Presidents Day offers all Americans an opportunity to reflect on previous presidents—both on their contributions to the country and on the challenges and controversies faced by their administrations. We hope these lessons will prove useful in this endeavor.
George Washington
What Made George Washington a Great Leader? (1,1:84)
The Whiskey Rebellion and the New American Republic (23:3:07)
John Adams
The Alien and Sedition Acts: Defining American Freedom
Thomas Jefferson
The United States and the Barbary Pirates
Conspiracy Theories: Attacks on Jefferson Set the Pattern
Andrew Jackson
Jackson and Indian Removal Policy
James K. Polk
President Polk and the Taking of the West
Abraham Lincoln
Slavery, Civil War, & Democracy: What Did Lincoln Believe?
Lincoln and the "Writ of Liberty"
Andrew Johnson
Ulysses S. Grant
A Hero Betrayed: The Presidency of U.S. Grant
Theodore Roosevelt
Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal
Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (24:1:08)
Woodrow Wilson
The Palmer "Red Raids"
Woodrow Wilson's Quest to Change the World
Franklin D. Roosevelt
How Welfare Began in the United States
FDR Tries to "Pack" the Supreme Court
FDR and the Banks
Harry S. Truman
Choices: Truman, Hirohito, and the Atomic Bomb
The Marshall Plan for Rebuilding Western Europe
Seizure! Truman Takes the Steel Mills
Truman, MacArthur, and the Korean War
Harry Truman and the Election of 1948
Lyndon B. Johnson
"Let Us Reason Together": Lyndon Johnson
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
Jimmy Carter
The Election of 1980Ronald Reagan
Barack Obama
Lessons on the Historic Election of Barack ObamaThe U.S. Supreme Court's Decision on the Affordable Care Act
The Iran Nuclear Deal and Its Critics
Related Lessons
The Troubled Elections of 1796 and 1800The Election of 1912
Turning Points in Presidential Campaign Advertising
