U.S. Presidents:

(“Decades of Change” & “End of Cold War & Contemporary America")

m/od/uspresidents/US_Presidents.htm

Harry Truman- 33rd president

Term of Office: April 12, 1945 - January 20, 1953

Number of Terms Elected: 2 Terms; Succeeded Franklin Roosevelt after his death in 1945 and then

elected to second term

Major Events While in Office:

  • Atomic Bombs Dropped on Hiroshima

and Nagasaki (1945)

  • End of World War II (1945)
  • United Nations Created (1945)
  • Nuremburg Trials (1945-1946)
  • Truman Doctrine (1947)
  • Taft-Hartley Act (1947)
  • Israel Created (1948)
  • Marshall Plan (1948-1952)
  • NATO Treaty (1949)
  • Korean Conflict (1950-1953)
  • Twenty-Second Amendment

Ratified (1951)

  • Hydrogen Bomb Detonated (1952)

Dwight Eisenhower – 34th president

Term of Office: January 20, 1953 - January 20, 1961

Number of Terms Elected: 2 Terms

Major Events While in Office:

  • End of the Korean War (1953)
  • Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
  • Interstate Highway System Created (1956)
  • Eisenhower ordered Federal troops to Little

Rock, Arkansas toenforce integration (1957)

  • Eisenhower Doctrine (1957)

John F Kennedy – 35th president

Term of Office: January 20, 1961 - November 22, 1963

Number of Terms Elected: 1 term; Was assassinated while in office

Major Events While in Office:

  • Peace Corps created (1961)
  • Bay of Pigs (1961)
  • Berlin Wall built (1961)
  • Alan Shepard, Jr. became the first

American in space (1961)

  • Twenty-Third Amendment was ratified

giving the residents of Wash. D.C.

rightto vote in presidential elections (1961)

  • Cuban Missile Crisis (1962)

Lyndon B Johnson – 36th president

Term of Office: November 22, 1963 - January 20, 1969

Major Events While in Office:

  • Vietnam Conflict Continues (1963 - 1969)
  • Civil Rights Act (1964)
  • Twenty-Fourth Amendment ratified

outlawing the poll tax (1964)

  • Medicare and Medicaid (1965)
  • 25th Amendment ratified concerning order

of succession for presidency (1967)

  • Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. assassinated(1968)
  • Robert Kennedy assassinated (1968)

Richard Nixon – 37th president

Term of Office: January 20 , 1969 - August 9, 1974

Number of Terms Elected: 2 Terms; Resigned during second term

because of the Watergate cover-up.

Major Events While in Office:

  • First man to walk on the moon (1969)
  • Environ. Prot, Agency created (1970)
  • 26th Amendment (voting age 18)
  • Break-in at Watergate occurs (1972)
  • SALT Agreement (1972)
  • Nixon visits China (1972)
  • End of the Vietnam War (1973)
  • Vice Pres. Spiro T. Agnew resigns (1973)
  • Nixon resign (1974)

Gerald Ford – 38th president

Death: December 26, 2006

Term of Office: August 9, 1974 - January 20, 1977

Number of Terms Elected: No Terms; Was never elected to be president

or vice-president but instead took office upon

the resignation first of Spiro Agnew and then

of Richard Nixon

Major Events While in Office:

  • Ford grants Nixon an unconditional

pardon (1974)

  • Campaign Reform Law (1974)
  • Communist victory in Southeast Asia

(Vietnam)(1975-76)

  • Helsinki Agreement (1975)

Jimmy Carter – 39th president

Term of Office: January 20, 1977 - January 20, 1981

Number of Terms Elected: 1 Term

Major Events While in Office:

  • Vietnam War era draft evaders

pardoned (1977)

  • Panama Canal Treaty (1977)
  • Camp David Accords (1978)
  • US officially recognizes People's Republic

of China (1979)

  • Three Mile Island incident (1979)
  • Iran Hostage Crisis (1979-81)

Ronald Reagan – 40th president

Term of Office: January 20, 1981 - January 20, 1989

Number of Terms Elected: 2 Terms

Major Events While in Office:

  • Sandra Day O'Connor named first woman

Supreme Court justice(1981)

  • Attempted assassination (1981)
  • Granada invasion (1983)
  • Iran-Contra Scandal (1985-89)
  • Glasnost with the Soviet Union (1985-1991)
  • Stark incident in Gulf War (1987)

George H W Bush – 41st president

Term of Office: January 20, 1989 - January 20, 1993

Number of Terms Elected: 1 Term

Major Events While in Office:

  • Invasion of Panama (1989)
  • Savings and Loan bail out (1989)
  • Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska (1989)
  • Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)
  • Break up of the Soviet Union (1991)
  • Persian Gulf War (1990-91)

Bill Clinton – 42 president

Term of Office: January 20, 1993 - January 20, 2001

Number of Terms Elected: 2 Terms

Major Events While in Office:

  • NAFTA (1993)
  • World Trade Center Terrorist

Bombing (1993)

  • Oklahoma City federal building Terrorist

bombing (1995)

  • War in former Yugoslavia (1999)
  • Impeachment (1999)

George W Bush

Term of Office: January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009

Number of Terms Elected: 2 Terms

Major Events While in Office:

  • Contested Election (2000)
  • Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center in

New York City (September 11, 2001)

  • War in Afghanistan (2001)
  • War in Iraq (2003)
  • No Child Left Behind Act
  • Patriot Act
  • Economic Crisis (2008)
  • Hurricane Katrina (2005)