President of the United States

The President of the United States (often abbreviated "POTUS") is the head of state of the United States. Under the U.S. Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The full title is President of the United States of America.

Presidential facts

Transition events

• Four U.S. Presidents have been assassinated while in office:
• Abraham Lincoln in 1865 by John Wilkes Booth
• James Garfield in 1881 by Charles J. Guiteau (Guiteau shot him but Garfield arguably died due to subsequent incorrect medical care)
• William McKinley in 1901 by Leon Czolgosz
• John F. Kennedy in 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/warren_commission/warren_commission_report_chapter1.html although conspiracy theories suggest additional gunmen. http://www.archives.gov/research_room/jfk/house_select_committee/committee_report_gunmen.html
• Four others died in office of natural causes:
• William Henry Harrison, died of pneumonia in 1841
• Zachary Taylor, died of "acute indigestion" in 1850. Taylor's body was exhumed in 1991 to test if he had died of arsenic poisoning. It was determined he did not.
• Warren G. Harding, died of heart attack in 1923
• Franklin D. Roosevelt, died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1945
• One President resigned from office:
• Richard Nixon in 1974
• Two Presidents have been impeached, though neither was subsequently convicted:
• Andrew Johnson in 1868
• Bill Clinton in 1999
• Four Presidents have been elected without a plurality of popular votes:
• John Quincy Adams - trailed Andrew Jackson by 44,804 votes in the 1824 election
• However, in six of the then twenty-four states in 1824, the electors were chosen by the state legislature, with no popular vote.
• Rutherford B. Hayes - trailed Samuel J. Tilden by 264,292 votes in the 1876 election
• Benjamin Harrison - trailed Grover Cleveland 95,713 votes in the 1888 election
• George W. Bush - trailed Al Gore by 540,520 votes in the 2000 election
• A possible addition to this list is John F. Kennedy, who may have trailed Richard Nixon in the 1960 election. The precise gap in votes is difficult to determine because voters in Alabama were not given Kennedy as an option on their ballot - they could only vote "Democratic", without choosing a candidate. So, when the Democrats won Alabama, half of the state's electoral votes were pledged to Kennedy, and the other half were not pledged at all, and those votes all went to Harry F. Byrd. So it is impossible to know how many of those voters meant to vote for Kennedy, or for Byrd. The margin between Kennedy and Nixon was smaller than the number of Democratic votes in Alabama. The official figure from the U.S. government states includes the Alabama votes in Kennedy's total, giving Kennedy the popular plurality.
• Eleven Presidents have been elected fourteen times without a majority of popular votes (but with a plurality of popular votes):
• James K. Polk - 49.3% of the popular vote in the 1844 election
• Zachary Taylor - 47.3% of the popular vote in the 1848 election
• James Buchanan - 45.3% of the popular vote in the 1856 election
• Abraham Lincoln - 39.9% of the popular vote in the 1860 election
• James A. Garfield - 48.3% of the popular vote in the 1880 election
• Grover Cleveland - 48.8% of the popular vote in the 1884 election
• Grover Cleveland - 46.0% of the popular vote in the 1892 election
• Woodrow Wilson - 41.8% of the popular vote in the 1912 election
• Woodrow Wilson - 49.3% of the popular vote in the 1916 election
• Harry S. Truman - 49.7% of the popular vote in the 1948 election
• John F. Kennedy - 49.7% of the popular vote in the 1960 election
• Richard Nixon - 43.2% of the popular vote in the 1968 election
• Bill Clinton - 42.9% of the popular vote in the 1992 election
• Bill Clinton - 49.2% of the popular vote in the 1996 election
• Two Presidents have been elected without a majority of electoral votes, and were chosen by the House of Representatives:
• Thomas Jefferson - finished with same number of electoral votes as Aaron Burr in the 1800 election
• John Quincy Adams - trailed Andrew Jackson by 15 electoral votes in the 1824 election
• Eight Presidents took office without being elected to the Presidency, having been elected as Vice Presidents and then promoted from that position:
• Four of them did not run to succeed themselves, and were never elected president.
• John Tyler - Assumed the Presidency on the death of William Henry Harrison, did not run in the 1844 election
• Millard Fillmore - Succeeded Zachary Taylor, did not run in the 1852 election
• Fillmore did run for President in the 1856 election as a Know Nothing Party candidate and received 873,053 votes (21.6%), finishing third
• Andrew Johnson - Succeeded Abraham Lincoln, did not run in the 1868 election
• Chester A. Arthur - Succeeded James Garfield, did not run in the 1884 election
• The other four later ran for president, and were elected to succeed themselves as president:
• Theodore Roosevelt - Succeeded William McKinley, elected to succeed himself as president in the 1904 election
• Calvin Coolidge - Succeeded Warren G. Harding, elected to succeed himself as president in the 1924 election
• Harry S. Truman - Succeeded Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected to succeed himself as president in the 1948 election, but did not run again in the 1952 election, despite being eligible for a third term.
• Lyndon B. Johnson - Succeeded John F. Kennedy, elected to succeed himself as president in the 1964 election, but did not run again in the 1968 election
• One President, Gerald Ford, was never elected but was appointed Vice President by Richard Nixon (with approval from Congress) upon the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew, succeeded to the Presidency after Nixon's resignation, and was defeated in the 1976 election by Jimmy Carter. He remains the only President neither elected as President nor as Vice President.
• Two Presidents served full terms that were shorter than four years. George Washington's first term began on April 30, 1789 even though the inauguration day was March 4, 1789. That first term ended on March 4, 1793 so that first full term lasted 3 years and almost 10 months. Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term began March 4, 1933, but the twentieth amendment changed the inauguration date of the next term to January 20 (1937). Therefore, his first full term was also about 3 years and 10 months long.
• Four Presidents had never held any prior elected office:
• Zachary Taylor
• Ulysses S. Grant
• Herbert Hoover
• Dwight D. Eisenhower
• An urban legend claims that David Rice Atchison was the 11½th president of the United States for one day on March 4, 1849 in between the terms of James K. Polk (whose term expired at noon on March 4) and Zachary Taylor (who chose not to be sworn in until March 5). However, the logic of this is contradictory. If one does not consider Taylor to have officially become President until the administration of his Oath of Office, then the same logic precludes any person from having automatically succeeded before likewise having taken the same Oath. In fact, Taylor, as President-elect, automatically acceded to the Office of President upon the expiration of Polk's term, even if he did not yet enter into the execution of that Office until the Oath was administered. This fact was confirmed by Congress when it certified his election, as it defined the beginning of the administration as the instant Polk left office. Even if supposing, for the sake of argument, the rather odd interpretation that only Presidents-elect are required to take the Oath before officially occupying the Office, whilst officials in the Presidential Line of Succession occupy the Presidency ipso facto, then there would be a long list of dozens of additional "Presidents" who only held the office for a matter of hours or minutes.
• Grover Cleveland had two non-consecutive terms as President, and is counted both as the 22nd and the 24th President, as can be confirmed from the list of Presidents of the United States. Consequently, all subsequent Presidents who are referred to as "the th President of the United States" are actually the th person to hold the office. E.g., George W. Bush, 43rd President, is actually the 42nd person to be President.

Other facts

• All presidents have been white males and nominally Christian. Most presidents have been of substantially English descent, but there have been a few who came from a different background:
• Predominantly Dutch: Martin Van Buren
• Although Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt had Dutch names, neither was predominantly Dutch; each had only one Dutch grandfather. Theodore's other three grandparents were all North British; Franklin's other three grandparents were of Puritan stock.
• Predominantly German: Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower
• Predominantly Irish:William McKinley, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton
• Kennedy was also America's only Roman Catholic president.
• Only one president, James Buchanan, remained a bachelor.
• Historical rankings of U.S. Presidents by academic historians usually regard three Presidents — in chronological order, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin D. Roosevelt — to be the three most successful presidents by a wide margin.
• The Secret Service and some agencies in the government use acronyms as jargon. Since the Truman Administration the President of the United States has been called POTUS, pronounced "poh-tuss". The wife of the President, traditionally referred to as the First Lady is called FLOTUS, pronounced "flo-tuss". The Vice President of the United States is often abbreviated to VPOTUS, pronounced "vee-poh-tuss".
• The President is known to be able to affect trends in popular culture. An endorsement of a book or a movie by a president can easily launch the career of a author or a filmmaker. For example, Ronald Reagan's admiration of The Hunt For Red October caused Tom Clancy to become a nationally acclaimed bestselling author, something that may never have happened had it not been for Reagan's endorsement.
• The most common astrological symbols for presidents are Aquarius and Scorpio with five each. The least common is Virgo with only two.

Presidential trivia lists