roosevelt began by saying that it takes more than that to kill a bull moose. He spoke for about 50 minutes, and the bullet stayed in his chest for the rest of his life.
• The teddy bear story: on a Mississippi bear hunt on November 14, 1902, the guide Holt Collier and the hounds cornered a bear, and Collier clubbed it and tied it to a tree for Roosevelt to shoot. Roosevelt refused to shoot a tied animal and told the party to put it out of its misery, and another member of the party killed it with a knife. A Washington Post cartoon by Clifford Berryman on November 16 showed the scene, and a New York shopkeeper couple, Morris and Rose Michtom, later asked his permission to call their stuffed bear Teddy's Bear.
• As a young man he published a book, The Naval War of 1812, in 1882.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Theodore Roosevelt, March 4, 1905 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Theodore Roosevelt; Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library: Top 10 Myths about Theodore Roosevelt and the Invention of the Teddy Bear; Wikipedia: Attempted assassination of Theodore Roosevelt

The Wright brothers' first flight (December 17, 1903)

On the morning of December 17, 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright flew their Wright Flyer four times from level ground near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Orville made the first flight, which covered 120 feet in 12 seconds. Wilbur made the fourth and longest, 852 feet in 59 seconds. The Flyer weighed 605 pounds and had a 12-horsepower engine. Five people watched. That afternoon the brothers sent a telegram to their father, Bishop Milton Wright, in Dayton, Ohio.

• John T. Daniels, a member of the local lifesaving crew, took the famous photograph of the first flight with a camera Orville had set up in advance.
• The telegram to their father gave the longest flight as 57 seconds. Wilbur's flight was 59 seconds, and the telegram also asked him to inform the press.
• The Dayton Journal did not print the story, and one account says its editor judged the flights too short to be important. After the fourth flight a gust flipped the Flyer, and it never flew again.

Sources: Milton Wright's diary, December 1903, copying Orville's telegram (East Carolina University, Wright Brothers diaries); National Park Service: Wright Brothers National Memorial; Wikipedia: Wright brothers

The Model T and the moving assembly line (1908 to 1913)

Ford produced the Model T from the autumn of 1908 to 1927. Around April 1913 the company put flywheel magnetos on a moving line at its Highland Park plant near Detroit, and it extended the moving line to complete chassis by August 1913. History.com dates the chassis line to October 7, 1913. By early 1914 three continuous lines turned out a finished car every 93 minutes, against about 12.5 hours under the old stationary method. Prices fell as output grew: the Runabout cost $825 in 1909 and $260 by 1925. The 15 millionth Model T was built on May 26, 1927.

• Until 1913 the Model T came in gray, green, blue and red. Ford's all-black policy ran from 1914 to 1925. The popular explanation that black paint dried faster has no evidence behind it.
• In the first moving line, in early 1913, assembly time for a flywheel magneto dropped from 20 minutes to 13 and then to about five.
• Peak annual Model T production reached 1.8 million in 1923, and by 1925 Ford was building 9,000 to 10,000 cars a day.

Sources: Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther, My Life and Work (1922) (Project Gutenberg); The Henry Ford: Ford Methods and the Ford Shops; HISTORY: Moving assembly line debuts at Ford factory; Wikipedia: Ford Model T

William Howard Taft (1909 to 1913)

William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States, 27th · Republican

Taft was Theodore Roosevelt's chosen successor. His administration brought about 70 antitrust cases in four years, compared with about 40 under Roosevelt in seven. He signed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff in 1909, which was immediately controversial and which included a corporate income tax. Congress sent the Sixteenth Amendment to the states in 1909, and the Seventeenth in 1912. He also pursued dollar diplomacy, which used American banking and investment to extend influence in Latin America and China. New Mexico and Arizona joined the Union in 1912.

How they came to power: He beat William Jennings Bryan in 1908 by 321 to 162 electoral votes, with 51.6 percent of the popular vote.

How it ended: Roosevelt challenged him for the 1912 nomination and then ran as a third-party candidate. Taft carried only Utah and Vermont, and Woodrow Wilson won. Taft served as chief justice from July 11, 1921, to February 3, 1930, and died on March 8, 1930. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

• On April 14, 1910, Taft threw out the first ceremonial pitch by a president at a Major League game, at the Washington Senators' home opener against the Philadelphia Athletics.
• A Holstein cow named Pauline Wayne grazed on the White House lawn from 1910 to 1913. In 1911, according to press reports, a switching error put her railcar on a train of cattle cars bound for the Chicago stockyards, and she was spared when attendants convinced the stockyard staff she was the president's cow.
• Taft vetoed Arizona's first statehood bill because it allowed the recall of judges. Arizona rewrote its constitution, he signed the admission bill on February 14, 1912, and Arizona later put the recall back.

Sources: Inaugural Address of William Howard Taft, March 4, 1909 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: William Taft; HISTORY: Taft's Historic First Pitch (April 14, 1910); Wikipedia: Presidency of William Howard Taft

The Triangle Shirtwaist fire (March 25, 1911)

The Triangle Waist Company occupied the 8th, 9th and 10th floors of the Asch Building in Manhattan. A fire started near closing time on March 25, 1911, in a scrap bin on the 8th floor. Within 18 minutes, 146 people were dead, 123 of them women and girls. The door to the Washington Place stairway was locked, and flames blocked the Greene Street stairway. The building's only exterior fire escape twisted and collapsed, dropping about 20 people nearly 100 feet, and 62 people jumped or fell from windows. The owners, Max Blanck and Isaac Harris, were acquitted of manslaughter. New York created a Factory Investigating Commission, which led to dozens of new laws on fireproofing, alarms, sprinklers, exits and hours.

• In a 1913 civil suit the owners were found liable for wrongful death, and families were awarded $75 per victim. That year Blanck was also fined $20 after he was arrested again for locking a factory door during working hours.
• Frances Perkins watched the fire and went on to lead the Committee on Public Safety. About 22 years later she became U.S. Secretary of Labor.
• Six victims remained unidentified for 100 years, until historian Michael Hirsch matched them to missing-person records in 2011. The building still stands as the Brown Building, part of New York University.

Sources: The Triangle Factory Fire: primary materials, including testimony, reports and trial transcripts (Cornell University, ILR School Kheel Center); Cornell University ILR School: Remembering the Triangle Factory Fire; Wikipedia: Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire

Woodrow Wilson (1913 to 1921)

Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, 28th · Democrat

Wilson earned a PhD from Johns Hopkins, became president of Princeton in 1902 and served as governor of New Jersey from 1911 to 1913. His New Freedom program produced the Revenue Act of 1913, which began the modern income tax, and the Federal Reserve Act. In his first year he allowed widespread racial segregation in the federal bureaucracy, a policy historians criticize. He kept the nation neutral in World War I at first and was re-elected in 1916. In April 1917, after German submarine attacks sank American ships, he asked Congress to declare war. He issued the Fourteen Points as a basis for peace and pushed for the League of Nations, but the Senate refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.

How they came to power: In 1912 the Republican vote was split between Taft and Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party, which opened the way for Wilson, then governor of New Jersey, to win 435 of 531 electoral votes with 41.8 percent of the popular vote.

How it ended: A stroke in October 1919 left him incapacitated, and Republicans won a landslide in the 1920 election. His term ended on March 4, 1921. He died on February 3, 1924.

• He is the only president to hold an earned doctorate: a PhD in history and government from Johns Hopkins, awarded in 1886.
• After Wilson collapsed in September 1919 while campaigning for the League of Nations, he had a massive stroke on October 2, 1919. His wife Edith and his doctor, Cary Grayson, hid how serious it was. She screened who could see him and which papers reached him, and historians still debate how far she made decisions herself.
• He received the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in creating the League of Nations, the body the United States never joined.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of Woodrow Wilson, March 4, 1913 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Woodrow Wilson; Miller Center: Edith Wilson; Wikipedia: Woodrow Wilson

The 16th and 17th Amendments (February 3 and April 8, 1913)

The Sixteenth Amendment lets Congress tax incomes from whatever source derived without dividing the tax among the states by population. It followed a Civil War income tax and an 1894 tax that the Supreme Court struck down 5 to 4 in 1895. The 36th state ratified it on February 3, 1913, and the Secretary of State certified it on February 25. The Seventeenth Amendment replaced election of senators by state legislatures with election by the people. Legislatures had deadlocked or left seats empty, and Oregon and other states had already moved to direct elections. Connecticut became the 36th state to ratify on April 8, 1913. In 1914 all senators were chosen by popular vote for the first time.

• Conservative leaders in Congress backed the income tax amendment in 1909 in part because they expected the states would never ratify it.
• In 1913 fewer than 1 percent of Americans paid federal income tax, and the lowest rate was 1 percent of net income.
• Between 1891 and 1905 there were 45 deadlocks in 20 state legislatures over Senate seats, and Delaware sent no senator to Washington from 1899 to 1903.

Sources: 16th Amendment: Federal Income Tax (1913) (National Archives, Milestone Documents); 17th Amendment: Direct Election of U.S. Senators (1913) (National Archives, Milestone Documents); U.S. Senate: Direct Election of Senators; Wikipedia: Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

The United States Enters World War I (April 6, 1917)

The United States stayed out of the war that began in Europe in 1914. In January 1917 Germany decided to resume unrestricted submarine warfare, and Woodrow Wilson cut diplomatic ties on February 3. Between February 3 and April 4, German U-boats sank ten U.S.-registered merchant ships. On April 2 Wilson asked a joint session of Congress for a declaration of war against Germany. The Senate approved it on April 4, and the House followed two days later.

• British naval intelligence intercepted and decrypted the Zimmermann Telegram on January 19, 1917. It offered Mexico help in recovering territory lost in the Mexican-American War if Mexico backed Germany. London passed it to Wilson on February 24, and U.S. newspapers printed it the following week.
• The Lusitania was sunk in May 1915, almost two years before the declaration of war. About 1,200 civilians died, including 128 Americans.
• The April 1917 declaration targeted Germany only. The United States did not declare war on Austria-Hungary until December 7, 1917.

Sources: President Wilson's Declaration of War Message to Congress, April 2, 1917 (National Archives documents, National WWI Museum and Memorial); Office of the Historian: U.S. Entry into World War I, 1917; National Archives: The Zimmermann Telegram; Wikipedia: American entry into World War I

The 1918 Influenza Pandemic (1918 to 1919)

The CDC describes the 1918 pandemic as the most severe in recent history. The virus was an H1N1 strain with genes of avian origin. Roughly 500 million people, about a third of the world's population, were infected. A mild first wave in early 1918 was followed by a far deadlier second wave from late August, and October 1918 was the worst month. There was no vaccine and no antibiotics, so control depended on isolation, quarantine and limits on public gatherings. Recurrences came in 1919 and in a fourth wave in 1920, which in the U.S. caused about a third as many deaths as 1918 and 1919. Researchers still do not agree on where the virus began.

• The name 'Spanish flu' is a mistake. Wartime censors in the fighting countries suppressed bad news, while newspapers in neutral Spain reported the outbreak openly, which made Spain look like the source.
• Most flu strains kill mainly the very young and the very old. This one had unusually high mortality among healthy adults aged about 20 to 40.
• The National Archives says average U.S. life expectancy fell by 12 years in a single year. A war-bond parade in Philadelphia on September 28, 1918, is blamed in some accounts for an outbreak that killed about 12,000 people in that city.

Sources: The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 (National Archives online exhibit of records and photographs); CDC: 1918 Pandemic (H1N1 virus); National Archives: The Flu Pandemic of 1918; Wikipedia: 1918 flu pandemic

Prohibition (January 17, 1920 to December 5, 1933)

The Eighteenth Amendment was ratified on January 16, 1919, when Nebraska became the 36th state to approve it. The Volstead Act, passed on October 28, 1919 over Wilson's veto, defined an intoxicating drink as anything above 0.5 percent alcohol. Starting January 17, 1920, the manufacture, importation, transport and sale of alcoholic drinks were banned. Bootlegging, rum-running and illegal distilling grew, and organized crime took over much of the trade. Historians disagree about how far drinking fell and how much crime rose. The Cullen-Harrison Act of March 22, 1933 legalized 3.2 percent beer, and the Twenty-first Amendment, ratified on December 5, 1933, repealed Prohibition.

• Federal law did not make private possession or drinking illegal. Sacramental wine was allowed, doctors could prescribe medicinal alcohol, and a household could make up to 200 gallons of wine or cider a year from fruit.
• The Twenty-first Amendment is the only amendment ever passed to repeal another.
• Before Prohibition, alcohol taxes supplied a substantial share of government revenue, about 14 percent of federal, state and local tax receipts according to Wikipedia. Lost tax income during the Depression is one reason historians give for repeal.

Sources: Joint Resolution Proposing the Eighteenth Amendment, 1917 (National Archives, DocsTeach); National Archives (Reagan Library blog): Amendment XVIII, The Beginning of Prohibition; Library of Congress: 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, Primary Documents in American History; Wikipedia: Prohibition in the United States

The 19th Amendment: Women Win the Vote (August 18, 1920)

The amendment bars the United States and the states from denying the vote 'on account of sex.' It was first introduced in Congress in 1878 and rejected by the Senate in 1887 and 1914,. Congress passed it on June 4, 1919, and Tennessee completed ratification on August 18, 1920. Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby certified it on August 26. The amendment did not give every woman a vote in practice. Black women in the South faced poll taxes, fraud, intimidation and violence, and federal enforcement came mainly with the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

• In Tennessee's House, the motion to table ratification twice ended in 48-48 ties. Harry Burn, 24, had voted to table, then voted yes on ratification. He said a letter from his mother, Febb Burn, urged him to do so.
• Women's suffrage was written into the Wyoming Territory's constitution in 1869. Wyoming ratified the 19th Amendment on January 26, 1920.
• Native Americans were granted citizenship in 1924, but some states barred them from voting until 1957. In the 1920 election, one estimate puts women's turnout at 36 percent of those eligible, against 68 percent for men.

Sources: 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Women's Right to Vote (1920) (National Archives milestone document); The Nineteenth Amendment Gives Women the Vote (Prologue, National Archives); National Park Service: 19th Amendment (Women's History); National Park Service: Suffrage in 60 Seconds, Harry Burn; Wikipedia: Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Warren G. Harding (1921 to 1923)

Warren G. Harding, 29th President of the United States, 29th · Republican

Warren Harding was a newspaper publisher from Marion, Ohio, and a sitting U.S. senator when he won the presidency. His inaugural address on March 4, 1921 urged 'normalcy' and stability, said the United States could be a party to no permanent military alliance, called a world supergovernment contrary to everything Americans cherish, and still supported efforts toward disarmament and a world court. In December 1921 he commuted the sentence of the jailed Socialist Eugene Debs. His administration is remembered for corruption among some of his appointees, above all the Teapot Dome oil-lease scandal. The White House Historical Association says he was not directly implicated, though he feared the political fallout, and the case against Interior Secretary Albert Fall was made only after Harding's death.

How they came to power: Harding finished fourth in the Indiana primary, then won the Republican nomination on the tenth ballot after his rivals deadlocked. In November 1920 he beat Democrat James M. Cox, whose running mate was Franklin D. Roosevelt, by 404 electoral votes to 127, with 60.3 percent of the popular vote.

How it ended: Harding died on August 2, 1923, aged 57, in San Francisco during a western tour; the cause is usually given as a heart attack, though some accounts say stroke. After his death the Teapot Dome scandal broke open. Fall was convicted of taking a bribe in 1929 and in 1931 became the first U.S. cabinet member imprisoned for crimes committed in office.

• At 18, Harding and partners raised $300 to buy the Marion Star, the weakest of the town's three papers and its only daily. He built it into a success and is described as the only president with full-time newspaper experience.
• Harding was barely a contender at first: he took under ten percent in Indiana's 1920 primary and won no delegates there, yet he went on to win the nomination.
• The 1920 election was the first in which women could vote in all 48 states. Socialist Eugene V. Debs, held in the Atlanta penitentiary, still received 913,693 votes.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Warren G. Harding, March 4, 1921 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Warren G. Harding; White House Historical Association: Warren G. Harding; Wikipedia: Warren G. Harding

The Tulsa Race Massacre (May 31 to June 1, 1921)

Greenwood was a thriving Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, sometimes called 'Black Wall Street.' On May 30, 1921, Dick Rowland, a 19-year-old Black shoeshiner, was accused of assaulting Sarah Page, a white elevator operator; accounts of what happened in the elevator differ. Violence began the next evening and lasted until June 1. More than 35 square blocks were burned or destroyed. The 2001 commission, citing Red Cross figures, reported 1,256 houses burned, and about 10,000 Black residents were left homeless. The Oklahoma legislature created a commission in 1997, and its final report appeared in 2001.

• The death toll is still uncertain. The state recorded 36 deaths in 1921, the 2001 commission confirmed 39 (26 Black and 13 white), and estimates run up to about 300.
• Survivors described planes dropping incendiary 'turpentine balls.' Researcher Richard Warner found no reliable evidence of explosions from the air, and state Rep. Don Ross, who dissented from the commission's report, concluded that bombs were dropped from planes.
• More than 85 people were indicted and 27 cases were brought, but no one was convicted for the deaths, injuries or property destruction.

Sources: Tulsa Race Riot: A Report by the Oklahoma Commission to Study the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (2001; Oklahoma Historical Society); Oklahoma Historical Society: The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre; Library of Congress: The Tulsa Race Massacre, Relief and the Role of the American Red Cross; Wikipedia: Tulsa race massacre

Calvin Coolidge (1923 to 1929)

Calvin Coolidge, 30th President of the United States, 30th · Republican

Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872 in Plymouth Notch, Vermont, graduated from Amherst College in 1895 and worked as a lawyer. He was known as 'Silent Cal,' with a sour expression that the Miller Center says masked a dry wit. His first annual message to Congress, in 1923, was the first such address broadcast to the nation by radio. In 1924 he signed the Immigration Act, which limited immigration from outside the Western Hemisphere, and the Indian Citizenship Act, which granted citizenship to all Native Americans. His 1925 inaugural address said that the mind of America must be forever free. Congress also created the U.S. Border Patrol that year.

How they came to power: Coolidge became president on August 3, 1923, after Harding died. His father, a notary public, swore him in at 2:47 a.m. in the family home in Plymouth Notch. In 1924 he won election in his own right with 382 electoral votes and 54.04 percent of the popular vote, against Democrat John W. Davis (136) and Progressive Robert La Follette (13).

How it ended: Coolidge chose not to run in 1928, remarking that ten years in the office would be 'too long!' His term ended on March 4, 1929. He died of coronary thrombosis on January 5, 1933, aged 60, at his home, The Beeches, in Northampton, Massachusetts, and is buried in Plymouth Notch.

• Coolidge was born on July 4, 1872, and is the only president born on Independence Day.
• His son Calvin Jr., aged 16, developed sepsis from a blister he got playing tennis without socks on June 30, 1924. He died a little over a week later.
• Coolidge spoke on August 10, 1927 at the opening of work on Mount Rushmore.

Sources: Coolidge's Inaugural Address, March 4, 1925 (Miller Center); Miller Center: Calvin Coolidge; Forbes Library: Death of a President (Coolidge's death at The Beeches); U.S. Customs and Border Protection: 1924, Border Patrol Established; Wikipedia: Calvin Coolidge

The Scopes Trial (July 10 to 21, 1925)

Tennessee's Butler Act, signed on March 21, 1925, made it unlawful for teachers in state-supported schools to teach any theory that denied the Biblical account of divine creation of man. The penalty was a fine of $100 to $500. The ACLU offered to defend any teacher charged under it, and local figures including George Rappleyea arranged a test case in Dayton to draw publicity. John T. Scopes, a 24-year-old science teacher who had been substituting for the regular biology teacher, agreed to be the defendant. William Jennings Bryan helped prosecute and Clarence Darrow led the defense. A jury found Scopes guilty on July 21, and the judge fined him $100. The Tennessee Supreme Court, in an opinion filed January 17, 1927, upheld the law against the constitutional challenges but reversed the conviction because the jury, not the judge, had to set a fine of that size. It also suggested that the state drop the case. The Butler Act was repealed in 1967.

• Scopes himself was unsure whether he had actually taught evolution to his class. He agreed to serve as the defendant anyway.
• William Jennings Bryan died five days after the trial ended.
• The state supreme court did not strike the law down. It reversed on a procedural point, because under Tennessee law a fine of more than $50 had to be set by a jury.

Sources: Scopes v. State, Tennessee Supreme Court, opinion filed January 17, 1927 (Famous Trials, UMKC); Tennessee Evolution Statutes: the Butler Act, 1925 Public Acts ch. 27 (Famous Trials, UMKC); Tennessee Encyclopedia: The Scopes Trial; Volopedia, University of Tennessee Libraries: Scopes Trial; Wikipedia: Scopes Trial

Lindbergh's Transatlantic Flight (May 20 to 21, 1927)

On May 20, 1927 Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Garden City, New York, and landed at Le Bourget outside Paris on May 21. The flight covered 3,610 miles and won the $25,000 Orteig Prize. His plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, was a modified Ryan monoplane built in San Diego with a 223-horsepower Wright engine. A crowd of 100,000 or more greeted him at Le Bourget, according to Smithsonian pages, which give figures from 100,000 to 150,000. He was later awarded the Medal of Honor for the flight, and the plane is now in the Smithsonian's collection.

• The plane had no front window. Fuel tanks sat ahead of the cockpit, so Lindbergh could see forward only with a periscope or by turning to look out a side window.
• He carried no radio, to save weight.
• The wingspan was extended by 10 feet and the fuselage by 2 feet to carry more fuel. Takeoff weight was 5,135 pounds.

Sources: Medal of Honor citation for Charles A. Lindbergh Jr., War Department General Orders (Military Times Hall of Valor); Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Ryan NYP 'Spirit of St. Louis'; Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Charles Lindbergh; Wikipedia: Spirit of St. Louis

Herbert Hoover (1929 to 1933)

Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States, 31st · Republican

Herbert Hoover was born in West Branch, Iowa, in 1874, was a Quaker, and graduated from Stanford in 1895 as an engineer. In 1914 he organized the Commission for Relief in Belgium, which reportedly oversaw the distribution of more than two million tons of food to nine million war victims. The Great Depression began within months of his March 1929 inauguration, and his efforts to fight it shaped the rest of his term. Historians still argue over how far his measures, including the Smoot-Hawley tariff, deepened or softened the slump. In July 1932 his administration used the Army to clear the Bonus Army of veterans from their camps in Washington.

How they came to power: In 1928 Hoover beat Democrat Al Smith, the first Roman Catholic nominated by a major party, by 444 electoral votes to 87, with 58.2 percent of the popular vote. He carried Texas, the first time a Republican had won that state.

How it ended: In 1932 Hoover lost to Franklin D. Roosevelt by 472 electoral votes to 59, carrying only six eastern states, and his term ended on March 4, 1933. He died in New York City on October 20, 1964, aged 90, and is buried in West Branch.

• Accepting the Republican nomination in 1928, Hoover said, 'We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.'
• On July 28, 1932, Douglas MacArthur commanded the Army's clearing of the Bonus Army, George Patton led the 3rd Cavalry, and Dwight Eisenhower served as a junior aide. Hoover reportedly twice sent word that troops were not to cross the Anacostia bridge, but MacArthur sent them across that night. Accounts conflict over whether the message reached him or he ignored it.
• In 1919 Hoover donated his wartime files to Stanford University. The collection became the Hoover Institution Library and Archives.

Sources: Inaugural Address of Herbert Hoover, March 4, 1929 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Herbert Hoover; Hoover Presidential Library (National Archives): Kicking off a Presidential Campaign, Herbert Hoover's 1928 Acceptance Speech; Military Times: Eisenhower, Patton and MacArthur and the stain of the 'Bonus Army' (2025); Wikipedia: Herbert Hoover

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 (October 24 to 29, 1929)

The Dow peaked on September 3, 1929 at 381.17. On Thursday, October 24, a record 12.9 million shares changed hands. On Monday, October 28, the Dow fell 12.82 percent, and on Tuesday, October 29, another 11.73 percent, on about 16.4 million shares; the two days together took 23.05 percent. Buyers had typically put down about 10 percent and borrowed the rest. On October 25 President Hoover issued a statement that the fundamental business of the country, the production and distribution of commodities, was on a sound and prosperous basis. The Dow reached its low of 41.22 on July 8, 1932, 89 percent under its peak, and did not regain the 1929 high until November 23, 1954. The Federal Reserve's history notes that the crash's effects faded within months and recovery looked near in fall 1930, before banking panics deepened the slump. Congress later passed the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and created the SEC in 1934.

• The popular picture of ruined brokers leaping from skyscrapers is a myth. A historian at the Hoover Presidential Library cites business historian Robert Sobel as saying the suicide rate was down in this period.
• Only about 3 million Americans, roughly 2.5 percent of the population, owned stock in 1929, and roughly 600,000 margin accounts were held by brokerage firms, according to the Hoover Presidential Library.
• Historians still debate how much the crash itself caused the Depression. Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz attributed its severity mainly to the banking panics of 1930 to 1933.

Sources: Herbert Hoover, Message Regarding 'Black Thursday,' October 25, 1929 (Miller Center); Federal Reserve History: Stock Market Crash of 1929; Hoover Presidential Library (National Archives): The Great Stock Market Crash of 1929: Why History Textbooks and the Conventional Wisdom Get It Wrong; Wikipedia: Wall Street Crash of 1929

The Dust Bowl (1930 to 1940)

Severe drought hit the Great Plains from 1930, and dust storms grew more frequent through the early and mid 1930s. The worst-hit area centered on the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles. Drought combined with farming practices: deep plowing had removed native grasses, and bare fields blew away once the rains failed. On April 14, 1935, 'Black Sunday,' a cold front pushed a cloud 500 to 600 feet tall across the Plains at 50 to 60 miles an hour, and visibility at Dodge City dropped to zero. The federal government created the Soil Conservation Service in 1935, and the Civilian Conservation Corps planted the Great Plains Shelterbelt, more than 200 million trees. The drought returned in waves in 1934, 1936 and 1939 to 1940. PBS reports that about 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states by 1940, though three out of four farmers stayed on their land.

• Observers on Black Sunday saw hundreds of birds flying ahead of the cloud, and dead small birds were found afterward. The Red Cross reported 17 deaths in Kansas from dust pneumonia and three from dust suffocation.
• AP reporter Robert Geiger covered Black Sunday, and an editor named Edward Stanley is credited with coining the name 'Dust Bowl.'
• The migrants called 'Okies' came from Arkansas, Texas, Kansas and other states as well as Oklahoma. PBS says 2.5 million people moved out of the Plains states by 1940, about 200,000 of them to California; Wikipedia gives a higher figure of 3.5 million.

Sources: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat on the drought, September 6, 1936 (American Presidency Project); National Weather Service, Dodge City: 88th Anniversary of April 1935 Dust Storm (Black Sunday); PBS American Experience: Surviving the Dust Bowl, Mass Exodus from the Plains; Wikipedia: Dust Bowl

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933 to 1945)

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States, 32nd · Democratic

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was born in Hyde Park, New York, in 1882, graduated from Harvard in 1903 and studied at Columbia Law School. He ran for vice president on the losing Democratic ticket in 1920. In August 1921, at Campobello Island, he fell ill with what was diagnosed as polio, and his legs were permanently paralyzed. He took office in March 1933 with nearly a quarter of the workforce unemployed, and the Miller Center credits his New Deal programs with helping start the national recovery. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941 he led the country into World War II. His four elections prompted the Twenty-second Amendment, which limits presidents to two terms.

How they came to power: Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover in 1932 by 472 electoral votes to 59, with 57.4 percent of the popular vote. He was re-elected in 1936 in a landslide, in 1940 over Wendell Willkie (449 electoral votes to 82, with 54.74 percent), and again in 1944.

How it ended: Roosevelt had been in declining health through 1944. On April 12, 1945, at Warm Springs, Georgia, he collapsed while sitting for a portrait and died of a cerebral hemorrhage, aged 63. Vice President Harry Truman took the oath the same day, and Roosevelt was buried at Hyde Park on April 15.

• Historians usually still call his illness polio, although a 2003 study favored Guillain-Barre syndrome. He avoided being seen in his wheelchair in public.
• By his inauguration on March 4, 1933, nearly a quarter of the labor force was unemployed and prices and productivity had fallen to about a third of 1929 levels, according to the FDR Presidential Library.
• Before 1951 there was no limit on presidential terms. His third election, in 1940, was the first of its kind and led to the Twenty-second Amendment.

Sources: First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Franklin D. Roosevelt; Miller Center: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Death of the President; FDR Presidential Library: Great Depression Facts; Wikipedia: Franklin D. Roosevelt

The New Deal and Social Security (1933 to 1939)

When Roosevelt took office in March 1933, about 24.9 percent of the workforce, or 12.83 million people, was unemployed. The Emergency Banking Act was passed and signed on March 9, 1933, and three days later he explained it in the first fireside chat. The first New Deal created the Civilian Conservation Corps, which enrolled about three million young men, the Tennessee Valley Authority, and deposit insurance (the FDIC), at first up to $2,500 per account. The Securities and Exchange Commission followed in 1934. The second New Deal of 1935 to 1938 brought the Social Security Act (signed August 14, 1935, the date on the Act's text; one National Archives narrative gives August 15), the Wagner Act protecting union organizing, and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, with a minimum wage, a 40-hour week and limits on child labor. The Supreme Court declared the Agricultural Adjustment Act unconstitutional in 1936. Unemployment was still above 20 percent in 1935, and a downturn followed in 1937. The FDR Library dates the end of the Depression to 1941, with the country's entry into the war. Historians continue to debate the programs' effectiveness.

• The Social Security Act of 1935 covered old-age benefits, unemployment insurance, and aid to dependent children, the blind and people with disabilities. Its text excluded agricultural labor and domestic service from 'employment,' and original old-age benefits were to begin no earlier than January 1, 1942.
• According to the FDR Presidential Library, wage income for workers who kept their jobs fell 42.5 percent between 1929 and 1933.
• The Civilian Conservation Corps eventually reached about three million young men aged 17 to 28. Black Americans served in the CCC in large numbers, but in segregated units.

Sources: Social Security Act, 1935 (National Archives milestone document); Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat 1: On the Banking Crisis, March 12, 1933 (Miller Center); FDR Presidential Library: Great Depression Facts; Miller Center: Franklin D. Roosevelt, Domestic Affairs; Wikipedia: New Deal

The Attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941)

In 1941 the United States had halted talks with Japan, imposed a full export embargo and frozen Japanese assets in U.S. banks after Japanese forces moved into Indochina. At 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time on December 7, 353 Japanese aircraft from six carriers struck Pearl Harbor in two waves. The attack killed 2,403 Americans, including 68 civilians, and wounded 1,178. All eight battleships in port were damaged and four were sunk, but the three Pacific Fleet carriers were at sea. On December 8 Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress, and the Senate voted unanimously for war. In the House Jeanette Rankin of Montana was the only dissenter. Roosevelt signed the declaration at about 4 p.m. that day. Germany and Italy declared war on the United States on December 11.

• The destroyer Ward sank a Japanese midget submarine at 6:37 a.m., more than an hour before the air attack. These were the first American shots of the Pacific war.
• Japan's 14-part message was meant to be delivered to Washington at 1 p.m. on December 7. Transcription delays meant it arrived more than an hour after the attack began, though U.S. code breakers had deciphered most of it hours earlier.
• Roosevelt's typed draft began 'a date which will live in world history.' He changed it by hand to 'infamy.' The speech lasted about six minutes.

Sources: Franklin D. Roosevelt's Day of Infamy Speech, December 8, 1941 (National Archives, DocsTeach); National Archives (Pieces of History): Crafting the 'Day of Infamy' Speech; Office of the Historian: Japan, China, the United States and the Road to Pearl Harbor, 1937-41; Wikipedia: Attack on Pearl Harbor

Japanese American Incarceration (February 19, 1942 to 1945)

Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. It authorized the Secretary of War and military commanders to prescribe military areas from which any or all persons could be excluded. The order named no ethnic group, but General John L. DeWitt's curfews and removal orders applied only to Japanese Americans. His Public Proclamation No. 4 of March 29 began forced removals on 48 hours' notice, and the National Archives puts the number moved at about 122,000. Nearly 70,000 of them were citizens. They went first to assembly centers and then to ten War Relocation Centers. In Korematsu v. United States (1944) the Supreme Court upheld the exclusion orders; on the same day, in Ex parte Endo, it ruled that a loyal citizen could not be detained. The exclusion orders were rescinded on December 17, 1944, and nine of the ten camps closed by the end of 1945. A 1983 federal commission concluded that race prejudice, not military necessity, drove the policy. The Civil Liberties Act of 1988 apologized and provided $20,000 to each surviving person who had been incarcerated.

• In Hawaii, which had a Japanese American population above 150,000, only about 1,200 to 1,800 people were incarcerated; the National Park Service puts it at fewer than 1,500.
• Public Law 503, passed on March 21, 1942, made violating the military orders a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in prison and a $5,000 fine.
• By one account, the government eventually paid more than $1.6 billion to 82,219 people under the 1988 law.

Sources: Executive Order 9066: Resulting in Japanese-American Incarceration, 1942 (National Archives milestone document); National Park Service: Manzanar National Historic Site, Places; National Park Service: A Brief History of Japanese American Relocation During World War II; Wikipedia: Internment of Japanese Americans

D-Day: The Normandy Landings (June 6, 1944)

Operation Overlord began with airborne drops shortly after midnight on June 6, 1944, and amphibious landings around 6:30 a.m. along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast. The five beaches were Utah and Omaha (American), Gold and Sword (British) and Juno (Canadian). The National WWII Museum counts nearly 160,000 Allied troops landed (the Eisenhower Library gives almost 133,000 landed by sea), from the U.S., Britain, Canada and 12 other nations, plus about 23,400 airborne troops, supported by over 7,000 naval vessels and about 12,000 aircraft. Allied casualties were over 10,300, about 2,400 of them at Omaha, which had the highest Allied casualties of any beach. The landings began the liberation of France and western Europe. The war in Europe ended in May 1945.

• Eisenhower had postponed the attack by a day because of storm weather. On June 5 he wrote a note to be used if the invasion failed, which ended, 'If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.' He misdated it July 5.
• A deception plan, Operation Fortitude, used a fictitious army group under George Patton to suggest that the main landing would come at Calais.
• Allied casualties were at least 10,000, with 4,414 confirmed killed, according to Wikipedia; the National WWII Museum counts over 10,300 and cautions that its figures are approximate.

Sources: Dwight D. Eisenhower, 'In Case of Failure' Message, June 5, 1944 (National Archives, DocsTeach); The National WWII Museum: D-Day Fact Sheet; Eisenhower Presidential Library: World War II, D-Day, The Invasion of Normandy; Wikipedia: Normandy landings

Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the End of World War II (August 6 to September 2, 1945)

On August 6, 1945 a U.S. B-29 dropped a uranium bomb, 'Little Boy,' on Hiroshima, and on August 9 a plutonium bomb, 'Fat Man,' fell on Nagasaki. Truman's statement of August 6 said the bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of TNT and called it a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. Estimates of the dead run from 90,000 to 166,000 at Hiroshima and 60,000 to 80,000 at Nagasaki over the following two to four months, about half of them on the first day. The Soviet Union declared war on Japan on August 8 and invaded Manchuria the next day, about a week before Japan announced its surrender. Emperor Hirohito's radio broadcast of August 15 announced acceptance of the Allied declaration, and the formal Instrument of Surrender was signed on September 2 aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay. Historians and the public still disagree over the ethical and legal justification for the bombings. Supporters argue they ended the war quickly, and critics question whether they were necessary and whether civilian deaths on that scale can be justified.

• Hirohito never used the word 'surrender.' He said the war had 'developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage' and cited a 'new and most cruel bomb' as a reason to stop.
• Kokura was the original target for the August 9 mission. The B-29 went on to Nagasaki.
• The surrender document has eight short paragraphs. Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu and General Yoshijiro Umezu signed first, then General Douglas MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz. An Army colonel carried it to Washington and presented it to Truman on September 7.

Sources: Harry S. Truman, Statement Announcing the Use of the A-Bomb at Hiroshima, August 6, 1945 (Miller Center, from National Archives); Surrender of Japan, September 2, 1945 (National Archives milestone document); Atomic Heritage Foundation / National Museum of Nuclear Science and History: The Jewel Voice Broadcast; National Park Service: August 1945, World War II Memorial; Wikipedia: Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Harry S. Truman (April 12, 1945 to January 20, 1953)

Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States, 33rd · Democratic

Truman was a farmer and businessman from Missouri before he entered politics. He took office when Franklin Roosevelt died in April 1945 and made decisions about the end of World War II, including the use of atomic weapons on Japan. At home and abroad his years are remembered for the Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Marshall Plan, and the start of the Korean War in 1950. He left office with low approval ratings, though later surveys of historians place him in the upper tier of presidents.

How they came to power: He had been Franklin Roosevelt's vice president for only 82 days when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, and he was sworn in that day. In 1948 he won a full term, defeating Thomas E. Dewey and the States' Rights candidate Strom Thurmond.

How it ended: In March 1952 he announced that he would not run again, and he left office on January 20, 1953. He died in Kansas City, Missouri, on December 26, 1972, at age 88.

• The S in his name stands for nothing in particular; it was a compromise that honored both of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young.
• He never earned a college degree. He took night classes toward a law degree at Kansas City Law School from 1923 to 1925 and left without finishing.
• Truman signed the Economic Cooperation Act, which created the Marshall Plan, on April 3, 1948.

Sources: Truman Doctrine, address to Congress, March 12, 1947 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: Harry S. Truman; Miller Center: Harry S. Truman, Foreign Affairs; Wikipedia: Harry S. Truman

The Marshall Plan (1947 to 1951 (signed April 3, 1948))

On June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George C. Marshall proposed American help for European recovery in a speech at Harvard. Congress passed the Economic Cooperation Act in March 1948, and Truman signed it on April 3. The Soviet Union and the countries in its sphere did not take part. The program ran about four years and funded imports of food, fuel, machinery and raw materials for the countries that joined.

• Marshall's speech at Harvard was written largely by the diplomat Charles 'Chip' Bohlen at Marshall's direction; George Kennan and William Clayton are credited with much of the thinking behind the plan itself.
• Czechoslovakia and Poland first agreed to attend the Paris planning meeting but were kept from going; Czechoslovak foreign minister Jan Masaryk was summoned to Moscow and rebuked by Stalin for considering the offer.
• The United Kingdom received about 26 percent of the aid, France about 18 percent and West Germany about 11 percent; the total is given as roughly $12 to $13 billion depending on the source.

Sources: The Marshall Plan Speech, June 5, 1947 (George C. Marshall Foundation); Marshall Plan (1948), Economic Cooperation Act (National Archives milestone document); Office of the Historian: Marshall Plan, 1948; Wikipedia: Marshall Plan

The Korean War (June 25, 1950 to July 27, 1953)

Korea was divided at the 38th parallel in 1945 into Soviet and American zones. North Korean forces crossed it on June 25, 1950, and Truman ordered US air and naval forces to support South Korea on June 27. UN troops landed at Inchon on September 15 and pushed north, until Chinese forces entered the war in October. The fighting settled near the original line, and an armistice signed on July 27, 1953, ended it.

• Two US Army colonels, Dean Rusk and Charles Bonesteel III, picked the 38th parallel as the dividing line on August 11, 1945.
• The UN Security Council condemned the invasion in the absence of the Soviet representative.
• No peace treaty was ever signed. The armistice was a military agreement between the UN Command and the North Korean and Chinese commands, and South Korea's president, Syngman Rhee, refused to accept it and did not sign.

Sources: Korean Armistice Agreement, July 27, 1953 (National Archives, DocsTeach); Truman: Statement on the Situation in Korea, June 27, 1950 (American Presidency Project); Office of the Historian: Korean War and Japan's Recovery; Miller Center: Harry S. Truman, Foreign Affairs; Wikipedia: Korean War

Dwight D. Eisenhower (January 20, 1953 to January 20, 1961)

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States, 34th · Republican

Eisenhower was a career Army officer who commanded Allied forces in Europe in World War II. As president he oversaw the end of fighting in Korea in 1953, the growth of the Interstate Highway System, the creation of NASA in 1958, and the admission of Alaska and Hawaii in 1959. In 1957 he sent federal troops to enforce a court order integrating Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. His farewell address is best remembered for its warning about the military-industrial complex.

How they came to power: He won the 1952 election in a landslide over Adlai Stevenson II and won again over Stevenson in 1956.

How it ended: The Twenty-second Amendment barred a third term, and he left office on January 20, 1961, three days after his farewell address. He died in Washington, D.C., on March 28, 1969, at age 78.

• He was born David Dwight Eisenhower; his mother later reversed his first two names to avoid confusion with another David in the family.
• He took up oil painting at Columbia University and produced about 260 oils over the last twenty years of his life, mostly landscapes.
• He was born in Denison, Texas, but grew up in Kansas and is buried in Abilene, Kansas.

Sources: President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address, January 17, 1961 (National Archives); Miller Center: Dwight D. Eisenhower; Wikipedia: Dwight D. Eisenhower

Brown v. Board of Education (May 17, 1954)

The Court combined cases from Kansas, South Carolina, Virginia and Delaware, and it decided a related case from Washington, D.C., Bolling v. Sharpe, the same day. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal. The ruling overturned the separate-but-equal doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) as applied to public education. A follow-up decision in 1955 told districts to desegregate with all deliberate speed.

• The decision was 9 to 0. Warren worked to win every justice, in part because he believed a divided Court would encourage Southern resistance.
• Thurgood Marshall argued for the plaintiffs. Linda Brown was a third grader in Topeka when her father tried to enroll her at Sumner Elementary, the white school seven blocks from her home.
• The second ruling, Brown II, was issued on May 31, 1955. Its 'all deliberate speed' wording left the pace of desegregation largely to local federal courts, and critics called it too vague.

Sources: Brown v. Board of Education (1954) (National Archives milestone document); National Park Service: Brown v. Board of Education National Historical Park; Miller Center: Dwight D. Eisenhower; Wikipedia: Brown v. Board of Education

The Montgomery Bus Boycott (December 5, 1955 to December 20, 1956)

Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for refusing to give up her bus seat. The Women's Political Council, led by Jo Ann Robinson, circulated a flyer calling for a one-day boycott on December 5, and the Montgomery Improvement Association, with Martin Luther King Jr. as president, continued it. Carpools carried riders for months. A federal court ruled bus segregation unconstitutional in June 1956 (Browder v. Gayle), the Supreme Court upheld that ruling on November 13, and the order took effect on December 20.

• Claudette Colvin, aged 15, was arrested in March 1955 for the same offense, months before Parks.
• King and 88 others were indicted for the boycott under a 1921 anti-boycott ordinance; King was ordered to pay a $500 fine or serve 386 days.
• When the city pressured local insurers to stop covering the carpool vehicles, organizers arranged policies through Lloyd's of London.

Sources: Montgomery Improvement Association Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, December 5, 1955 (audio record, King Papers, Stanford); Address to the MIA Mass Meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, November 14, 1956 (King Papers, Stanford); National Park Service: The Montgomery Bus Boycott; King Institute: Holt Street Baptist Church (Stanford University); Wikipedia: Montgomery bus boycott

The Little Rock Nine (September 1957 to August 1959)

In September 1957 nine students were assigned to Central High under a federal court order. Governor Orval Faubus posted the Arkansas National Guard, and the students were turned away on September 4. On September 23 a large crowd led officials to remove them after about half a day. Eisenhower federalized the Guard and sent the 101st Airborne, and on September 25 the nine completed their first full day.

• Executive Order 10730 put the Arkansas National Guard, the same force Faubus had used to block the students, under federal control, and about 1,000 paratroopers of the 101st Airborne were sent to Little Rock.
• In September 1958 Faubus closed all four of the city's public high schools; they reopened on August 12, 1959.
• In November 1999 President Bill Clinton presented each of the nine with the Congressional Gold Medal.

Sources: Eisenhower: Address to the American People on the Situation in Little Rock, September 24, 1957 (American Presidency Project); Executive Order 10730: Desegregation of Central High School (1957) (National Archives milestone document); National Park Service: Little Rock Central High School Cultural Landscape; Wikipedia: Little Rock Nine

Sputnik and the Space Race (October 4, 1957)

Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957, from the Tyuratam range in Kazakhstan. It was a polished sphere 58 centimeters wide that weighed 83.6 kilograms. The launch surprised American experts and the public and fed fears that the United States had fallen behind. The response included the creation of NASA in 1958 and the National Defense Education Act of September 2, 1958.

• Its radio signals lasted 22 days, until the batteries ran out on October 26, and amateur radio operators in many countries tracked them.
• A US Vanguard satellite failed on its launch pad in December 1957; the first American satellite, Explorer 1, reached orbit on January 31, 1958, and found the Van Allen radiation belts.
• Sputnik 2, with a dog named Laika, followed on November 3, 1957; Sputnik 1 reentered the atmosphere and burned up on January 4, 1958.

Sources: National Defense Education Act of 1958, Public Law 85-864 (National Archives, DocsTeach); Office of the Historian: Sputnik, 1957; NASA: Dawn of the Space Age; Wikipedia: Sputnik 1

John F. Kennedy (January 20, 1961 to November 22, 1963)

John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States, 35th · Democratic

Kennedy came from a wealthy, politically connected Boston family and served in the Navy in the Pacific in World War II. His presidency faced the Bay of Pigs failure in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and a growing civil rights movement. He established the Peace Corps and set the goal of landing a person on the Moon. He signed a nuclear test ban treaty in 1963.

How they came to power: He narrowly defeated Vice President Richard Nixon in the 1960 election, winning the Electoral College 303 to 219 (with 15 votes going to Harry Byrd). At 43 he was the youngest person ever elected president.

How it ended: He was shot in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and pronounced dead at Parkland Memorial Hospital at about 1:00 p.m. Central time. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

• On the night of August 1 to 2, 1943, a Japanese destroyer rammed and sank his torpedo boat, PT-109; the crew was rescued after seven days.
• His 1940 book Why England Slept began as his Harvard senior thesis and became a best seller.
• His book Profiles in Courage won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957.

Sources: Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy, January 20, 1961 (Avalon Project, Yale Law School); Miller Center: John F. Kennedy; Wikipedia: John F. Kennedy

The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 16 to 28, 1962)

A U-2 flight on October 14, 1962, photographed Soviet missile sites under construction in Cuba, and Kennedy was briefed on October 16. Kennedy told the nation on October 22 that the United States would impose a naval quarantine of Cuba. On October 28 Khrushchev announced that the missiles would be dismantled and removed. The quarantine ended on November 20 after the Soviets agreed to remove their IL-28 bombers.

• On October 27 a U-2 was shot down over Cuba, and Khrushchev sent a second message demanding removal of US Jupiter missiles from Turkey; Kennedy answered the first, milder letter and did not answer the second directly.
• Robert Kennedy privately told the Soviet ambassador that the Jupiters would be removed; they were taken out of Turkey by April 1963.
• Kennedy called the naval blockade a quarantine to avoid the legal implications of a state of war, and a direct communications link between Washington and Moscow, the hotline, was set up afterward.

Sources: Kennedy: Radio and Television Report on the Soviet Arms Buildup in Cuba, October 22, 1962 (American Presidency Project); Office of the Historian: The Cuban Missile Crisis, October 1962; Wikipedia: Cuban Missile Crisis

The March on Washington (August 28, 1963)

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was organized by civil rights, labor and religious leaders, with A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin at the center. Marchers called for civil rights legislation, an end to school segregation, and a federal jobs program. After the program about ten of the leaders met President Kennedy at the White House.

• Organizers had expected over 100,000 people; the National Park Service gives a final estimate of 250,000.
• D.C. police put 5,900 officers on duty, and the government mustered about 6,000 soldiers and National Guardsmen.
• Near the end of his speech King departed from his prepared text after Mahalia Jackson called out, 'Tell them about the dream, Martin!'

Sources: 'I Have a Dream' speech text, from The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Chapter 20 (King Institute, Stanford); National Park Service: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom; Wikipedia: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy (November 22, 1963)

Kennedy was shot in a motorcade in Dealey Plaza, and Governor John Connally was also wounded. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested at the Texas Theatre and two days later was shot dead by Jack Ruby at Dallas police headquarters on live television. The Warren Commission reported in 1964 that Oswald acted alone. The House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979 that Kennedy was likely killed as the result of a conspiracy but identified no conspirators, and public debate over the question continues.

• Abraham Zapruder's 8 mm film of the shooting lasts about 26 seconds.
• A bystander, James Tague, was wounded slightly.
• The House committee's 1979 conclusion relied heavily on acoustic analysis of a police dictabelt recording, which a National Academy of Sciences panel and the Justice Department later rejected.

Sources: Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy (Warren Commission Report) (National Archives); Miller Center: John F. Kennedy; Wikipedia: Assassination of John F. Kennedy

Lyndon B. Johnson (November 22, 1963 to January 20, 1969)

Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th President of the United States, 36th · Democratic

Johnson was a Texas congressman, senator and Senate majority leader before he became Kennedy's vice president. His Great Society program covered civil rights, health care, education, the arts and consumer protection. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Higher Education Act of 1965 and the Social Security Amendments that created Medicare and Medicaid. He also expanded the American war in Vietnam, which cost him public support.

How they came to power: He became president on November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated, and was sworn in aboard Air Force One at Dallas. In 1964 he won a full term with the largest share of the popular vote of any Democrat in history.

How it ended: After a weak showing in the New Hampshire primary he announced on March 31, 1968, that he would neither seek nor accept his party's nomination. He left office on January 20, 1969, and died on January 22, 1973, at age 64, in Gillespie County, Texas, close to where he was born.

• He was sworn in at 2:38 p.m. on Air Force One by U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes, whom Kennedy had appointed to the bench in 1961; she is the only woman to have sworn in a president.
• He signed the Medicare bill at the Truman Library in Independence, Missouri, on July 30, 1965, and on January 20, 1966, he handed the first two Medicare cards to Harry and Bess Truman.
• He announced he would not run again at the end of a televised speech that was mostly about limiting the war in Vietnam.

Sources: Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise, March 15, 1965 (American Presidency Project); Remarks on Decision Not to Seek Re-Election, March 31, 1968 (Miller Center); Miller Center: Lyndon B. Johnson; Truman Library Institute: Signing Medicare into Law; Wikipedia: Lyndon B. Johnson

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (July 2, 1964)

Kennedy proposed the bill in 1963 and Johnson pressed it after his death. It has eleven titles covering voting, public accommodations, schools, federal programs and employment, and Title VII created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Johnson signed it on July 2, 1964. The Supreme Court upheld the public accommodations section in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States later that year.

• The Senate debated the bill for about 60 working days, and Robert Byrd's speech against it lasted 14 hours and 13 minutes.
• The June 10 cloture vote (71 to 29) was the first time the Senate had voted to end a filibuster on a civil rights bill.
• The final Senate vote on June 19 was 73 to 27; by party, Republicans voted yes about 82 percent and Democrats about 69 percent.

Sources: Civil Rights Act (1964) (National Archives milestone document); U.S. Senate: The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Cloture and Final Passage; Miller Center: Lyndon B. Johnson; Wikipedia: Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 (August 6, 1965)

On March 7, 1965, state and county police attacked marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, and footage drew national outrage. Johnson called for a voting rights law, and he signed it on August 6. The act barred tests and devices used to deny the vote, and Section 5 required covered jurisdictions to get federal approval before changing voting procedures. The Supreme Court in Shelby County v. Holder (2013) struck down the coverage formula as outdated.

• The Senate passed the bill 77 to 19 on May 26, and the House 333 to 85 on July 9.
• By the end of 1965 about a quarter million new Black voters had registered, one-third of them through federal examiners.
• Congress extended the act's special provisions in 1970, 1975, 1982 and 2006.

Sources: Voting Rights Act (1965) (National Archives milestone document); Johnson: Special Message to Congress, The American Promise, March 15, 1965 (American Presidency Project); U.S. Senate: The Senate Passes the Voting Rights Act; Miller Center: Lyndon B. Johnson; Wikipedia: Voting Rights Act of 1965

The Vietnam War (March 1965 to March 1973 (US combat role))

After the reported attacks on US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin in August 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution on August 7, with only Senators Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening voting no. The Rolling Thunder bombing campaign began in early 1965, and US Marines came ashore at Da Nang on March 8, the first US ground combat units. US troop strength peaked at about 543,000 in April 1969. The Paris Peace Accords were signed on January 27, 1973, and South Vietnam fell on April 30, 1975.

• Doubts later arose about whether the second reported attack, on August 4, 1964, actually took place.
• Congress moved to repeal the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in 1970, and the repeal was complete by January 1971, in an effort to limit presidential war powers.
• About 58,000 Americans died, and estimates of Vietnamese deaths range from about 1 million to 3 million.

Sources: Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964) (National Archives milestone document); Office of the Historian: The Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964; Wikipedia: Vietnam War

1968: Tet, Two Assassinations and an Election (January to November 1968)

North Vietnam began the Tet Offensive on January 30, 1968, with about 77,000 troops attacking more than 100 towns and cities. On March 31 Johnson announced he would not seek re-election. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on April 4 in Memphis, and riots followed in many cities. On April 11 Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1968 on housing. Robert F. Kennedy was shot in Los Angeles after winning the California primary on June 5 and died the next day. The Democratic convention in Chicago ran from August 26 to 29, and Nixon won the election on November 5.

• Allied forces regained the lost ground and the attackers suffered heavy losses, but Tet shocked an American public that had been told the enemy was losing, and support for the war fell.
• The My Lai massacre took place on March 16, 1968, but did not become public until November 1969.
• The Kerner Commission, appointed after the riots of 1967, released its report on February 29, 1968.

Sources: Johnson: Remarks on Decision Not to Seek Re-Election, March 31, 1968 (Miller Center); Office of the Historian: The Tet Offensive, 1968; Miller Center: Lyndon B. Johnson; Wikipedia: Tet Offensive

Richard Nixon (January 20, 1969 to August 9, 1974)

Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States, 37th · Republican

Nixon was a California congressman, senator and Eisenhower's vice president, and he lost the 1960 election to Kennedy. As president he visited China in 1972, pursued arms limitation talks with the Soviet Union, created the Environmental Protection Agency, and withdrew American combat forces from Vietnam under the 1973 Paris agreement. His second term was overshadowed by the Watergate scandal.

How they came to power: He defeated Hubert Humphrey and George Wallace in November 1968 and won a landslide re-election over George McGovern in 1972.

How it ended: Facing near-certain impeachment over Watergate, he announced on August 8, 1974, that he would resign, and left office at noon on August 9. Gerald Ford pardoned him on September 8, 1974. Nixon died in New York City on April 22, 1994, at age 81, four days after a stroke.

• He is the only president to resign from office.
• In his televised Checkers speech on September 23, 1952, he defended himself against charges about a campaign fund while he was a vice presidential candidate.
• He was raised a Quaker; his mother was a Quaker and his father converted to the faith.

Sources: Address to the Nation Announcing Decision To Resign the Office of President, August 8, 1974 (American Presidency Project); Miller Center: Richard Nixon; Wikipedia: Richard Nixon

The Moon Landing (July 16 to 24, 1969)

Apollo 11 launched on a Saturn V from Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969. The lunar module Eagle landed in the Sea of Tranquility at 20:17 UTC on July 20. Armstrong stepped onto the surface about six hours later, and Aldrin followed about 19 minutes after him. The moonwalk lasted about two and a half hours. The crew splashed down in the Pacific on July 24.

• The guidance computer sounded 1201 and 1202 alarms during descent, and Eagle landed with about 216 pounds of usable fuel.
• The astronauts collected about 47.5 pounds (21.5 kilograms) of lunar material, and an estimated 600 million or more people watched live.
• Aldrin asked listeners to pause and give thanks, then took communion privately; Michael Collins stayed in orbit alone in Columbia.

Sources: Apollo Lunar Surface Journal: The First Lunar Landing (NASA); Apollo 11 Technical Air-to-Ground Voice Transcription (NASA); NASA: Apollo 11; Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Apollo 11, The Moon Landing; Wikipedia: Apollo 11

Watergate (June 17, 1972 to August 9, 1974)

On June 17, 1972, operatives linked to Nixon's re-election campaign were caught at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate complex. Nixon won re-election in a landslide that November. The Senate created a select committee in February 1973, and televised hearings began in May. After a White House aide revealed the taping system, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously on July 24, 1974, that Nixon had to surrender the tapes. The House Judiciary Committee recommended impeachment, and Nixon resigned on August 9.

• In all, 69 people were charged, and most pleaded guilty or were convicted.
• The Senate committee had four Democrats and three Republicans and was created unanimously; the Senate reports that 97 percent of Americans had heard of Watergate one month after the hearings began.
• The role of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post is often described as exaggerated; their source, Mark Felt, the FBI's associate director, was revealed in 2005.

Sources: United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) (Legal Information Institute, Cornell); Nixon: Address Announcing Decision To Resign, August 8, 1974 (American Presidency Project); U.S. Senate: Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities; National Archives: Watergate and the Constitution, Chronology; Wikipedia: Watergate scandal

Gerald Ford (August 9, 1974 to January 20, 1977)

Gerald R. Ford, 38th President of the United States, 38th · Republican

Ford was a Michigan congressman and House Minority Leader. Richard Nixon's resignation made him president in August 1974, and a month later he pardoned Nixon. His term included high inflation, the 1975 fall of South Vietnam, and the Helsinki Accords signed with the Soviet Union and European states.

How they came to power: Spiro Agnew resigned as vice president on October 10, 1973, and Nixon named Ford under the Twenty-fifth Amendment. The Senate confirmed him 92 to 3 on November 27 and the House 387 to 35 on December 6, 1973. He became president when Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.

How it ended: He narrowly lost the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter and left office on January 20, 1977. He died at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, on December 26, 2006, at age 93.

• He was born Leslie Lynch King Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, and was later renamed after his stepfather.
• He is the only president who was an Eagle Scout, and his University of Michigan football teammates voted him their most valuable player.
• On taking the oath he told the country, 'you have not elected me as your President by your ballots,' and that 'our long national nightmare is over.'

Sources: Remarks on Taking the Oath of Office, August 9, 1974 (American Presidency Project); Miller Center: Gerald Ford; Wikipedia: Gerald Ford

Jimmy Carter (January 20, 1977 to January 20, 1981)

Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States, 39th · Democratic

Carter served in the Navy's nuclear submarine program, then ran his family's peanut business in Georgia. As president he brokered the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel, signed the Panama Canal treaties, and created the Departments of Energy and Education. His term was marked by inflation, an energy crisis, and the Iranian hostage crisis. After leaving office he worked on housing, health and election monitoring, and received the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

How they came to power: He defeated Gerald Ford in 1976, winning 297 electoral votes to 240 and 50.1 percent of the popular vote.

How it ended: Voters rejected him in 1980 in favor of Ronald Reagan, and he left office on January 20, 1981. He died in Plains, Georgia, on December 29, 2024, at age 100, the longest life of any president.

• The Camp David summit ran from September 5 to 17, 1978, about two weeks of negotiations, and ended with the signing of the Camp David Accords.
• His July 15, 1979, speech on the country's mood is known as the malaise speech, but the word malaise does not appear in its text.
• He joined the Navy's nuclear submarine program in 1952 under Hyman Rickover, then returned home to run the family peanut business after his father died in 1953.

Sources: Address to the Nation on Energy and National Goals ('The Malaise Speech'), July 15, 1979 (American Presidency Project); Miller Center: Jimmy Carter; Office of the Historian: Camp David Accords and the Arab-Israeli Peace Process; Wikipedia: Jimmy Carter

Ronald Reagan (January 20, 1981 to January 20, 1989)

Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, 40th · Republican

Before politics Reagan worked as a radio sports announcer, a film actor and a television host, and he led the Screen Actors Guild. He served as governor of California from 1967 to 1975. As president he cut taxes, increased defense spending, and signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. The Iran-Contra affair, a secret arms sale to Iran tied to funding for the Contras, was the major scandal of his second term.

How they came to power: He defeated Jimmy Carter in 1980 after losing Republican nomination bids in 1968 and 1976. In 1984 he won re-election over Walter Mondale in one of the largest landslides in American history.

How it ended: He left office on January 20, 1989. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1994 and died in Los Angeles on June 5, 2004, at age 93.

• His first job was as a lifeguard on the Rock River at Lowell Park in Illinois.
• He was president of the Screen Actors Guild twice, from 1947 to 1952 and from 1959 to 1960.
• On June 12, 1987, at the Brandenburg Gate he said, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!'

Sources: Remarks on East-West Relations at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, June 12, 1987 (American Presidency Project); Miller Center: Ronald Reagan; Wikipedia: Ronald Reagan

George H. W. Bush (January 20, 1989 to January 20, 1993)

George H. W. Bush, 41st President of the United States, 41st · Republican

Bush was commissioned as a Navy pilot at 18 and later served as a congressman, ambassador to the United Nations, CIA director and Reagan's vice president. His presidency covered the end of the Cold War, the 1989 invasion of Panama, the Gulf War of 1991, and the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. He also negotiated and signed the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was ratified after he left office.

How they came to power: He won the 1988 election over Michael Dukakis, promising continuity with Reagan's policies.

How it ended: He lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton and left office on January 20, 1993. He died at his home in Houston on November 30, 2018, at age 94.

• He and his son George W. Bush are the second father and son to have both served as president, after John Adams and John Quincy Adams.
• He was commissioned in the Navy on June 9, 1943, making him one of the youngest pilots in the service.
• He broke a 1988 no-new-taxes pledge by agreeing to tax increases in 1990, the same year he signed the Americans with Disabilities Act and Clean Air Act Amendments.

Sources: Inaugural Address, January 20, 1989 (American Presidency Project); Miller Center: George H. W. Bush; Wikipedia: George H. W. Bush

The Berlin Wall Falls and the Cold War Ends (November 9, 1989 to December 26, 1991)

After a chaotic press conference on the evening of November 9, 1989, East German border guards opened the Berlin Wall. Communist governments across Eastern Europe fell that year, and Germany reunified on October 3, 1990. Following a failed hardliner coup in August 1991, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus declared the Soviet Union dissolved on December 8. Gorbachev resigned on December 25, and the Soviet of the Republics formally dissolved the Union on December 26. Bush addressed the nation on December 25.

• East German spokesman Gunter Schabowski, asked when new travel rules took effect, answered at 6:53 p.m. that, as far as he knew, it was immediately; the crossing at Bornholmer Strasse opened that night.
• Hungary briefly opened a border gate to Austria at the Pan-European Picnic on August 19, 1989, and on October 9 about 70,000 people marched in Leipzig and no shot was fired.
• Romania's transition was the only violent one in Eastern Europe, and Ceausescu was executed on December 25, 1989.

Sources: Reagan: Remarks at the Brandenburg Gate in West Berlin, June 12, 1987 (American Presidency Project); Bush: Address to the Nation on the Commonwealth of Independent States, December 25, 1991 (American Presidency Project); Office of the Historian: Fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, 1989; Wikipedia: Fall of the Berlin Wall

The Gulf War (January 16 to February 28, 1991)

Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and the UN Security Council demanded its withdrawal and imposed sanctions. A coalition led by the United States, with troops from dozens of countries including several Arab states, built up forces in Saudi Arabia. Resolution 678 authorized force if Iraq did not leave by January 15, 1991. Allied aircraft began bombing on January 17 local time, the evening of January 16 in the United States. The ground campaign began on February 24, and Kuwait was liberated by February 28.

• Iraq owed about $37 billion to Gulf creditors in 1990, and Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates refused Saddam Hussein's demand to cancel those debts, one of the disputes that preceded the invasion.
• On August 28, 1990, Iraq declared Kuwait its nineteenth province; the UN Security Council had already voted to declare the annexation void.
• The ground war lasted about one hundred hours, and Iraqi forces caused over six hundred oil well fires in Kuwait; estimates of the total run higher, up to about 730 wells.

Sources: George H. W. Bush, Address to the Nation Announcing Allied Military Action in the Persian Gulf, January 16, 1991 (Public Papers of the Presidents, GovInfo); Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: The Gulf War, 1991; Wikipedia: Gulf War

Bill Clinton (1993 to 2001)

William Jefferson Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, 42nd · Democratic

Bill Clinton, a Democrat, served as attorney general and then governor of Arkansas before winning the presidency in 1992. His administration signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act, a welfare overhaul, in 1996, and it ordered U.S. military involvement in the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts. The federal budget was in surplus in four straight fiscal years, 1998 to 2001, the first surpluses since 1969. He was the first Democrat since Franklin Roosevelt to be elected to two terms.

How they came to power: In 1992 Clinton won a three-way race, taking 370 electoral votes to 168 for President George H. W. Bush, while independent Ross Perot won none. In 1996 he was re-elected with 379 electoral votes to 159 for Bob Dole.

How it ended: His second term ended on January 20, 2001. On December 19, 1998 the House impeached him on two articles, alleging perjury before a grand jury and obstruction of justice. On February 12, 1999 the Senate voted not guilty on both, short of the two-thirds needed. Clinton is living.

• He was born William Jefferson Blythe III in Hope, Arkansas, on August 19, 1946, and took the surname Clinton, his stepfather's, at age 15.
• He won a Rhodes Scholarship to University College, Oxford, in 1968 but left without taking an Oxford degree.
• He is the second president impeached by the House, after Andrew Johnson in 1868, and the Senate voted not guilty on both articles.

Sources: William J. Clinton, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1993 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara); Miller Center: Bill Clinton; National Archives: 1992 Electoral College Results; U.S. Senate: About Impeachment (Impeachment Cases); Wikipedia: Bill Clinton

The Oklahoma City Bombing (April 19, 1995)

At 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995, a truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 168 people and injured about 684. Timothy McVeigh was convicted for the attack and executed on June 11, 2001, and Terry Nichols, who helped plan it and build the bomb, was sentenced to life in prison without parole. That afternoon President Clinton announced an FBI-led crisis team and an emergency declaration for Oklahoma City.

• Nineteen children died in the bombing, 15 of them at the America's Kids Day Care Center inside the building.
• More than 12,000 people took part in rescue and relief work, according to the National Park Service, which planted an orchard at the memorial to honor the rescue workers.
• Congress passed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 in response; among other provisions it restricted access to habeas corpus review.

Sources: William J. Clinton, Remarks on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, April 19, 1995 (Public Papers of the Presidents, GovInfo); National Park Service: Oklahoma City National Memorial; Wikipedia: Oklahoma City bombing

The 2000 Election and Bush v. Gore (November 7 to December 12, 2000)

Election Day was November 7, 2000, and the result turned on Florida. On November 26 the state certified George W. Bush as the winner there by 537 votes out of 5,963,110 cast. Albert Gore's campaign pursued manual recounts, and on December 8 the Florida Supreme Court, by 4 to 3, ordered a statewide manual recount of undervotes. The U.S. Supreme Court stayed that order on December 9, by 5 to 4, and ruled on December 12 in an unsigned opinion that the recount, as ordered, violated the Equal Protection Clause and could not be finished by the federal December 12 deadline.

• The Court's per curiam opinion said seven justices agreed there were constitutional problems with the recount, though the justices split over the remedy, and the decision to end the recount was 5 to 4.
• The opinion said its consideration was limited to the present circumstances, a phrase later cited in debates over how far the ruling reaches as precedent.
• Bush won the Electoral College 271 to 266 while receiving fewer popular votes than Gore, and one District of Columbia elector cast a blank ballot.

Sources: Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), per curiam opinion (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School); National Archives: 2000 Electoral College Results; Wikipedia: 2000 United States presidential election recount in Florida

George W. Bush (2001 to 2009)

George Walker Bush, 43rd President of the United States, 43rd · Republican

George W. Bush, a Republican and the son of the 41st president, was governor of Texas before taking office. His domestic record includes the 2001 tax cuts, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 and the Medicare Modernization Act, which created Medicare Part D. After the September 11, 2001 attacks his administration launched the war in Afghanistan and, in 2003, the invasion of Iraq. In 2003 he started the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR. The 2008 economic downturn came in his last year in office.

How they came to power: In 2000 Bush won the Electoral College 271 to 266 after a disputed Florida recount ended with the Supreme Court's decision in Bush v. Gore, although he received about 544,000 fewer popular votes than Al Gore. In 2004 he was re-elected with 286 electoral votes to 251 for John Kerry.

How it ended: His second term ended on January 20, 2009. Bush is living.

• He signed the No Child Left Behind Act on January 8, 2002, at Hamilton High School in Hamilton, Ohio, in the district of House Education Committee chairman John Boehner.
• As a young man he flew Convair F-102 jets with the 147th Reconnaissance Wing of the Texas Air National Guard.
• He and his father are the second father and son to have both served as president, after John Adams and John Quincy Adams.

Sources: George W. Bush, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2005 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara); Miller Center: George W. Bush; National Archives: 2004 Electoral College Results; Wikipedia: George W. Bush

The September 11 Attacks (September 11, 2001)

On the morning of September 11, 2001, nineteen al-Qaeda hijackers seized four commercial airliners. Two were flown into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, one into the Pentagon in Virginia, and one crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after passengers tried to retake it. The National September 11 Memorial and Museum honors 2,977 people killed that day. Congress later created an independent bipartisan commission, whose final report was published in 2004. The attacks led directly to the Authorization for Use of Military Force of September 18, 2001.

• The South Tower fell at about 9:59 a.m. and the North Tower at about 10:28 a.m.; United Flight 93 crashed at about 10:03 a.m.
• Counting the passengers and crew with the victims at each site and leaving out the 19 hijackers, the toll is 2,753 in New York, 184 at the Pentagon and 40 on Flight 93.
• The National September 11 Memorial and Museum honors 2,983 people: the 2,977 victims of September 11 plus six people killed in the February 26, 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.

Sources: George W. Bush, Address to the Nation on the Terrorist Attacks, September 11, 2001 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara); The 9/11 Commission Report, official government edition (GovInfo); National September 11 Memorial and Museum: Visit; National September 11 Memorial and Museum: honoring the victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; Wikipedia: September 11 attacks

The War in Afghanistan (October 7, 2001 to August 30, 2021)

On September 18, 2001, Congress passed the Authorization for Use of Military Force, which permitted the president to use force against those who planned, authorized, committed or aided the September 11 attacks, or harbored them. After the Taliban government refused to expel Osama bin Laden, the United States and coalition partners began a military campaign on October 7, 2001, and Kabul fell on November 13. Coalition forces stayed for twenty years. The Taliban retook Kabul in August 2021 while U.S. forces were completing their withdrawal.

• The 2001 authorization does not name any country; its text covers nations, organizations or persons the president determines were involved in the September 11 attacks.
• The U.S. Embassy in Kabul suspended operations on August 31, 2021, and moved its operations to Doha, Qatar.
• Casualty estimates differ: Wikipedia lists 2,330 American and 3,579 coalition dead, 46,319 civilians killed, and total deaths of 176,206 (Costs of War Project) to more than 212,000 (Uppsala Conflict Data Program).

Sources: Authorization for Use of Military Force, Public Law 107-40, September 18, 2001 (GovInfo); Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: Afghanistan; Wikipedia: War in Afghanistan (2001 to 2021)

The Iraq War (March 20, 2003 to December 18, 2011)

In October 2002 Congress passed Public Law 107-243, which authorized the president to use the armed forces as he judged necessary to defend the United States against the threat posed by Iraq and to enforce UN resolutions. A coalition led by U.S. and British forces invaded on March 20, 2003 and seized Baghdad on April 9. The Coalition Provisional Authority under L. Paul Bremer governed from May 2003, and sovereignty passed to an interim Iraqi government in June 2004. An insurgency and sectarian violence followed, and U.S. forces left in December 2011.

• The House passed the resolution 296 to 133 on October 10, 2002, the Senate 77 to 23 on October 11, and President Bush signed it on October 16.
• No stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, the justification most prominently given before the invasion.
• Wikipedia lists 4,508 U.S. personnel killed; Iraq Body Count recorded about 103,000 to 114,000 civilian deaths, and some survey-based estimates are far higher.

Sources: Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, Public Law 107-243 (GovInfo); Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State: Iraq; Wikipedia: Iraq War

Hurricane Katrina (August 23 to 31, 2005)

Katrina formed as a tropical depression on August 23, 2005, and reached Category 5 with 175 mph winds on August 28. It made landfall near Buras, Louisiana, on August 29 as a Category 3 storm, and a second landfall followed near the Louisiana and Mississippi border. The National Weather Service credits it with 1,392 deaths and $125 billion in damage in 2005 dollars. A House select committee that investigated the preparation and response issued its report, A Failure of Initiative, in February 2006.

• The storm surge reached nearly 28 feet at Bay St. Louis and Pass Christian, Mississippi, according to the National Weather Service.
• The Coast Guard rescued more than 33,000 people stranded in New Orleans, and Congress passed two emergency bills, on September 2 and 8, 2005, that together provided $62.3 billion.
• On September 26, 2005, FEMA projected that as many as 700,000 families would apply for housing help, according to the Associated Press.

Sources: A Failure of Initiative: Final Report of the Select Bipartisan Committee to Investigate the Preparation for and Response to Hurricane Katrina, H. Rept. 109-377, February 15, 2006 (GovInfo); National Weather Service New Orleans/Baton Rouge: Hurricane Katrina; National Hurricane Center: Hurricanes in History (Katrina); Wikipedia: Hurricane Katrina

The 2008 Financial Crisis (2007 to 2009, peaking September to October 2008)

The crisis grew out of an expansion of mortgage credit to high-risk borrowers, much of it funded by repackaged mortgage-backed securities, and a fall in home prices. The Federal Reserve helped arrange the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan Chase in March 2008, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the federal government on September 7. Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy on September 15, and the Fed lent AIG $85 billion the next day. Congress passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, and President Bush signed it on October 3, 2008.

• On September 29, 2008, after the House first rejected the rescue bill, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 777.68 points, then the largest one-day point drop on record.
• Bear Stearns was sold to JPMorgan Chase at an initial price of $2 per share, later raised to $10.
• The law's $700 billion figure was a cap on assets held at any one time, released in stages: $250 billion on enactment, $100 billion more on the president's certification, and the final $350 billion only after a plan went to Congress and 15 days passed without a joint resolution of disapproval.

Sources: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, Public Law 110-343 (GovInfo); The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, final report of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, 2011 (GovInfo); Federal Reserve History: The Great Recession and Its Aftermath; Federal Reserve History: Subprime Mortgage Crisis; Wikipedia: Financial crisis of 2007 to 2008

Barack Obama (2009 to 2017)

Barack Hussein Obama II, 44th President of the United States, 44th · Democratic

Barack Obama, a Democrat, was a community organizer, Illinois state senator and U.S. senator from Illinois before becoming the first African American to serve as president. He took office during the 2008 recession. His administration enacted the Affordable Care Act in 2010 and the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law, and U.S. forces carried out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2, 2011. The last U.S. troops left Iraq in December 2011. He was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

How they came to power: Obama defeated John McCain in November 2008, winning 365 electoral votes to 173. In 2012 he was re-elected, defeating Mitt Romney 332 to 206.

How it ended: His second term ended on January 20, 2017. Obama is living.

• He was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review.
• The Nobel Committee announced his Peace Prize on October 9, 2009, citing his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.
• He won Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word Album in 2006 and 2008, for the audiobook versions of Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

Sources: Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2009 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara); Miller Center: Barack Obama; National Archives: 2008 Electoral College Results; Wikipedia: Barack Obama

Obergefell v. Hodges (June 26, 2015)

James Obergefell and other petitioners challenged laws in Ohio, Tennessee, Michigan and Kentucky that barred same-sex marriage or refused to recognize marriages performed elsewhere. On June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex and to recognize one lawfully performed in another state. Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan. Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito each wrote dissents.

• Obergefell sued to be listed as the surviving spouse on the Ohio death certificate of his husband, John Arthur, who died on October 22, 2013.
• In November 2014 the Sixth Circuit had ruled 2 to 1 that the state bans were constitutional, creating a split among the federal appeals courts that led the Supreme Court to take the cases.
• The decision overruled Baker v. Nelson, a 1972 one-sentence dismissal, and came on the second anniversary of United States v. Windsor, which struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act.

Sources: Obergefell v. Hodges, No. 14-556, opinion of the Court (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School); Legal Information Institute: Obergefell v. Hodges (Wex); Wikipedia: Obergefell v. Hodges

Donald Trump (2017 to 2021; January 20, 2025 to present)

Donald John Trump, 45th and 47th President of the United States, 45th and 47th · Republican

Donald Trump, a Republican, was a real estate developer and television personality before his first campaign. In his first term (2017 to 2021) he signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and appointed three Supreme Court justices: Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The COVID-19 pandemic began in the last year of that term. He was impeached by the House twice and acquitted by the Senate both times. After the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, he won the 2024 election and was inaugurated for a second term on January 20, 2025. That term is ongoing as of October 2026; in it he signed the 2025 reconciliation law known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on July 4, 2025.

How they came to power: In 2016 Trump won 304 electoral votes to 227 for Hillary Clinton, who received about 2.9 million more popular votes. In 2020 Joe Biden won 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232. In 2024 Trump defeated Kamala Harris, 312 electoral votes to 226, becoming the 47th president.

How it ended: His first term ended on January 20, 2021. His second term began on January 20, 2025 and is ongoing. Trump is living.

• Grover Cleveland (22nd and 24th president) is the only other president to have served two non-consecutive terms.
• The House impeached him in December 2019 (abuse of power and obstruction of Congress) and again in January 2021 (incitement of insurrection); the Senate voted not guilty on February 5, 2020 and February 13, 2021.
• In May 2024 a New York jury found him guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records, making him the first former president convicted of a felony. He was sentenced in January 2025 with no penalty, and he appealed the verdict.

Sources: Donald J. Trump, Inaugural Address, January 20, 2017 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara); Miller Center: Donald Trump; National Archives: 2024 Electoral College Results; U.S. Senate: About Impeachment (Impeachment Cases); Wikipedia: Donald Trump

The COVID-19 Pandemic (January 2020 to May 11, 2023)

The CDC reported the first laboratory-confirmed U.S. case on January 20, 2020, in Washington state. On January 31 the U.S. health secretary declared a public health emergency. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization characterized COVID-19 as a pandemic, and on March 13 the president declared a national emergency. The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on December 11, 2020. The federal public health emergency ended on May 11, 2023. The CDC estimates about 1.23 million U.S. deaths.

• When the WHO made its pandemic assessment, it counted roughly 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths, and 81 countries had reported no cases.
• The first American outside clinical trials to receive a COVID-19 vaccine was a nurse in New York, on December 14, 2020.
• The recorded U.S. death toll reached one million on May 12, 2022, according to the CDC Museum timeline.

Sources: WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19, March 11, 2020 (World Health Organization); CDC Museum: COVID-19 Timeline; Wikipedia: COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

The January 6 Capitol Attack (January 6, 2021)

On January 6, 2021, Congress met in joint session to count the electoral votes from the 2020 election. During the session a crowd entered the Capitol, and the House history office records that the count was interrupted at 2:19 p.m. and resumed at 9:02 p.m., after the building was declared secure. The count was completed by the morning of January 7, with Vice President Pence announcing that Joe Biden had won. A House select committee investigated and published its final report on December 22, 2022. The House impeached President Trump on January 13 for incitement of insurrection.

• The Justice Department has said about 140 police officers were assaulted during the attack.
• The Senate voted 57 to 43 to convict Trump on the impeachment article, short of the two-thirds majority required, and he was acquitted on February 13, 2021.
• On January 20, 2025, President Trump issued a proclamation granting pardons to about 1,500 people charged in connection with the attack and commuting the sentences of 14 others.

Sources: Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, House Report 117-663, December 22, 2022 (GovInfo); U.S. House Office of the Historian: Electoral College Fast Facts; National Archives: 2020 Electoral College Results; Wikipedia: January 6 United States Capitol attack

Joe Biden (2021 to 2025)

Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., 46th President of the United States, 46th · Democratic

Joe Biden, a Democrat, served in the Senate from 1973 to 2009 and as vice president from 2009 to 2017. As president he signed the American Rescue Plan Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021 and the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022. He appointed Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court. U.S. troops left Afghanistan in a withdrawal that followed the February 2020 Doha agreement signed during the previous administration; it ended in August 2021 as the Taliban retook control.

How they came to power: Biden defeated President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, winning 306 electoral votes to 232.

How it ended: On July 21, 2024, weeks after a June 27 debate with Trump, he announced he would not seek re-election and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris. His term ended on January 20, 2025. Biden is living.

• He was elected to the Senate in 1972 at age 29, and was sworn in at a Wilmington hospital on January 5, 1973, beside his two sons, who were recovering from the car crash that killed his wife and infant daughter.
• He commuted from Washington to Wilmington, Delaware, by Amtrak for 36 years, earning the nickname Amtrak Joe.
• At 78 years and 2 months old at his inauguration he was the oldest president ever sworn in, until Donald Trump took the oath in 2025 at 78 years and 7 months.

Sources: Joseph R. Biden Jr., Inaugural Address, January 20, 2021 (American Presidency Project, UC Santa Barbara); Miller Center: Joe Biden; National Archives: 2020 Electoral College Results; Wikipedia: Joe Biden

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (June 24, 2022)

The case concerned Mississippi's Gestational Age Act, which generally bars abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The Court heard argument on December 1, 2021, and decided on June 24, 2022. Justice Alito wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett, that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and that Roe and Casey are overruled, returning the authority to regulate abortion to the people and their elected representatives. Chief Justice Roberts concurred only in the judgment. Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan dissented.

• Politico published a leaked draft of Justice Alito's majority opinion on May 2, 2022, and the Court confirmed the next day that it was authentic.
• The vote was 6 to 3 to uphold the Mississippi law and 5 to 4 to overrule Roe and Casey.
• Thirteen states had trigger laws, written to ban most abortions if Roe was overturned, according to a reference list compiled at the time.

Sources: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, No. 19-1392, opinion of the Court (Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School); Legal Information Institute: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization; Wikipedia: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization