Since 1789, 45 different men have served as President of the United States, and the average age of these men when taking office for the first time was approximately 57 years. Two men, Grover Cleveland and Donald Trump, were elected to two non-consecutive terms, and Donald Trump's victory in 2024 made him the oldest man ever elected as president, where he will be 78 years and seven months old when taking office again. Record holders The oldest president to take office for the first time was Joe Biden in 2021, at 78 years and two months - around five months younger than Donald Trump when he assumes office in 2025. The youngest presidents to take office were Theodore Roosevelt in 1901 (42 years and 322 days), who assumed office following the assassination of William McKinley, and the youngest elected president was John F Kennedy in 1961 (43 years and 236 days). Historically, there seems to be little correlation between age and electability, and the past five presidents have included the two oldest to ever take office, and two of the youngest. Requirements to become president The United States Constitution states that both the President and Vice President must be at least 35 years old when taking office, and must have lived in the United States for at least 14 years of their life. Such restrictions are also in place for members of the U.S. Congress, although the age and residency barriers are lower. Additionally, for the roles of President and Vice President, there is a "natural-born-citizen" clause that was traditionally interpreted to mean candidates must have been born in the U.S. (or were citizens when the Constitution was adopted). However, the clause's ambiguity has led to something of a reinterpretation in the past decades, with most now interpreting it as also applying to those eligible for birthright citizenship, as some recent candidates were born overseas.

Since 1789, the United States has had 45 different men serve as president, of which five are still alive today. At 78 years and two months, Joe Biden became the oldest man to ascend to the presidency for the first time in 2021, however Donald Trump was older when he re-entered the White House, at 78 years and seven months. Eight presidents have died while in office, including four who were assassinated by gunshot, and four who died of natural causes. The president who died at the youngest age was John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated at 46 years old in Texas in 1963; Kennedy was also the youngest man ever elected to the office of president. The longest living president in history is Jimmy Carter, who celebrated his 100th birthday in just before his death in 2024. The youngest currently-living president is Barack Obama, who turned 63 in August 2024. Coincidentally, presidents Clinton, Bush Jr., and Trump were all born within 66 days of one another, between June and August 1946. George Washington The U.S.' first president, George Washington, died after developing a severe inflammation of the throat, which modern scholars suspect to have been epiglottitis. However, many suspect that it was the treatments used to treat this illness that ultimately led to his death. After spending a prolonged period in cold and wet weather, Washington fell ill and ordered his doctor to let one pint of blood from his body. As his condition deteriorated, his doctors removed a further four pints in an attempt to cure him (the average human has between eight and twelve pints of blood in their body). Washington passed away within two days of his first symptoms showing, leading many to believe that this was due to medical malpractice and not due to the inflammation in his throat. Bloodletting was one of the most common and accepted medical practices from ancient Egyptian and Greek times until the nineteenth century, when doctors began to realize how ineffective it was; today, it is only used to treat extremely rare conditions, and its general practice is heavily discouraged. Zachary Taylor Another rare and disputed cause of death for a U.S. president was that of Zachary Taylor, who died sixteen months into his first term in office. Taylor had been celebrating the Fourth of July in the nation's capital in 1850, where he began to experience stomach cramps after eating copious amounts of cherries, other fruits, and iced milk. As his condition worsened, he drank a large amount of water in an attempt to alleviate his symptoms, but to no avail. Taylor died of gastroenteritis five days later, after being treated with a heavy dose of drugs and bloodletting. The most commonly accepted theories for his illness are that the ice used in the milk and the water consumed afterwards were contaminated with cholera, and that this was further exacerbated by the large amounts of acid in his system from eating so much fruit. There are some suggestions that recovery was feasible, but the actions of his doctors had made this impossible. Additionally, there have been conspiracy theories suggesting that Taylor was poisoned by pro-slavery secessionists from the Southern States, although there appears to be no evidence to back this up.

Of the forty* men who have been elected to the office of U.S. president, the average weight of U.S. presidents has been approximately 189lbs (86kg). The weight range has been between 122lbs (55kg) and 332lbs (151kg), meaning that the heaviest president, William Howard Taft, was almost three times as heavy as the lightest president, James Madison (who was also the shortest president). Although Taft weighed over 300lbs during his presidency in 1909, he did implement a fitness and dietary regimen in the 1920s, that helped him lose almost 100lbs (45kg) before his death due to cardiovascular disease in 1930. Increase over time The tallest ever president, Abraham Lincoln (who was 6'4"), actually weighed less than the presidential average, and also less than the average adult male in the U.S. in 2018. It is important to note that the average weight of U.S. males has gradually increased in the past two decades, with some studies suggesting that it may have even increased by 15lbs (7kg) since the 1980s. The presidential averages have also increased over time, as the first ten elected presidents had an average weight of 171lbs (78kg), while the average weight of the ten most recent is 194lbs (88kg). Recent presidents In recent years, the heaviest president has been Donald Trump, who weighed 237lbs (108kg) during his first term in office; however medical reports published in June 2020 show that he gained 7lbs (3kg) during this term. There was also controversy in 2018, when it appeared that Trump's official height had been increased from 6'2" to 6'3", which many speculated was done to prevent him from being categorized as "obese" (according to his BMI). In the past half century, George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton were the only other presidents to have weighed more than the presidential average, although both men were also 6'2" (188cm) tall. President Joe Biden weighs below the presidential average, at 177lbs (81kg).

45 men have served as the President of the United States. Of these 45 men, 31 have had a military background, with ranks ranging from a militia private to five-star generals. There is some correlation between the ages of the presidents and major wars in U.S. history; explaining why none of those in office between 1909 and 1945 had any military background, and why six of the ten veteran presidents since then served in the National Guard or Naval Reserve. Three US presidents have held the highest position in the U.S. military, they were; George Washington, Commander in Chief of the Continental Army during the War of Independence; Ulysses S. Grant, Commanding General of the US Army during the American Civil War; and Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe in the Second World War. Popular professions In terms of non-military roles, the most common profession for U.S. presidents before taking office was that of a lawyer. 27 U.S. presidents studied and practiced law before entering the world of politics, while Harry S. Truman met all the criteria to become a lawyer, before political and personal circumstances prevented this (although he was posthumously awarded an honorary law license in 1996). Joe Biden is the most recent U.S. president to have held this job; however, the profession was most common in earlier years, as 22 of the first 32 presidents had been lawyers. Eight presidents had also worked in the education sector, with four schoolteachers, three college professors and one university dean being elected to office, and a number went on to teach or serve on university boards after their time in office. More uncommon jobs for U.S. presidents include Hollywood actor (Ronald Reagan), inventor (Thomas Jefferson), peanut farmer (Jimmy Carter) and reality TV host (Donald Trump). Donald Trump was the only U.S. President without any military or political background before assuming office. Political roles A total of 15 vice presidents have ascended to the presidency; eight were due to the death of their respective president, six were elected for their first term, and Gerald R. Ford assumed the presidency following the resignation of Richard Nixon. Of the nine men who assumed the presidency following a death or resignation, five were re-elected to serve a full term. Thomas Jefferson and Richard Nixon are the only vice presidents to have won two presidential elections, and Jefferson is the only one to have completed both full terms. The most common political background of a U.S. president is that of a Congressman in the House of Representatives, with 18 presidents having served in this role, while 17 also served in the U.S. Congress as Senators. Additionally, 17 U.S. presidents had served as state governors, and William Howard Taft was the Governor-General of the Philippines from 1901 to 1903, when it was a U.S. territory. Six U.S. Presidents had previously served as Secretaries of State, while Taft and Grant had served as Secretaries of War, and Herbert Hoover had been the Secretary of Commerce.

Of the 44 men who have served as President of the United States, eight died while in office, while 31 passed away after their term had ended. Five presidents, including incumbent President Donald Trump, are still alive today. The most common state in which U.S. presidents have died was New York, which has seen the deaths of nine U.S. presidents. A total of fourteen presidents have passed away in the same state in which they were born, which includes all four who passed away in Virginia, but none of those who did so in Washington D.C. Although seven presidents were born in Ohio, Rutherford B. Hayes is the only to have passed away in this state. The most recent presidential death occurred in November 2018, when George H. W. Bush passed away in his family home in Houston, Texas. At 94 years old, Bush Sr. had been the oldest living president at the time of his death; however that title has since passed to Jimmy Carter, who will turn 96 years old in October 2020. John F. Kennedy was the president who died at the youngest age, when he was assassinated at 46 years old; while James K. Polk was the youngest president to die of natural causes, at 53 years of age.

The average height of the 45 men who have served as the President of the United States is approximately 180cm (5'11"); this is roughly five centimeters (two inches) taller than the average U.S. male in 2020. Abraham Lincoln has the distinction of being the tallest U.S. president in history, at 193cm (6'4"), while James Madison was the shortest (and lightest) U.S. president at 163cm (5'4"). US presidents are getting taller Of the ten most recent presidents, only Jimmy Carter has been shorter than the presidential average, while none of the presidents who have served since the beginning of the twentieth century have been shorter than the national average. Since Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, George W. Bush and Joe Biden are the only U.S. president to have been shorter than six feet tall; by just half an inch. Trump height controversy Former President Donald Trump made headlines in 2018, when his official height increased from 6'2" (the height from all previously-existing records, including his 2012 drivers license) to 6'3"*. Many in the media speculated that this was to prevent him from being classified as obese according to his body mass index. A number of photos also circulated on social media showing Trump next to (and visibly shorter than) a number of athletes who are officially 6'3", while photos of him standing next to Barack Obama were used to show that he may be closer to his predecessor's height, at 6'1". Nonetheless, Trump's medical report from June 3. 2020, shows that his official height remained at 6'3".

Since 1964, voter turnout rates in U.S. presidential elections have generally fluctuated across all age groups, falling to a national low in 1996, before rising again in the past two decades. Since 1988, there has been a direct correlation with voter participation and age, as people become more likely to vote as they get older. Participation among eligible voters under the age of 25 is the lowest of all age groups, and in the 1996 and 2000 elections, fewer than one third of eligible voters under the age of 25 participated, compared with more than two thirds of voters over 65 years.

July 2024 saw an incredibly close assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump while he was on the campaign trail for the 2024 presidential election. While speaking to his audience, a bullet whizzed past Trump's head, nicking him on the ear and drawing blood in the process, before the Secret Service escorted him to safety. One spectator was killed while shielding family members from the gunfire, and two more were shot but survived, before the perpetrator was shot and killed by security services. Throughout U.S. history, there have been numerous plots and attempts to assassinate U.S. presidents. The first known case was a failed attempt on Andrew Jackson's life in 1835, where both the assassin's guns misfired due to moisture in the air and Jackson then beat the culprit into submission with his cane. More recent attempts include separate, high-profile cases in October 2018, where sixteen bombs were sent via mail to prominent Democrats (including presidents Obama and Clinton), Trump critics, and news outlets, while another culprit sent letters laced with ricin to President Trump and senior U.S. military figures. Throughout history, the majority of these plots have been uncovered or prevented, however several have come close to achieving their aims and four have resulted in the successful assassination of a sitting president. Successful attempts The first successful assassination occurred in 1865, when Confederate sympathizers and spies plotted to kill the three highest-ranking figures in the Union, in an effort to re-ignite the American Civil War. Of the three targets, only Lincoln was assassinated after being shot in the head by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died within 12 hours of being shot, which was much sooner than the second presidential assassination, where James Garfield took almost four months to eventually die from his wounds after being shot in a train station in 1881. The third U.S. president to be assassinated was William McKinley, who was shot twice while meeting members of the public just six months into his second term. The attempt was not immediately fatal and McKinley was even able to dissuade bystanders from killing his attacker, however, one of the bullets was never found and McKinley passed away one week after the attack. The most recent U.S. president to have been assassinated was John F. Kennedy, who was shot by former marine and defector to the Soviet Union, Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald shot Kennedy from the sixth floor of a nearby warehouse during a public motorcade in Dallas, Texas in 1963, and Kennedy died almost immediately. Although official investigations, forensic tests and eyewitness accounts corroborate the official story that Oswald acted alone, a high number of conspiracy theories surround the event, and a large share of the U.S. population believes that the assassination is part of a larger plot or cover-up, orchestrated by either the CIA, mafia, or foreign entities (among other theories). Close calls While on the 1912 campaign trail, former president Theodore Roosevelt was shot in the chest before giving a speech. Roosevelt knew that the injury was not fatal, and proceeded to deliver an 84 minute speech before seeking medical attention. In 1981, a gunman shot six bullets at Ronald Reagan as he was meeting a crowd outside a Washington hotel, injuring the president and three others in the attack. One bullet had ricocheted off the side of a car, punctured the president's lung, and caused severe internal bleeding. The president almost died en route to the hospital, but doctors were able to stabilize him and remove the bullet; Reagan returned to the White House less than two weeks later. Another close call was where a gunman fired shots at President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt's car in 1933, missing the President but killing the Mayor of Chicago in the attack. Coincidentally, the only female culprits in these attempts both tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford, in two unrelated attacks in California in September, 1975. The first (who was a member of the Manson Family) was stopped before she could get a shot off at the president, while the second was restrained after shooting twice and injuring one bystander -Ford was unharmed in both attacks. Another near miss was an unsuccessful attempt on Abraham Lincoln's life nine months before his successful assassination; the bullet went through his distinctive, stovepipe hat as he was riding to his summer cottage one evening. The only attempt included here that did not involve a firearm and did not take place in the United States was when a grenade was thrown on stage in Tbilisi, Georgia, as George W. Bush was making a speech there in 2005. Although the pin had been removed, the handkerchief used to conceal the grenade was wrapped too tightly around it for the lever for it to detach; nobody was injured in this attempt; however, the culprit did kill one agent as he was being arrested two month...

According to an October 2024 survey, young Americans were much more likely to vote for Kamala Harris in the November 2024 presidential elections. Of those between the ages of 18 and 29, 60 percent said they were planning on voting for Harris, compared to 33 percent who said they planned on voting for Trump. In contrast, Trump was much more popular among those between 45 and 64 years old.

According to exit polling in ten key states of the 2024 presidential election in the United States, Donald Trump received the most support from men between the ages of ** and **. In comparison, ** percent of women between the ages of ** and ** reported voting for Kamala Harris.

In the 1824 U.S presidential election, which was the first where a popular vote was used to determine the overall winner, approximately three percent of the U.S. population voted in the election, while only one percent actually voted for the winner. Over the following decades, restrictions that prevented non-property owning males from voting were gradually repealed, and almost all white men over the age of 21 could vote by the 1856 election. The next major development was the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution following the American Civil War, which granted suffrage to all male citizens of voting age, regardless of race. Turnout then grew to almost twenty percent at the turn of the century, however Jim Crow laws played a large part in keeping these numbers lower than they potentially could have been, by disenfranchising black communities in the south and undoing much of the progress made during the Reconstruction Era. Extension of voting rights Female suffrage, granted to women in 1920, was responsible for the largest participation increase between any two elections in U.S. history. Between the 1916 and 1920 elections, overall turnout increased by almost seven percent, and it continued to grow to 38 percent by the 1940 election; largely due to the growth in female participation over time. Following a slight reduction during the Second World War and 1948 elections, turnout remained at between 36 and forty percent from the 1950s until the 1990s. Between these decades, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Twenty-Sixth Amendment in 1971 respectively re-enfranchised many black voters in the south and reduced the voting age in all states from 21 to 18 years old. Participation among female voters has also exceeded male participation in all elections since 1980. Recent trends The 1992 election was the first where more than forty percent of the total population cast ballots, and turnout has been above forty percent in all presidential elections since 2004. Along with the extension of voting rights, the largest impact on voter turnout has been the increase in life expectancy throughout the centuries, almost doubling in the past 150 years. As the overall average age has risen, so too has the share of the total population who are eligible to vote, and older voters have had the highest turnout rates since the 1980s. Another factor is increased political involvement among ethnic minorities; while white voters have traditionally had the highest turnout rates in presidential elections, black voters turnout has exceeded the national average since 2008. Asian and Hispanic voter turnouts have also increased in the past twenty years, with the growing Hispanic vote in southern and border states expected to cause a major shift in U.S. politics in the coming decades.

In terms of the most popular presidents, in the 1940 election, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to have been elected by more than one fifth of the total population. Three presidents were elected by more than 22 percent of the total population, respectively Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, Richard Nixon in 1972 and Barack Obama in 2008, while Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984 saw him become the only president in U.S. history to win with the support of more than 23 percent of the total population. While the vote count for the 2020 election is still to be finalized, President-elect Joe Biden has already received 81.28 million votes as of December 02, which would also translate to over 24.5 percent of the total population, and will likely near 25 percent by the end of the counting process.

Every four years in the United States, the electoral college system is used to determine the winner of the presidential election. In this system, each state has a fixed number of electors based on their population size, and (generally speaking) these electors then vote for their candidate with the most popular votes within their state or district. Since 1964, there have been 538 electoral votes available for presidential candidates, who need a minimum of 270 votes to win the election. Because of this system, candidates do not have to win over fifty percent of the popular votes across the country, but just win in enough states to receive a total of 270 electoral college votes. Popular results From 1789 until 1820, there was no popular vote, and the President was then chosen only by the electors from each state. George Washington was unanimously voted for by the electorate, receiving one hundred percent of the votes in both elections. From 1824, a popular vote has been conducted among American citizens (with varying levels of access for women, Blacks, and poor voters), to help electors in each state decide who to vote for (although the 1824 winner was chosen by the House of Representatives, as no candidate received over fifty percent of electoral votes). Since 1924, the difference in the share of both votes has varied, with several candidates receiving over 90 percent of the electoral votes while only receiving between fifty and sixty percent of the popular vote. The highest difference was for Ronald Reagan in 1980, where he received just 50.4 percent of the popular vote, but 90.9 percent of the electoral votes. Unpopular winners Since 1824, there have been 51 elections, and in 19 of these the winner did not receive over fifty percent of the popular vote. In the majority of these cases, the winner did receive a plurality of the votes, however there have been five instances where the winner of the electoral college vote lost the popular vote to another candidate. The most recent examples of this were in 2000, when George W. Bush received roughly half a million fewer votes than Al Gore, and in 2016, where Hillary Clinton won approximately three million more votes than Donald Trump.

According to exit polling in the 2020 Presidential Election in the United States, ** percent of surveyed 18 to 29 year old voters reported voting for former Vice President Joe Biden. In the race to become the next president of the United States, ** percent of voters aged 65 and older reported voting for incumbent President Donald Trump.

The most common first name for a U.S. president is James, followed by John and then William. Six U.S. presidents have been called James, although Jimmy Carter was the only one who did not serve in the nineteenth century. Five presidents have been called John; most recently John Fitzgerald Kennedy, while John is also the middle name of the incumbent President Donald Trump.

Middle names

Middle names were rarely given in the U.S.' early years, however the practice became more common throughout the nineteenth century. Three U.S. presidents actually went by their middle names in their adulthood, namely Stephen Grover Cleveland, Thomas Woodrow Wilson and David Dwight Eisenhower. Several presidents also shared their middle names with other presidents' surnames, including Ronald Wilson Reagan and William Jefferson Clinton. Coincidentally, there were two U.S. presidents who had just the initial "S." as their middle name, these were; Harry S. Truman, whose S represented his grandfathers (Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young); and Ulysses S. Grant, whose S was added to his name through a clerical error (likely due to his mother's maiden name; Simpson) when being enrolled in West Point Military Academy, but the initial stuck and he kept it throughout the rest of his life.

Family ties

Five surnames have been shared by U.S. presidents, and four of these pairs have been related. Adams and Bush are the names of the two father-son pairs (the Adams pair also share their first name; the Bush pair share a first and a middle name), while William Henry Harrison was the grandfather of Benjamin Harrison. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt were fifth cousins, however FDR's marriage to Theodore's niece, Eleanor, made him a nephew-in law (Theodore even gave Eleanor away on her wedding day). James Madison and Zachary Taylor were also second cousins. Multiple other presidents are distant cousins from one another, often several times removed (George W. Bush and Barack Obama are technically tenth cousins, twice removed), and a number of presidents have become related by marriage. The only presidents to share a surname and not be related are Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson.

During the weeks leading up to the presidential election, early voting began in almost all states, with over ** million ballots being cast nationally as of Election Day. Although ** percent of mail-in and early in-person votes were cast by voters aged 65 or older, ** percent of those aged 18 to 29 years old voted early.

According to a November 2023 survey, motivation levels among 18 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 to vote in the 2024 presidential election has lessened compared to past elections, compared to only eight percent of voters between 35 and 49 years old.

The 45 men who have served as the President of the United States (officially there have been 46 as Grover Cleveland is counted twice) have fathered, adopted or allegedly fathered at least 190 children. Of these 190, 169 were conceived naturally, eleven were adopted and there are ten reasonable cases of alleged paternity (possibly more). Today, there are 34 living presidential children; the oldest of which is Lynda Bird Johnson Robb, daughter of Lyndon B. and Lady Bird Johnson; the youngest is Barron Trump, son of Donald and Melania Trump. John Tyler is the president who fathered the most children, having fifteen children over two marriages (and allegedly fathering more with slaves), while his successor, James K. Polk, remains the only U.S. president never to have fathered or adopted any known children. Coincidentally, as of November 2020, the U.S.' tenth president, John Tyler, has two grandsons who are still alive today, despite the fact that he was born in 1790.

The First Family

The president, their children and spouse are collectively known as the First Family of the United States; the current first family is made up of President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, as well as their children, Hunter and Ashley. Two of President Biden's children died before he was elected to office; his son Beau died of cancer in 2015, while his one year old daughter Naomi was killed in a car accident in 1972, along with Biden's wife, Neilia (who was also Beau and Hunter's mother). Two presidents' sons have gone on to assume the presidency themselves; these were John Quincy Adams and George W. Bush respectively, while one presidential grandson, Benjamin Harrison, later became president.

Alleged children

Three U.S. presidents have allegedly fathered illegitimate children with slaves. The most well-known and substantial of these allegations relates to Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemings; who was also the half-sister of Jefferson's wife Martha (with whom he had already fathered six children). Following Martha's passing in 1782, its is believed that the future-president would then go on to have a relationship with Hemings that spanned four decades and saw the birth of as many as eight children between 1790 and 1808. Hemings, thought to have been 14 years old at the beginning of the relationship (Jefferson was 44), and her children remained enslaved to Jefferson until his death in 1826. DNA tests conducted in recent years have confirmed a genetic connection between the Hemings and Jefferson families, and the majority of historians accept that Thomas Jefferson was the father of at least six of Hemings' children. Less substantial claims have also been levelled at John Tyler, with political opponents claiming that he fathered several children with slaves in the years following his first wife's death; although these claims have been widely disregarded by historians, with little investigation into their validity. It is alleged that William Henry Harrison also fathered at least six children with one of his slaves, Dilsia, however these claims are anecdotal and have been disregarded or ignored by historians. In spite of this, to this day, there are some African-American families in the U.S. who claim to be the descendants of both Harrison and Tyler.

It is generally accepted that two other presidents, Grover Cleveland and Warren G. Harding, fathered children through extramarital affairs. It is likely that Grover Cleveland had fathered a child out of wedlock in 1874; even paying child support to the mother, acknowledging that he could have been the father. When the child's mother accused Cleveland of rape, he had her institutionalized to discredit these accusations, and the child was taken away and raised by Cleveland's friends. The issue came to light nationally during the 1884 election campaign, but Cleveland still emerged victorious. In 1927, four years after his death in office, it came to light that Warren G. Harding had fathered a child out of wedlock a year before winning the 1920 election. The child was conceived during one of his two long-term, extramarital affairs, and Harding did pay the mother child support, although he kept the affair and child a secret. Harding died before the child's fourth birthday, his family dismissed these claims as rumors, claiming that he was infertile; however, DNA tests confirmed that the child was his in 2015. While there have been numerous accusations of presidents' infidelity in the past century, particularly relating to John F. Kennedy and Donald Trump; Trump is the only president since Harding to have had a child out of wedlock (although the couple did get married two months after the birth of their daughter, Tiffany).

Of the first eighteen presidents of the United States, twelve owned slaves throughout their lifetime, and eight of these were slave owners while occupying the office of president. Of the U.S.' first twelve presidents, the only two never to own slaves were John Adams, and his son John Quincy Adams; the first of which famously said that the American Revolution would not be complete until all slaves were freed. George Washington, leader of the revolution and the first President of the United States, owned many slaves throughout his lifetime, with 123* at the time of his death. Historians believe that Washington's treatment of his slaves was typical of slaveowners in Virginia at the time, however he did develop moral issues with the institution of slavery following the revolution. Washington never publicly expressed his growing opposition to slavery, although he did stipulate in his will that all his slaves were to be freed following the death of his wife, and he made financial provisions for their care that lasted until the 1830s.

Jefferson controversies

In recent years, the legacy of Thomas Jefferson has come under the most scrutiny in relation to this matter; the man who penned the words "all men are created equal" is estimated to have owned at least 600 slaves throughout the course of his lifetime. Before becoming president, Jefferson argued for restrictions on the slave trade, and against its expansion into new US territories; however he avoided the subject during his presidency as the topic grew in divisiveness and he believed that emancipation would not be achieved during his lifetime. It is also widely accepted that Jefferson had an affair and likely fathered children with one of his slaves, Sally Hemmings, who is also believed to be the half-sister of Jefferson's first wife. DNA tests conducted in the 1990s confirmed a genetic link between the descendants of the Jefferson and Hemings families, but could not confirm whether the link was Jefferson himself or a relative; most historians however, believe that Jefferson fathered at least one of Sally Hemings' children, and possibly six or eight of them (all of whom were kept as Jefferson's slaves).

Other Presidents

Of the other presidents who appear on this list, all are regarded differently for their attitudes towards slavery, and their impact on the eventual abolition of slavery and the emancipation of slaves. Madison and Monroe grew up in slave-owning families, and owned a number of slaves while serving in the White House; interestingly, Monrovia, the capital city of Liberia (the country was founded by the American Colonization Society as an African settlement for freed slaves), was named in Monroe's honor as he was a prominent advocate of the ACS. Andrew Jackson, who earned a large portion of his private wealth via the slave trade, introduced legislation that protected slave owners and slavery in the southern states; he owned around 200 slaves at the time of his death, and many more throughout his lifetime. John Tyler publicly decried slavery and claimed that it was evil, although he owned slaves as he said this and his political actions in his later life actually supported the institution of slavery (Tyler is notably the only U.S. president whose death was not mourned officially as he was involved in the government of the Confederacy at the time).

Perhaps the most surprising names on this list are Andrew Johnson and Ulysses S Grant, the vice president and leader of the United States Army during the latter stages of the American Civil War. Neither men owned slaves while in office, although Johnson, the man who oversaw the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, is reported to have owned eight slaves before entering the world of politics. Ulysses S. Grant, who managed his wife's family's farm in the 1850s, inherited one slave in 1854 who he then freed two years later. Grant's armies would eventually free countless slaves in the 1860s, as he led the Union to victory against the Confederacy and brought an end to slavery in the United States.

Since 1824, when the popular vote was first used to determine the overall winner in U.S. presidential elections, the share of the population who participate in these elections has gradually increased. Despite this increase, participation has never reached half of the total population; partly due to the share of the population below the voting age of eighteen, but also as many potential voters above the age of eighteen do not take part, or are ineligible to vote. For example, in the 2016 election, approximately twenty million U.S. adults were ineligible to vote, while over 94 million simply did not participate; in this election, Donald Trump won the electoral college with 63 million votes, which means that 19.4 percent of the total U.S. population (or 27.3 percent of eligible voters) voted for the winning candidate. Development throughout history While the figures for the 2016 election may appear low, over 42 percent of the total population participated in this election, which was the third highest participation rate ever recorded (after the 2008 and 2020 elections). In the first election decided by a popular vote in 1824, only 350 thousand votes were cast from a total population of 10.6 million, although this increased to over four million votes by the 1856 election, as restrictions that applied to non-property holding white males were gradually lifted. Participation levels then dropped during the Civil War and Reconstruction era, as those who lived in Confederate states could not vote in 1864, and many white southerners were restricted or discouraged in the following election. Although universal suffrage was granted to black males in the wake of the Civil War, the majority of black Americans lived in the southern states, where lawmakers introduced Jim Crow laws in the late 1800s to suppress and disenfranchise the black vote, as well as poor white voters. The next major milestone was the introduction of women's suffrage in 1920, which saw voter participation increase by seven million votes (or seven percent) between the 1916 and 1920 elections. Between the 1910s and 1970s, the Great Migration saw many black Americans move away from the south to northern and western states, where they faced fewer obstacles when voting and greater economic mobility. This period of black migration began to decline in the 1960s and 1970s, during which time many Jim Crow laws were repealed in the south, through legislation such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Female participation also grew gradually, and has exceeded male voting participation in all elections since the 1980s. The minimum voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in all states in 1971, although this seemingly had a minimal impact on the short-term trajectory of voter participation. Recent elections The 1992 election was the first in which more than one hundred million votes were cast, which was almost 41 percent of the total population. All elections since 2004 have also had more than one hundred million votes cast, which has again been more than forty percent of the total population. Another key factor in the increase in voter participation is the fact that people are living longer than ever before, and that those aged 65 and over have had the highest turnout levels since 1992. While some figures may be subject to change, the 2020 election set new records for voter turnout. Despite the global coronavirus pandemic, which many thought could cause the lowest turnout in decades, a record number of voters cast their ballots early or by mail, setting a new record of votes just shy of 160 million. In the 2020 election, Joe Biden and Donald Trump received 81.3 million and 74.2 million votes respectively, both beating Barack Obama's previous record of 69.3 million ballots in 2008. 2024 then saw a decline in the number of votes cast, with over three million fewer votes than in 2020.

Throughout United States history, voter turnout among the voting eligible population has varied, ranging from below twelve percent in uncontested elections, to 83 percent in the 1876 election. In early years, turnout in presidential elections was relatively low, as the popular vote was not used in every state to decide who electors would vote for. When this was changed in the 1824 election, turnout increased dramatically, and generally fluctuated between seventy and eighty percent during the second half of the nineteenth century. Until the 1840 and 1842 elections, midterm elections also had a higher turnout rate than their corresponding presidential elections, although this trend has been reversed since these years.

Declining turnout in the twentieth century An increase in voting rights, particularly for black males in 1870 and for women in 1920, has meant that the share of the total population who are legally eligible to vote has increased significantly; yet, as the number of people eligible to vote increased, the turnout rate generally decreased. Following enfranchisement, it would take over fifty years before the female voter turnout would reach the same level as males, and over 150 years before black voters would have a similar turnout rate to whites. A large part of this was simply the lack of a voting tradition among these voter bases; however, the Supreme Court and lawmakers across several states (especially in the south) created obstacles for black voters and actively enforced policies and practices that disenfranchised black voter participation. These practices were in place from the end of the Reconstruction era (1876) until the the Voting Rights Act of 1965 legally removed and prohibited many of these obstacles; nonetheless, people of color continue to be disproportionally affected by voting restrictions to this day.

Recent decades In 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the minimum voting age in most states from 21 to 18 years old, which greatly contributed to the six and eight percent reductions in voter turnout in the 1972 and 1974 elections respectively, highlighting a distinct correlation between age and voter participation. Overall turnout remained below sixty percent from the 1970s until the 2004 election, and around forty percent in the corresponding midterms. In recent elections, increased political involvement among younger voters and those from ethnic minority backgrounds has seen these numbers rise, with turnout in the 2018 midterms reaching fifty percent. This was the highest midterm turnout in over one hundred years, leading many at the time to predict that the 2020 election would see one of the largest and most diverse voter turnouts in the past century, although these predictions then reversed with the arival of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, 2020 did prove to have the highest turnout in any presidential election since 1900; largely as a result of mail-in voting, improved access to early voting, and increased activism among grassroots organizations promoting voter registration.