Presidential powerhouses

When Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in 1932, the United States was in crisis. The Great Depression had left many people unemployed, homeless, and desperate. Roosevelt established a "New Deal," which set the country on a path to recovery. Roosevelt's administration also faced severe threats from overseas, eventually drawing the United States into World War II. In his historically long presidency, Roosevelt lead the country through an international...

When John F. Kennedy became the youngest person ever elected president of the United States in 1961, he stepped to the forefront of an invisible battleground. The Cold War standoff between America and the Soviet Union threatened to lead to nuclear war and worldwide destruction. Kennedy also faced domestic turmoil with the civil rights movement. Despite these challenges, Kennedy worked to bring the country into a "New Frontier." He supported space...

In 1829 Andrew Jackson became the seventh president of the United States, the first who did not come from a wealthy, east coast family. Jackson led an adventurous—some would say notorious—life. More than any president before him, he sought to represent the voters—at this time, only white men—and the common people who, in his view, built and sustained the nation. In addition to supporting slavery, Jackson's policy of forcing American Indians...

Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was a man of contradictions. Jefferson penned the most stirring claim of the Declaration of Independence: "all men are created equal." Yet during his lifetime, Jefferson owned hundreds of enslaved African Americans. An adamant believer in limited government, Jefferson nevertheless acted without constitutional power to buy land from France—the Louisiana Purchase—that doubled the size of...