Presidents of USA
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Presidents of USA
WILLIAM MCKINLEYWilliam McKinley, Republican and 25th President of the U.S. was the son of an Ohio ironmaker.
He enlisted in the Civil War at age 18.
He quickly rose to captain and by 1865 was made brevet major.
McKinley went on to study law, serve in the House of Representatives from 1877-83 and become governor of Ohio.
In 1896 he won the presidential election from William Jennings Bryan over a gold standard issue.
Though he was conservative in business matters, he was respected for his conciliatory nature.
McKinley hesitated to intervene, but when Spain made too few concessions regarding Cuba, he declared a state of war in 1898.
While welcoming citizens at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, McKinley was shot and killed by an anarchist.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt, 5th cousin to Franklin D. Roosevelt and an uncle of Eleanor Roosevelt, was elected New York governor in 1898 after a Navy career.
Nominated by the Republican party for vice president in 1900, he became the nation's 26th and youngest President when William McKinley was assasinated in 1901.
As president he fought corruption of politics and big business.
He was reelected in 1904 and was the first President to use The Hague International Court of Justice.
Roosevelt won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 for mediating the peace between Russia and Japan.
In 1908 he helped get William Taft nominated and elected, but feeling that Taft had abandoned his policies, decided to campaign against him in 1912.
He was shot during that campaign, and though he recovered, he was unsuccessful in his bid for the Presidency.
Roosevelt wrote about 40 books, of which Winning in the West is best known.
WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT
William Howard Taft inherited his passion for politics from his father Alphonso Taft, who was secretary of war and attorney general in Grant's cabinet.
After graduating from Yale and Cincinnati Law School in 1880, Taft rose to federal circuit judge by 1892.
He became head of the U.S.
Philippines Commission in 1900 and was the first civil governor of the Philippines.
Republican Taft was groomed for President by Roosevelt himself and elected America's 27th President over William Jennings Bryan in 1908.
His administration dissolved tobacco trusts and his tariff and conservation policies angered progressives.
Though he was renominated in 1912, he was strongly opposed by Roosevelt, who felt that Taft had abandoned Roosevelt's policies.
The Republican party split between the two and Democrat Woodrow Wilson was subsequently elected instead.
WOODROW WILSON
Woodrow Wilson, Democrat and 28th President, won the 1912 election because the Republican party vote was split between Taft and Roosevelt.
Wilson, a professor of law and political economy, fought for American rights on the high seas, and he protected American interests in revolutionary Mexico.
Though he was reelected in 1916 on the slogan "He kept us out of the war", Wilson's attempts to mediate in World War I failed.
On April 6, 1917, after 4 American ships were sunk, he declared war on Germany.
Wilson proposed a peace plan on January 1918, which was not accepted by the Germans until November 1918.
He traveled to Paris to negotiate the peace treaty, to encompassed the idea of a League of Nations.
Though the treaty was rejected by the Senate, Woodrow Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Price.
That same year, Wilson suffered a stroke and became an invalid.
He managed to cling to power until the end of his term in 1920.
CALVIN COOLIDGE
Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States.
The son of a Vermont storekeeper, he entered Republican state politics by first serving as the mayor of Northampton, Mass.
He quickly moved on to become state senator, lieutenant governor and eventually governor of Massachusetts.
Coolidge attained national acclaim when he called in the state guard during the 1919 Boston police strike.
He ran as Warren Harding's vice president in 1920 and took office upon Harding's death in 1923.
He was reelected by a huge majority in 1924.
He managed to reduce the national debt by 2 billion dollars in 3 years, but when eager Republicans wanted to renominate him in 1928, he chose not to run again.
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
Franklin D. Roosevelt, the son of James Roosevelt and Sara Delano joined the N.Y. Senate in 1910 after graduating from Columbia Law School.
A Democrat, he ran for vice president in 1920 with James Cox and when they were defeated, went to work as a lawyer for a financial institution.
In 1921 FDR became paralyzed by polio, and though he learned to walk with leg braces, he was mostly wheelchair-bound.
But he refused to be defeated.
In 1928 he was elected governor of New York and in 1932 was elected 32nd President of the U.S. FDR was the first President to run more than 2 terms and was reelected to a 3rd term (1940) and even a 4th term in 1944 despite poor health.
He was also the first President to use radio and became famous for his "fireside chats".
The U.S. entered World War II under Roosevelt, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.
HARRY S. TRUMAN
Harry Truman used the middle initial S. as the family could not agree on whether his middle name should be Shippe or Solomon.
After attending public school, working as a railroad timekeeper, a bank clerk and running the family farm, Truman attended law school and was elected Senator in 1934.
With Roosevelt's help Truman was nominated for and elected Democratic vice president in 1944.
He became the 33rd President of the U.S. when Roosevelt died in 1945 and was elected to a full term in 1948.
Truman was responsible for bringing World War II to an end by authorizing the first use of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima (August 6) and Nagasaki (August 8) 1945.
In 1948-49 he crushed the Russian blockade of West Berlin with a giant airlift and send American forces to Korea in 1950 when communist North Korea invaded South Korea.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
Lyndon Baines Johnson, Democrat and America's 36th President, entered politics when he won a contest to fill the vacancy caused by the death of a Texas state representative.
By 1938, Johnson was elected to the full term, after which he won 4 more terms.
In 1948 he was elected U.S. senator and he became Democratic leader in 1953.
He ran as John F.
Kennedy's vice-presidential running mate in 1960 to help Kennedy overcome religious bias in the South.
When Kennedy was assassinated in November 1963, LBJ became the 36th President.
He was elected to a full term in 1964.
He worked hard for civil rights, welfare-legislation and tax reduction laws, but his Presidency was overshadowed by the Vietnam war.
As the nation increasingly divided over the Vietnam issue, Johnson announced that he would not seek another term in office.
RICHARD NIXON
Lawyer and Republican public official Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States.
He was considered to be an outstanding foreign policy official and during his administration, Nixon "opened the door to China," while relations with the Soviet Union were also greatly improved.
He further laid the groundwork toward ending the war between Israel and its Arab neighbors.
Though Nixon denied any wrongdoing, he was forced to resign from office in 1974, when it came to light that he was involved in a cover-up of the Watergate break-in scandal.
Gerald Ford was sworn in as his successor and granted Nixon pardon for any federal crimes he might have committed during his presidency.
GERALD R. FORD
Gerald Ford was sworn in as the 38th President of the United States after Richard Nixon's resignation in August 1974 following the Watergate affair.
A member of the U.S. Congress for 25 years, Ford had been appointed Vice President just a year before after Spiro Agnew resigned in the midst of bribery and tax violation allegations.
Ford spent most of his life in Michigan and was an excellent football player.
He was the star center for the University of Michigan football team and later coached football and boxing at Yale University.
Ford earned his law degree at Yale and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.
After the war he returned to Michigan and in 1948 was elected into the House of Representatives.
He was re-elected every two years thereafter until his appointment to the Vice Presidency in 1973.
JIMMY (JAMES EARL) CARTER
Jimmy Carter, a Democrat and 39th President of the United States, is the son of peanut farmers in Plains, Georgia.
He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, entered the Navy's nuclear submarine program and went on to study nuclear physics at Union College.
When his father died in 1953, Jimmy left the Navy to take over the family business.
He was elected to the Georgia state senate and went on to become governor in 1970.
He defeated President Gerald R. Ford in the 1976 general elections and became America's 39th President as well as the first President from the Deep South since before the Civil War.
Carter played an important negotiating role in the peace process between Egypt and Israel.
His presidency was plagued by the poor state of the economy and the Iran hostage crisis, which lost him the election to Ronald Reagan in 1980.
RONALD WILSON REAGAN
After graduation, Ronald Reagan started his career as a sports announcer in Des Moines, Iowa.
He became a successful film actor in 1937, starring in numerous films.
At first a liberal democrat, Reagan became active in Republican politics in 1964 during Barry Goldwater's presidential campaign.
He became governor of California in 1966 and was reelected governor in 1970.
In 1980 Reagan successfully ran for the Republican presidential nomination and won a landslide victory over Jimmy Carter.
At the age 73, the former actor became America's 40th and oldest President ever to be elected.
His economic programs led to the largest budget and tax cuts in U.S.
history.
He sent troops to Lebanon and the Persian Gulf and strongly supported anti-communist governments and forces around the world.
He survived an assassination attempt in 1981.
The Reagan administration faced a major crisis during 1986-1987, when Iran-gate scandal, a secret weapons deal for the release of hostages, was revealed.
GEORGE BUSH
George Herbert Walker Bush, became America's 41st President in 1989 and established himself ashis own man after he had served as Vice- President in the Reagan administration for eight years.
A major Bush accomplishment was the 1991 summit meeting and subsequent signing of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev.
The same year Bush ordered American troops to the Persian Gulf to free Kuwait from an invasion by Iraqi President Sadam Hussein.
Domestically, Bush's popularity decreased sharply due to a faltering economy and after 12 years of Republican reign, Bush lost the 1992 election to Democrat Bill Clinton.