AP U. S. History Presidential Listing

The Young Republic, 1788-1815

1.  George Washington, 1789-1797

VP - John Adams
Secretary of State - Thomas Jefferson
Secretary of Treasury - Alexander Hamilton
Major Items:

  • Judiciary Act, 1789
  • Tariff of 1789
  • Whiskey Rebellion, 1794
  • French Revolution - Citizen Genét, 1793
  • Jay Treaty with England, 1795
  • Pinckney Treaty with Spain, 1795
  • Farewell Address, 1796
  • First Bank of United States , 1791-1811

2.  John Adams, 1797-1801

Federalist
VP - Thomas Jefferson
Major Items:

  • XYZ Affair, 1797
  • Alien Act, Sedition Act, 1798
  • Naturalization Act
  • "Midnight Judges," 1801
  • Kentucky (Jefferson) and Virginia (Madison) Resolutions, 1798

3.  Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809

Republican
VP - Aaron Burr
Secretary of State - James Madison
Major Items:

  • Marbury v. Madison, 1803
  • Louisiana Purchase, 1803
  • Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1805
  • 12th Amendment, 1804
  • Embargo Act, 1807
  • Non-Intercourse Act, 1809

4.  James Madison, 1809-1817

Republican
VP - George Clinton
Secretary of State - James Monroe
Major Items:

  • Macon Act, 1810
  • Berlin and Milan Decrees
  • Orders in Council
  • "War Hawks," 1811-1812
  • War of 1812
  • Hartford Convention, 1814
  • First Protective Tariff, 1816

Era of Good Feelings and the Era of the Common Man, 1815-1840

5.  James Monroe, 1817-1825

Republican
VP - Tompkins
Secretary of State - John Quincy Adams
Major Items:

  • Marshall's Decisions:  McCulloch v. Maryland, 1819; Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 1819; Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824
  • Acquisition of Florida from Spain, 1819
  • Transcontinental or Adam-Oñis Treaty, 1819
  • Missouri Compromise, 1820
  • Monroe Doctrine, 1823
  • Sectional Tariff, 1824
  • Favorite Sons Election [Jackson, J. Q. Adams, Crawford, Clay], 1824

6.  John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829

National Republican
VP - John C. Calhoun
Secretary of State - Henry Clay
Major Items:

  • "Corrupt Bargain"
  • Erie Canal, 1825
  • Tariff of Abominations
  • Calhoun's Exposition and Protest, 1828

7.  Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837

Democrat
VP - John C. Calhoun and Martin Van Buren
Major Items:

  • Jacksonian Democracy
  • Tariffs of 1832 and 1833
  • The 2nd Bank of the United States (due to expire in 1836)
  • Formation of the Whig Party, 1832

8.  Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841

Democrat
VP - Richard M. Johnson
Major Items:

  • Panic of 1837
  • Specie Circular, no Bank of the United States
  • Unsound financing by state governments

Ante-Bellum Period, 1840-1860

9.  William Henry Harrison, 1841

Whig
VP - John Tyler
Secretary of State - Daniel Webster

10. John Tyler, 1841-1845

Anti-Jackson Democrat ran as VP on Whig ticket
Secretary of State - Daniel Webster
Major Items:

  • Webster-Ashburton Treaty, 1842
  • Vetoes Clay's bill for 3rd Bank of the United States
  • Canadian Border set at 45th parallel

11.  James K. Polk, 1845-1849

original "dark horse" candidate
Democrat
VP - Dallas
Major Items:

  • Manifest Destiny
  • Texas becomes a state, 1845
  • Oregon boundary settled, 1846
  • Mexican War, 1846-1848
  • Treaty of Guadeloupe-Hidalgo, 1848
  • Wilmot Proviso

12.  Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850

Whig
VP - Millard Fillmore

13.  Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853

Whig
Secretary of State - Daniel Webster
Major Items:

  • Compromise of 1850
  • Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 1850 (Britain and U. S. agree not to expand in Central America if the canal is built)
  • Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852

14.  Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857

Democrat
VP - King
Major Items:

  • Kansas-Nebraska Bill, 1854
  • popular sovereignty
  • Japan opened to world trade, 1853
  • Underground Railroad
  • Bleeding Kansas
  • Ostend Manifesto, 1854

15.  James Buchanan, 1857-1861

Democrat
VP- Breckinridge
Major Items:

  • Dred Scott decision, 1857
  • Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858

Civil War, 1861-1865

16.  Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865

Republican
VP - Andrew Johnson
Secretary of State - William H. Seward (New York)
Secretary of Treasury - Salmon P. Chase
Secretary of War - Edwin M. Stanton
Major Items:

  • Civil War, 1861-1865
  • Emancipation Proclamation, 1863
  • Homestead Act, 1862
  • Morill Act, 1862 (created agricultural colleges)
  • Assassinated April 14th, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth

Reconstruction, 1865-1877

17.  Andrew Johnson, 1865, 1869

Republican
Secretary of State - William H. Seward
Major Items:

  • 13th Amendment, 1865
  • 14th Amendment, 1868
  • Reconstruction Act, 1867
  • Tenure of Office Act, 1867
  • Impeachment Trial, 1868
  • Formation of KKK
  • Adoption of Black Codes in the South

18. Ulysses S. Grant, 1869-1877

Republican
VP - Colfax, Wilson
Secretary of State - Hamilton Fish
Major Items:

  • 15th Amendment, 1870
  • First Transcontinental Railroad, 1869
  • Tweed Ring
  • Panic of 1873
  • Crédit Mobilier
  • Whiskey Ring
  • Indian Ring

Gilded Age, 1877-1900

19.  Rutherford B. Hayes, 1877-1881

Republican
VP - Wheeler
Major Items:

  • Bland-Allison Act, 1878 (free coinage of silver)
  • Troops withdrawn from the South, 1877

20.  James A Garfield, March 4 to September 19, 1881

Republican
VP - Chester A. Arthur
Secretary of State - James A. Blaine
Major Items:

  • Assassinated by C. Julius Guiteau

21.  Chester A. Arthur, 1881-1885

Republican
Secretary of State - James A. Blaine
Major Items:

  • Pendleton Act, 1883 (set up civil service commission)

22.  Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889

Democrat
VP - Hendricks
Major Items:

  • Knights of Labor, 1886
  • Haymarket Riot, 1886
  • Interstate Commerce Act, 1887
  • Washburn v. Illinois, 1886

23.  Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893

Republican
VP - Morton
Secretary of State - James A. Blaine
Major Items:

  • Sherman Anti-trust Act, 1890
  • Populist Party Platform, 1892
  • North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington become states, 1889
  • Idaho and Wyoming become states, 1890
  • McKinley Tariff, 1890
  • Sherman Act, 1890

24.  Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897

Second Administration (only President to serve two non-consecutive terms)
Democrat
VP - Stevenson
Major Items:

  • Panic of 1893
  • Hawaiian incident, 1893
  • Venezuelan Boundary Affair, 1895
  • Pullman Strike, 1894
  • American Federation of Labor
  • Wilson-Gorman Tariff, 1894

25.  William McKinley, 1897-1901

Republican
VP - Garet Hobart, 1896-1900
VP - Theodore Roosevelt
Secretary of State - John Hay
Major Items:

  • New Imperialism
  • Spanish-American War, April 1898 - February 1899
  • Open Door Policy, 1899
  • Boxer Rebellion, 1900
  • McKinley was assassinated by Leon Czolgosz, 1901

Progressive Age, 1900-1920

26.  Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1908

Republican
VP - Fairbanks
Secretary of State - John Hay, Elihu Root
Major Items:

  • Panama Canal, 1903-1914
  • "Square Deal"
  • Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, 1904
  • Portsmouth Treaty, 1905
  • Gentleman's Agreement with Japan, 1904
  • Hague Conferences, 1899 and 1907
  • Hepburn Act, 1906
  • Pure Food and Drug Act, Meat Inspection Act, and "muckrakers", 1906
  • Political reforms of the Roosevelt Era
  • Trust-busting
  • Coal Strike
  • Conservation
  • Venezuelan Debt Controversy, 1902
  • Dominican Republic Crisis, 1902
  • Algerian Conference over Morocco, 1906

27.  William Howard Taft, 1909-1913

Republican
VP - Sherman
Major Items:

  • Paine-Aldrich Tariff, 1909
  • Pinchot-Ballinger controversy, 1909 (conservation v. reclamation)
  • "Dollar Diplomacy"

28.  Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921

Democrat
VP - Marshall
Major Items:

  • Underwood Tariff, 1913
  • 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Amendments
  • Federal Reserve System, 1913
  • Glassower Act, 1913
  • Federal trade Commission, 1914
  • Clayton Anti-trust Act, 1914
  • Troops to Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Virgin Islands, Mexico
  • The Lusitania, May 1915
  • "Fourteen Points," January 1917
  • Treaty of Versailles, 1919-1920
  • "New Freedom"

Roaring Twenties, 1920-1929

29.  Warren G. Harding, 1921-1923

"Dark Horse" candidate
Republican
VP - Calvin Coolidge
Secretary of State - Charles Evans Hughes
Major Items:

  • Teapot Dome Scandal
  • Washington Conference, 1921-1922
  • Fordney-McCumber Tariff, 1922

30.  Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929

Republican
VP - Dawes
Secretary of State - Frank Kellogg
Major Items:

  • Kellogg-Briand Pact, 1928

31.  Herbert Hoover, 1929-1933

Republican
VP - Curtis
Secretary of State - Henry L. Stimson
Major Items:

  • National Origins Immigration Act, 1929
  • Panic and Depression
  • Stock market Crash, 1929
  • Hawley-Smoot tariff, 1930

The New Deal and the Era of Reform, 1920-1945

32.  Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933-1945

Democrat
VP - Garner, Wallace, Truman
Major Items:

  • New Deal
  • "Alphabet soup" bureaucracies
  • World War 2
  • Labor reforms

33.  Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953

Democrat
VP - Barkley
Major Items:

  • World War 2 ends
  • Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, August 1945
  • Taft-Harley Act, 1947
  • Truman Doctrine, 1947
  • Marshall Plan, 1947
  • North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 1949
  • Korean War, 1950-1953
  • "Fair Deal"

The Cold War, 1945-1968

34.  Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953-1961

Republican
VP - Nixon
Major Items:

  • 22nd Amendment
  • Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
  • Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO)
  • Suez Crisis, 1956
  • Eisenhower Doctrine
  • the "race for space"
  • Alaska and Hawaii become states, 1959

35.  John F. Kennedy, 1961-1963

Democrat
VP - Lyndon B. Johnson
Major Items:

  • Alliance for Progress
  • Baker v. Carr, 1962
  • Peace Corps
  • Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962
  • "New Frontier"
  • Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty
  • Assassinated in Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963, by Lee Harvey Oswald

36.  Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963-1968

Democrat
VP - Humphrey
Major Items:

  • The "Cold War"
  • Cuban Policy
  • Income tax cut
  • Wesberry v. Sanders, 1964
  • Civil Rights Act, 1964
  • Voting Rights Act, 1965
  • Anti-Poverty Act, 1964
  • Elementary and Secondary education reform
  • Medicare
  • "Great Society"

Detente and Rapprochement, 1968 - present

37.  Richard M. Nixon, 1968-1974

Republican
VP - Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford
Major Items:

  • "Imperial Presidency"
  • Landing on the moon, July 1969
  • Warren Burger, Chief Justice, 1969
  • Woodstock, August 1969
  • Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established, 1970
  • 16th Amendment, 1971
  • Visit to China, February 1972
  • Visit to Russia, May 1972
  • Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT), 1972
  • Kissinger and "shuttle diplomacy," 1973-1975
  • Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1973
  • Allende regime in Chile overthrown with the help of the CIA, September 1973
  • Agnew resigns, 1973
  • Nixon resigns, August 9, 1974
  • Pentagon Papers, August 30, 1971 (superior court allows the NY Times to publish)

38.  Gerald Ford, 1974-1976

Republican
1st appointed President
VP - Nelson Rockefeller
Neither President nor Vice-President had been elected
Major Items:

  • Pardons Richard Nixon
  • OPEC crisis, 1974

39.  Jimmy Carter, 1977-1981

Democrat
VP - Walter Mondale
Major Items:

  • Panama Canal Treaty signed, September 1977
  • Established diplomatic relations with China and ended recognition of Taiwan
  • Three-Mile Island Incident, March 1979 (nuclear reactor leak in Pennsylvania)
  • Egypt and Israel peace treaty; Sadat and Begin win the Nobel Prize, 1979
  • Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979 (rescue attempt, 8 killed, April 1980)
  • Seizure of Afghanistan by Soviets, 1979
  • "Stagflation"
  • Boycott of Olympics in Moscow to protest invasion of Afghanistan

40.  Ronald Reagan, 1981-1989

Republican
VP - George Bush
Major Items:

  • Hostages returned
  • Falkland Islands Crisis, 1982 (U. S. supports England)
  • 1500 Marines sent to Beirut, 1983; withdrawn in 1984
  • Grenada, October 1983
  • Nicaragua, 1984
  • Sandra Day O'Connor, first woman appointed to the Supreme Court
  • "Supply-side economics"
  • Iran-Contra Hearings, Summer 1987 (Oliver North)

41.  George Bush, 1989- 1993

Republican
VP - Dan Quayle
Major Items:

  • Savings and Loan Scandal, 1990
  • Berlin Wall came down leading to the reunification of Germany
  • Invasion of Panama, 1990
  • Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm (the Gulf War), January to August 1992

42.  Bill Clinton, 1993-2001

Democrat
VP - Al Gore
Major Items:

  • North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), 1993
  • Proposes a national health care system, 1993
  • Participates in air strikes in Bosnia, 1994
  • Participates in air strikes in Iraq
  • Sex scandal, 1998
  • Participates in air strikes on Serbia, 1999

43. George W. Bush, 2001-

Republican
VP - Dick Cheney
Major Items:

  • Disputed election, eventually dicided by the Supreme Court
  • "Compassionate Conservatism"
  • War on Terrorism, post-September 11, 2001
    • Attacks terrorist forces in Afghanistan