I Used to Know That_ Stuff You Forgot From School - Caroline Taggart [33]
Lyndon B. Johnson (D, 1963-69): Known as LBJ, he was Kennedy’s vice president. The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, which extended the voting rights of African Americans, were passed during his presidency, but Johnson is mostly remembered for his escalation of the Vietnam War and the subsequent protests.
Richard Nixon (R, 1969-74): the only U.S. president to resign under the threat of impeachment, following the scandal known as Watergate: The Democratic Party’s headquarters at the Watergate Hotel had been robbed during the 1972 elections, and it became apparent that Nixon knew all about it and the subsequent cover-up. Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein led the exposure—the story is told in their book All the President’s Men, and a film based on the book was made.
Gerald Ford (R, 1974-77): the only president not to have been elected, even as vice president: Nixon appointed him after the elected vice president, Spiro Agnew, resigned over a tax scandal. Ford granted Nixon a presidential pardon for his role in Watergate.
Jimmy Carter (D, 1977-81): the peanut farmer from Georgia who brought social reform at home and was instrumental in arranging a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt. He will be most remembered for the chaos surrounding the taking of U.S. hostages in the American embassy in Iran. Carter won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002 for his international peacekeeping efforts, work in human rights, and economic development.
Ronald Reagan (R, 1981-89): former Hollywood film star and long-term governor of California before becoming president. Introduced the anti-Russian Strategic Defense Initiative (known as Star Wars) but later reached an arms-reduction agreement with the USSR. Reagan ordered military action in Granada, an island north of Venezuela. His administration is also remembered for the Iran-Contra affair. In 1981 there was an unsuccessful assassination attempt against him that provoked his remark, “Honey, I forgot to duck.”
George H. W. Bush (R, 1989-93): a former West Texas oil executive before becoming president, his political posts included director of the Central Intelligence Agency and vice president in Ronald Reagan’s administration. He took the world into the first Gulf War and ordered military action in Panama, and was in office when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed. His popularity at home declined when he broke a campaign promise to lower taxes. Bush is the father of the forty-third president George W. Bush and Jeb Bush, former governor of Florida.
Bill Clinton (D, 1993-2001): young, charismatic, Clinton spent a lot of time in the headlines because of his alleged affair with a White House intern. Married to Hillary, who ran, unsuccessfully, for the 2008 democratic presidential nomination.
George W. Bush (R, 2001-2009): a former partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team and governor of Texas, Bush was elected president in 2000, receiving a majority of the electoral votes, but narrowly losing the popular vote. In his first term he enacted “No Child Left Behind,” a measure later signed into law that aimed to close the gap between rich and poor student performance. After the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, he initiated a global war on terrorism and launched attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Canadian Prime Ministers
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau once said: “Living next to the Americans is like sleeping next to an elephant—no matter how friendly and even-tempered the elephant, one is affected by every twitch!” It takes a certain kind of character to cope with such sleeping arrangements, as well as the challenges that come with running the second largest (in area) country in the world. Here are the top politicians