Portal:Presidency of the United States

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The President of the United States is the head of state of the United States of America, and chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. Owing to the superpower status of the United States, the American President is widely considered to be the most powerful person on earth and is usually one of the world's best-known public figures. The President is sometimes referred to as the leader of the free world, although the usage of this phrase has declined since the end of the Cold War. The President chairs the U.S. Cabinet, appoints heads of departments and federal judges. The power of the office has grown significantly, and the incumbent often lays out the legislative agenda and sets the lead in policy-making for the government. The United States was the first nation to create the office of President as the head of state in a modern republic, established with the Constitution of the United States in 1787, and the first election was held in 1789. The 1st President was George Washington, and the 43rd and current President is George W. Bush. Once elected, the President is limited to serve two, four-year terms, and only natural-born U.S. citizens of age 35 and older are eligible to serve. A president is elected through direct elections that determine each U.S. state's votes in the electoral college, which in turn casts the vote for the president.

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• 2002: President George W. Bush's benchmark education reform, the No Child Left Behind Act is passed with bi-partisan support.
• 1846: President James K. Polk signs the Oregon Treaty, incorporating the Oregon Territory into the U.S.
• 1824: President James Monroe proclaims the Monroe Doctrine, warning European powers against the further colonization of the continents of America.
• 1798: President George Washington issues the Neutrality Proclamation, extricating the U.S. from European political conflicts.

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Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd President of the United States. Elected to four terms in office, he served from 1933 to 1945, and is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Roosevelt created the New Deal to provide relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy, and reform of the economic system. His most famous legacies include the Social Security system and the regulation of Wall Street. His aggressive use of an active federal government reenergized the Democratic Party. Roosevelt built the New Deal coalition that dominated politics into the 1960s. After 1938, Roosevelt championed re-armament and led the nation away from isolationism as the world headed into the war. He provided extensive support to Winston Churchill and the British war effort before the attack on Pearl Harbor pulled the U.S. into the fighting. During the war, Roosevelt, working closely with his aide Harry Hopkins, provided decisive leadership against Nazi Germany and made the United States the principal arms supplier and financier of the Allies who defeated Germany, Italy and Japan. Roosevelt led the United States as it became the Arsenal of Democracy and put 16 million American men into uniform. On the homefront his term saw the vast expansion of industry, the elimination of unemployment, restoration of prosperity, new taxes that affected all income groups, price controls and rationing, 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans sent to relocation camps, and new opportunities opened for African Americans and women. (more)

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• ...that in 2000, Senator Joseph Lieberman (pictured) became the first Jewish-American to be nominated on a major party's vice-presidential ticket?
• ...that Samuel Tilden won both the popular and electoral vote in the 1876 U.S. presidential election, but a deal known as the Compromise of 1877 was reached, and Rutherford B. Hayes became president?
• ...that Woodrow Wilson guided the creation of the League of Nations but could not convince the U.S. Senate to approve U.S. membership in the organization?

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• July 19, 2006: President Bush exercises his veto power for the first time in his presidency, blocking federal funding for stem cell research.[1]
• June 29, 2006: The U.S. Supreme Court outlaws the U.S. military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, created by presidential executive order.[2]
• June 24, 2006: The U.S. House of Representatives approves a version of the line-item veto, giving the President the power to make alterations to appropriations legislation.
• June 15, 2006: President George W. Bush created the 75th, and largest, National Monument in US history and the largest Marine Protected Area in the world with the formation of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands National Monument.[3]

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President Richard Nixon won 60% of the popular vote and 49 states in the U.S. presidential election, 1972.

Photo credit: NationalAtlas

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• 1976: The Democrat challenger Jimmy Carter defeats the Republican incumbent Gerald Ford, by capturing 50% of the popular vote and 297 of the 538 total electoral votes.
• 1800: The Democratic-Republican challenger Thomas Jefferson defeats the Federalist incumbent John Adams, by capturing 73 of the 138 total electoral votes at stake.
• 1924: Incumbent Calvin Coolidge secures 54% of the popular vote and 382 of the total 531 electoral votes, defeating Democrat John W. Davis and Progressive "Fighting Bob" La Follette.
• 1876: Democrat Samuel J. Tilden of New York defeated Ohio's Rutherford Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes yet uncounted. However, the Compromise of 1877 was reached, and thus Rutherford B. Hayes became president.

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