Harry Truman ascended to the presidency in the wake of Franklin Roosevelt’s death in 1945. Over the next seven years, Truman would be faced with the daunting challenges of transitioning a massive wartime economy back to a peacetime footing in addition to confronting a hostile Congress determined to roll back the programs of FDRs New Deal. 
Overseas, Truman would have to confront the growing threat of communism and deter an expansionist-minded Soviet Union from shattering the hard-won peace established on the European continent. 

Thomas Jefferson’s election as president in 1800 became the first time in American history power was peacefully transferred from one political party to another. Over his  eight years as president, Jefferson would roll-back a majority of Federalist policies and restore the nation to, what he believed, were its limited-government roots. But tensions with France and Great Britain would subsequently lead to a disastrous trade embargo that would leave the nations economy reeling in the final year of Jefferson’s presidency, and set the stage for war with Great Britain just a few years later. 

James Monroe was one of the most qualified men to ever serve as president. His eight years in office marked the beginning of a new, broader American foreign policy within the Western Hemisphere,  and witnessed the transformation of the country from a young republic to a confident, established nation. 

James K. Polk achieved more success in one term as president then most presidents have in two. But after expanding the nations borders all the way to the Pacific Ocean, Polk voluntarily stepped aside, leaving less-qualified men to try and steer the ship-of-state through the turbulent years of the 1850s.  

One of the most controversial figures in American history, Andrew Jackson's rise to fame was unprecedented. Rising from orphaned teenager to military hero, Jackson cultivated the image of a man of the people and used it to catapult him into the presidency in 1828, inaugurating a period that would become known as the Age of Jackson. 

John Adams was elected as America's second president in 1796 and was given the unenviable task of trying to fill the shoes of George Washington. Though Adams was able to achieve a high degree of success in foreign policy, his domestic policies, notably the Alien and Sedition Act, doomed his chances at a second term. 

John F. Kennedy's election sparked hope that a "new frontier" had dawned for the United States. But after navigating the country through multiple foreign crisis, mostly with regards to Cuba, JFK's life, and presidency, was tragically cut short, thrusting the nation into the grips of the tumultuous 1960s. 

George Bush came into office with expectations he would carry on the legacy of the Ronald Reagan. But despite significant foreign policy successes, domestically, economic worries would prove too costly for Bush to overcome. 

Why is Washington, D.C. not a state? And how did the city that became our nations capital come to be?