% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  NA/67.0 (1788), NA/63.2 (1792)
Vice President(s): John Adams
Appts. to Supreme Court:  12
Happenings:  Bill of Rights (1791); Whiskey Rebellion (1794); Vermont (1791), Kentucky (1792), Tennessee (1796) admitted.
Quick fact:  Ran unopposed in both elections; the ungarnered electoral votes went to his Veep, John Adams, who was not opposing him. Still wildly popular, he declined to run for a third term, setting a precedent which held until 1940.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  NA/31.1 (four-way race)
Vice President(s): Thomas Jefferson
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3
Happenings:  DC becomes capital, White House president's home (1800).
Quick fact:  Despite the Founders' hopes, political factions developed during Washington's years. In 1796, Federalists favoring strong central government ran the more moderate Adams against States' Rights advocates' Jefferson. Jefferson took second, therefore the VP.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  NA/26.5 (1800) (five-way race), NA/92.0 (1804 -- 12th Amendment takes effect)
Vice President(s): Aaron Burr (1801-5), George Clinton (1805-9)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3
Happenings:  Barbary Wars (1801-5); Louisiana Purchase made (1803); Lewis & Clark expedition (1804-6); Ohio admitted (1803).
Quick fact:  States' Rightist Jefferson's tight 1800 race against Federalist Burr had to be decided by Congress. While Veep, Burr killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. A classic liberal for his time, Jefferson's budget- and tax-slashing presaged later conservatism.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  NA/72.2 (1808), NA/59.0 (1812)
Vice President(s): George Clinton (1809-12), Elbridge Gerry (1813-17)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  War of 1812 -- Washington burned, national anthem written (1814); Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816) admitted; Barbary War (1815).
Quick fact:  Madison was a hero of the constitutional years, being a careful guide and chronicler of the process and prime mover of the Bill of Rights. But he is not viewed as a great or particularly decisive president. Campaigned for starting the War of 1812.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  NA/84.3 (1816), NA/99.6 (1820)
Vice President(s): Daniel D. Tompkins
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  Monroe Doctrine promulgated (1823); Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Maine (1820), Missouri (1821) admitted; First Seminole War (1817-18); Missouri Compromise (1820).
Quick fact:  Last Revolutionary War hero to become president.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  30.9/32.2
Vice President(s): John C. Calhoun
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Quick fact:  Son of the second president, Adams lost both the popular and electoral vote to Andrew Jackson, but lack of a majority in a four-way race threw the decision to the House, which decided for Adams.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  56.0/68.2 (1828), 54.2/76.6 (1832)
Vice President(s): John C. Calhoun (1829-33), Martin Van Buren (1833-37)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  5
Happenings:  Battle of the Alamo and Texas independence (1836); Arkansas (1836), Michigan (1837) admitted; Second Seminole War begins (1835).
Quick fact:  Jackson's 1828 campaign played to personal prejudices, re-establishing the two-party politics of labor vs. wealth. His evolution from Democratic-Republican to straight Democrat in 1832 marked the founding of the current party.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  50.8/57.8
Vice President(s): Richard M. Johnson
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  52.9/79.6
Vice President(s): John Tyler
Appts. to Supreme Court:  0
Quick fact:  Harrison, hero of the Ohio Valley campaigns early in the century, caught a cold on Inauguration Day and died a month later. He was succeeded by his Veep, Tyler. "Tippecanoe, and Tyler too!"

Vice President(s): [None]
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  Second Seminole War ends (1842); Florida admitted (1845).
Quick fact:  Tyler succeeded Harrison upon the latter's death, but was unable to secure a nomination for his own term in 1844. His efforts to annex Texas as a slave state were beaten down.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  49.5/61.8
Vice President(s): George M. Dallas
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  Mexican War begins and ends, annexing our Southwest; Texas (1845), Iowa (1846), Wisconsin (1849) admitted.
Quick fact:  Polk won on a platform of territorial expansion, including the annexation of Texas. Disputes over its boundary led to the Mexican War.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  47.3/56.2
Vice President(s): Millard Fillmore
Appts. to Supreme Court:  0
Quick fact:  A hero of the Mexican War, Taylor died in office in 1850 of "acute indigestion" after polishing off a bowl of cherries. He was succeeded by his Veep, Fillmore.

Vice President(s): [None]
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  California admitted (1850).
Quick fact:  Succeeding Zachary Taylor upon his early death, Fillmore, like Tyler before him, was unable to secure the nomination in 1852. His signing of the Compromise of 1850 delayed the Civil War for a decade.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  50.8/85.8
Vice President(s): William R. D. King
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  45.3/60.4
Vice President(s): John C. Breckenridge
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  The South secedes from the Union (1860-61, during lame-duck period); Kansas admitted (1861).
Quick fact:  The argument over slavery was so hot -- factions in Kansas were in open warfare -- that Buchanan gained the edge by having been out of the country and, therefore, untainted by the ugliness.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  39.8/59.4 (1860), 55.0/91.0 (1864 -- missing the South's electoral votes)
Vice President(s): Hannibal Hamlin (1861-5), Andrew Johnson (1865)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  5
Happenings:  Civil War begins and ends (1861-5); Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and freedom for slaves; West Virginia (1863), Nevada (1864) admitted; assassinated April, 1865.
Quick fact:  Lincoln won a four-way race in 1860 when Democrats split the vote between northern and southern factions. He was the first Republican president, the party having been founded in 1856. His election immediately precipitated Secession.

Vice President(s): [None]
Appts. to Supreme Court:  0
Happenings:  Reconstruction begins in the South; Nebraska admitted (1867); impeachment fails in Senate by one vote (1868).
Quick fact:  Assuming the presidency upon the assassination of Lincoln, Johnson was the first (and, until 1998, only) president to be impeached. Because of the turmoil, he could not secure a nomination for his own term.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  52.7/72.8 (1868), 55.6/81.3 (1872)
Vice President(s): Schuyler Colfax (1869-73), Henry Wilson (1873-77)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  4
Happenings:  Transcontinental railway completed (1869); First National Park (Yellowstone, 1872); Panic of 1873 in financial markets; Colorado admitted (1876); Centennial celebrations (1876).
Quick fact:  Republicans backed Radical Reconstruction in the South, but hypocrisy over negro suffrage split the party into Liberals and Conservatives in 1872. Grant ran with the latter for his second term and, though an honest man, suffered a corrupt administration.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  48.0/50.1
Vice President(s): William A. Wheeler
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  Reconstruction essentially ends.
Quick fact:  Also a Republican, Hayes ran on his integrity and against the corruption of the Grant administration. His opponent, Sam Tilden, ran against the corruption of the Boss Tweed machine in NY. Hayes won by one electoral vote, losing the popular vote.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  48.3/58.0
Vice President(s): Chester A. Arthur
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  Assassinated, died September 1881.
Quick fact:  Garfield ran against the practice of political patronage, and was assassinated the same year by a disappointed patronage-seeker. Tightest race on record, Garfield beating Civil War General Winfield Hancock by 16,000 popular votes, or 0.02%.

Vice President(s): [None]
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Quick fact:  Arthur had been yanked from a mid-level patronage job in New York City to balance Garfield's 1880 ticket, a position he never imagined was in his future. He was unable to secure the nomination for his own term in 1884.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  48.5/54.6
Vice President(s): Thomas A. Hendricks
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Quick fact:  One of the first presidential campaigns to sling mud on personal character, Cleveland, accused of fathering a child out of wedlock, defeated Republican James Blaine, who was charged with accepting railroad bribes in return for favors.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  47.8/58.1
Vice President(s): Levi P. Morton
Appts. to Supreme Court:  4
Happenings:  Dakotas, Montana, Washington (1889), Wyoming, Idaho (1890) admitted; western frontier officially pronounced closed; Indian Wars end.
Quick fact:  President Cleveland campaigned against import tariffs, while Harrison pushed higher wages through selected tariffs. Grandson of the ninth president, Harrison won with fewer popular votes, and led a busy administration.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  46.1/62.4
Vice President(s): Adlai E. Stevenson
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3
Happenings:  Utah admitted (1896).
Quick fact:  Cleveland became the only president to serve split terms after an election which again hinged on the tariff issue. For the first time since the War, a third party candidate, representing discontented populists, won electoral votes.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  51.0/60.6 (1896), 51.7/65.3 (1900)
Vice President(s): Garret A. Hobart (1897-1901), Theodore Roosevelt (1901)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  Spanish-American War begins and ends (1898), U.S. gains territories and Philippine Insurrection. Legations freed in Boxer Rebellion (1900). Assassinated September, 1901.
Quick fact:  Republicans outspent Democrats 12:1 (though McKinley campaigned from his front porch) on a pro-tariff platform. Nonetheless, losing populist Democrat William Jennings Bryan polled more popular votes than any candidate in history.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  56.4/70.6
Vice President(s): Charles W. Fairbanks (1905-09)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3
Happenings:  Oklahoma admitted (1907); "Great White Fleet" projects American stature abroad (1907-9); Ford rolls out its first Model-T (1908).
Quick fact:  Our youngest president assumed the office upon the assassination of McKinley in 1901. Roosevelt was much more populist than his predecessor, stealing the Democrats' thunder in 1904 and forcing them to the right to try to oust him.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  51.6/66.5
Vice President(s): James S. Sherman
Appts. to Supreme Court:  5
Happenings:  Last two contiguous states, Arizona and New Mexico, admitted (1912); RMS Titanic goes down (1912).
Quick fact:  Roosevelt declined a third term and backed Taft, who promised to continue his balanced populist policies. As president, Taft tended to favor capital, irking Roosevelt.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  41.8/81.9 (1912), 49.2/52.2 (1916)
Vice President(s): Thomas R. Marshall
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3
Happenings:  Marines sent to Nicaragua (1913-25); World War I begins and ends (1914-18); Lusitania sunk (1915); U.S. becomes involved in War (1917); Versailles Treaty (1919); great flu epidemic (1918-19); Prohibition begins (1920).
Quick fact:  Unhappy with Taft's swing to capital, Roosevelt ran against him as the Bull Moose candidate, splitting the Republican vote and giving Wilson the win. In 1916, Wilson won on a promise to stay out of WWI.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  60.3/76.1
Vice President(s): Calvin Coolidge
Appts. to Supreme Court:  4
Happenings:  Teapot Dome (oil) scandal breaks (1923); birth of "bathtub gin" and bootlegging. Died in office (1923).
Quick fact:  Voters were running from the progressive internationalism and war of the Wilsonian period, electing lightweight but fun-loving Harding. Though basically honest, he let his friends run rampant in a corrupt administration.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  54.0/71.9
Vice President(s): Charles G. Dawes (1925-9)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  Stock market surges, and flappers flap through the "Roaring Twenties"; bootleg booze, speak-easies and Al Capone reign; Marines return to Nicaragua (1927-33).
Quick fact:  Inheriting his first term from Harding, "Silent Cal" was a quiet, serious, law-and-order type who was fortunate enough to be presiding over boom times. The Dems couldn't organize behind a good challenge issue in 1924.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  58.2/83.6
Vice President(s): Charles Curtis
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3
Happenings:  Stock market crashes (October, 1929), Great Depression begins.
Quick fact:  Like Coolidge, who had declined to run at the peak of his success, Hoover's campaign was bolstered by the booming economy. The Dems ran Al Smith of New York, who had way too much baggage as a machine politician.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  57.4/88.9 (1932), 60.8/98.5 (1936), 54.7/84.6 (1940), 53.4/81.4 (1944)
Vice President(s): John Nance Garner (1933-41), Henry A. Wallace (1941-45), Harry S Truman (1945)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  8
Happenings:  Introduces New Deal (1932-3); Prohibition ends (1933); gold standard abandoned (1933); Social Security Act (1935); World War II begins (1939); Depression fades with onset of war; U.S. enters War after Pearl Harbor (December, 1941).
Quick fact:  The first president to gain a third (and fourth) term. Just as boom times helped Coolidge and Hoover, the Crash of '29 gave Roosevelt his issue in 1932. His New Deal policies, and a promise to stay out of WWII, locked him in.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  49.5/57.1
Vice President(s): Alben W. Barkley
Appts. to Supreme Court:  4
Happenings:  First and only use of atomic bomb (1945); World War II ends (1945); Korean War begins (1950); Cold War begins (late 40's).
Quick fact:  Taking over at Roosevelt's death in April, 1945, Truman not only learned of the Bomb, but had to decide to use it to end WWII. His 1948 victory, when everyone figured to be tired of Democratic rule, was one of the biggest presidential upsets.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  55.1/83.2 (1952), 57.4/86.1 (1956)
Vice President(s): Richard Nixon
Appts. to Supreme Court:  5
Happenings:  Korean War ends (1953); Marines sent to Lebanon (1957); Space Age begins with Sputnik launch (1957); last two states -- Alaska and Hawaii -- admitted (1959).
Quick fact:  In the end, Truman had been (falsely) viewed as "soft on communism". Ike stormed into office promising to sweep out crooks and communists in government, and end the fighting in Korea. He became the most popular president in history.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  49.7/56.4
Vice President(s): Lyndon Baines Johnson
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  First American in space (1961); Cuban missile crisis (1962); military adviser strength in Vietnam raised from 800 to 16,000; assassinated in November, 1963.
Quick fact:  The first president born in the 20th century, and the youngest ever elected. Also the first Catholic to hold the office. Concerns over the truth about his assassination in November, 1963, will never fully die. Won by only 114,673 popular votes.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  61.1/90.3
Vice President(s): Hubert Humphrey
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  Civil Rights Act (1964); Vietnam War begins in earnest with Tonkin Gulf Resolution (1964), troops grow to half million (1965); anti-war violence in U.S. reaches a climax; Medicare founded (1966).
Quick fact:  Assuming the office upon Kennedy's death, LBJ almost immediately broadened the war in Vietnam. Nonetheless his vilification of Goldwater as a warmonger in 1964 was so effective that he won by one of the largest popular margins ever.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  43.4/55.9 (1968), 60.7/96.7 (1972)
Vice President(s): Spiro T. Agnew (1969-73), Gerald R. Ford (1973-74)
Appts. to Supreme Court:  4
Happenings:  First moon landing (1969); Congress establishes OSHA, EPA (1970); Vietnam War ends with pullout (1973); Watergate scandal breaks (1973); first presidential resignation (1974).
Quick fact:  Johnson's lack of popularity at the end of his presidency sank Nixon's opponent, Hubert Humphrey. The usually hawkish Nixon promised to end the war that LBJ had bogged America down in. Independent George Wallace took mostly Nixon votes in '68.

Vice President(s): [None]
Appts. to Supreme Court:  1
Happenings:  Bicentennial celebration (1976)
Quick fact:  Assuming the office upon Nixon's resignation in 1974, Ford pardoned Nixon and thereby doomed his chances to a term of his own. Ford was our only president never elected on a national ticket (he had been appointed as Veep to replace the failed Agnew).

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  50.1/55.3
Vice President(s): Walter F. Mondale
Appts. to Supreme Court:  0
Happenings:  Iranian extremists take U.S. diplomats hostage (1979); military rescue attempt fails miserably (1980); nationwide oil shortage (1979).
Quick fact:  The first deep Southerner elected since Zachary Taylor, Carter successfully ran on his integrity after the shame of Watergate. Though thoroughly honest and morally upright, he did not run a tough enough ship as president.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  50.8/90.9 (1980), 58.8/97.6 (1984)
Vice President(s): George Bush
Appts. to Supreme Court:  3
Happenings:  Iranian hostage crisis ends (1981 -- on Inauguration Day); Grenada rescue mission (1983).
Quick fact:  Reagan ran successfully against the terrible inflation, loose foreign posture and big government of the Carter years. Carter was weakened by a primary fight with Ted Kennedy. Reagan's 1984 run against Walter Mondale was boosted by a recovering economy.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  53.4/79.3
Vice President(s): Dan Quayle
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  Cold War officially ends with the fall of European communism (1989-90); Panama police action (1989-90); Gulf War begins and ends quickly (1991).
Quick fact:  Bush successfully painted opponent Michael Dukakis as a liberal soft on crime. He also benefited from Reagan's popularity and the economic recovery during their joint tenure. He was hurt in 1992 because he reneged on his "no new taxes" pledge.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  43.0/68.8 (1992), 49.2/70.4 (1996)
Vice President(s): Al Gore
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  Somalian mission fails (1992); White House sex scandal breaks (1998); Balkan turmoil leads to bombing (1998); impeachment fails in Senate (1998).
Quick fact:  Clinton's plurality victories were helped by Independent Ross Perot, who garnered 19% and 7% of the vote. The people remained fiercely divided over his scandal-plagued administration. Only the second president to be impeached.

% of Popular/Electoral Vote:  48.4/50.5 (2000), 51.0/53.2 (2004)
Vice President(s): Dick Cheney
Appts. to Supreme Court:  2
Happenings:  Responded to the 9/11/01 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon with a pronouncement of war against international terrorism, eventually chasing it into Iraq. Approvals spiraled with botched war effort.
Quick fact:  Son of the 41st president, won the 2000 electoral vote in a squeaker when the Supreme Court stepped into the post-election legal fray. Opponent VP Al Gore suffered from the bad taste of the Clinton administration.