The President of the United States is the elected head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is indirectly elected to a four-year term by the people through the Electoral College.
Since the office was established in 1789, 44 men have served as president. The first, George Washington, won a unanimous vote of the Electoral College. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms in office, and is counted as the nation's 22nd and 24th presidents; the incumbent, Donald Trump, is therefore the 45th president.
Here below is a cool sketch image collection from Alexander anitzenko that shows the first 23 presidents of the United States.
1. 1st U.S. President George Washington.
George Washington (1732-1799) was a soldier, farmer, and statesman, as well as the first President of the United States under the U.S. Constitution. Since the late 1780s, Washington has been referred to as the "Father of His Country" by compatriots.
Washington was commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and presided over the 1787 Constitutional Convention. As a leading Patriot, Washington was among the nation's Founding Fathers.
2. 2nd U.S. President John Adams.
John Adams (1735-1826) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the first Vice President (1789–1797) and second President of the United States (1797–1801).
Adams was a lawyer, diplomat, political theorist, and a leader of the movement for American independence from Great Britain. He was also a dedicated diarist and correspondent, particularly with his wife and closest advisor, Abigail.
3. 3rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809.
Previously, Jefferson had been elected the second vice president of the United States, serving under John Adams from 1797 to 1801. He was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights motivating American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level.
4. 4th U.S. President James Madison.
James Madison Jr. (1751-1836) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
5. 5th U.S. President James Monroe.
James Monroe (1758-1831) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the fifth President of the United States from 1817 to 1825. Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty, and his presidency ushered in what is known as the Era of Good Feelings.
6. 6th U.S. President John Quincy Adams.
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was an American statesman who served as the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829 at the peak of a political career during which he served in various capacities as diplomat, United States Senator, United States Secretary of State, and U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
Adams was the eldest son of second president John Adams (served 1797–1801) and his wife, Abigail Adams.
7. 7th U.S. President Andrew Jackson.
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837.
Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of Congress. As president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.
8. 8th U.S. President Martin Van Buren.
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) was an American statesman who served as the eighth President of the United States from 1837 to 1841.
A founder of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the ninth Governor of New York, the tenth U.S. Secretary of State and the eighth Vice President of the United States. Van Buren won the 1836 presidential election because of the endorsement of popular outgoing President Andrew Jackson and the organizational strength of the Democratic Party. He lost his 1840 reelection bid to Whig Party nominee William Henry Harrison due in part to the poor economic conditions of the Panic of 1837.
Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an important anti-slavery leader and led the Free Soil ticket in the 1848 presidential election.
9. 9th U.S. President William Henry Harrison.
William Henry Harrison Sr. (1773-1841) was an American military officer, politician, and the ninth President of the United States.
Harrison died of pneumonia thirty-one days into his term, thereby serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. Because he was the first president to die in office, his death sparked a constitutional crisis about succession.
10. 10th U.S. President John Tyler.
John Tyler (1790-1862) was the tenth President of the United States from 1841 to 1845 after briefly being the tenth Vice President (1841); he was elected to the latter office on the 1840 Whig ticket with President William Henry Harrison.
Tyler ascended to the presidency after Harrison's death in April 1841, only a month after the start of the new administration. He was a supporter of states' rights, and as president he adopted nationalist policies only when they did not infringe on the powers of the states. His unexpected rise to the presidency, with the resulting threat to the presidential ambitions of Henry Clay and other politicians, left him estranged from both major political parties.
11. 11th U.S. President James K. Polk.
James Knox Polk (1795-1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). He previously was Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841).
A protégé of Andrew Jackson, he was a member of the Democratic Party and an advocate of Jacksonian democracy. During Polk's presidency, the United States expanded significantly with the annexation of the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the Mexican Cession following the American victory in the Mexican–American War.
12. 12th U.S. President Zachary Taylor.
Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) was the 12th President of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850.
Taylor previously was a career officer in the United States Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union, but he died sixteen months into his term, before making any progress on the status of slavery, which had been inflaming tensions in Congress.
13. 13th U.S. President Millard Fillmore.
Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) was the 13th President of the United States (1850–1853), the last to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House.
A former U.S. Representative from New York, Fillmore was elected the nation's 12th Vice President in 1848, and was elevated to the presidency by the death of Zachary Taylor. He was instrumental in getting the Compromise of 1850 passed, a bargain that led to a brief truce in the battle over slavery. He failed to win the Whig nomination for president in 1852; he gained the endorsement of the nativist Know Nothing Party four years later, and finished third in that election.
14. 14th U.S. President Franklin Pierce.
Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) was the 14th President of the United States (1853–1857), a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. He alienated anti-slavery groups by championing and signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act; yet he failed to stem conflict between North and South, setting the stage for Southern secession and the American Civil War.
15. 15th U.S. President James Buchanan.
James Buchanan Jr. (1791-1868) was an American politician who served as the 15th President of the United States (1857–61), serving immediately prior to the American Civil War.
A member of the Democratic Party, Buchanan was the 17th United States Secretary of State and had served in the Senate and House of Representatives before becoming president.
16. 16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.
Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
17. 17th U.S. President Andrew Johnson.
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.
18. 18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was an American soldier and statesman who served as Commanding General of the Army and the 18th President of the United States, the highest positions in the military and the government of the United States.
A prominent United States Army general during the American Civil War, Grant led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy with the supervision of Abraham Lincoln. As President of the United States (1869–1877) Grant led the Republicans in their efforts to remove the vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery during Reconstruction.
19. 19th U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes.
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893) was the 19th President of the United States from 1877 to 1881, an American congressman, and governor of Ohio.
Hayes was a lawyer and staunch abolitionist who defended runaway slaves in court proceedings. He was seriously wounded fighting in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He assumed the presidency at the end of the Reconstruction Era through the Compromise of 1877.
In office he ended Army support for Republican state governments in the South, promoted civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
20. 20th U.S. President James A. Garfield.
James Abram Garfield (1831-1881) was the 20th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881, until his assassination later that year.
Garfield had served nine terms in the House of Representatives, and had been elected to the Senate before his candidacy for the White House, though he declined the Senate seat once he was elected president. He is the only sitting House member to be elected president.
21. 21st U.S. President Chester A. Arthur.
Chester Alan Arthur (1829-1886) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 21st President of the United States from 1881 to 1885; he succeeded James A. Garfield upon the latter's assassination.
At the outset, Arthur struggled to overcome a slightly negative reputation, which stemmed from his early career in politics as part of New York's Republican political machine. He succeeded by embracing the cause of civil service reform. His advocacy for, and subsequent enforcement of, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was the centerpiece of his administration.
22. 22nd U.S. President Grover Cleveland.
Stephen Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) was an American politician and lawyer who was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, the only president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office (1885–1889 and 1893–1897).
Cleveland won the popular vote for three presidential elections—in 1884, 1888, and 1892—and was one of two Democrats (with Woodrow Wilson) to be elected president during the era of Republican political domination dating from 1861 to 1933.
23. 23rd U.S. President Benjamin Harrison.
Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 23rd President of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, creating the only grandfather-grandson duo to have held the office. He was also the great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a founding father.
Since the office was established in 1789, 44 men have served as president. The first, George Washington, won a unanimous vote of the Electoral College. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms in office, and is counted as the nation's 22nd and 24th presidents; the incumbent, Donald Trump, is therefore the 45th president.
Here below is a cool sketch image collection from Alexander anitzenko that shows the first 23 presidents of the United States.
1. 1st U.S. President George Washington.
 |
| 1st U.S. President George Washington |
George Washington (1732-1799) was a soldier, farmer, and statesman, as well as the first President of the United States under the U.S. Constitution. Since the late 1780s, Washington has been referred to as the "Father of His Country" by compatriots.
Washington was commander-in-chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and presided over the 1787 Constitutional Convention. As a leading Patriot, Washington was among the nation's Founding Fathers.
2. 2nd U.S. President John Adams.
 |
| 2nd U.S. President John Adams |
John Adams (1735-1826) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the first Vice President (1789–1797) and second President of the United States (1797–1801).
Adams was a lawyer, diplomat, political theorist, and a leader of the movement for American independence from Great Britain. He was also a dedicated diarist and correspondent, particularly with his wife and closest advisor, Abigail.
3. 3rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson.
 |
| 3rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson |
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809.
Previously, Jefferson had been elected the second vice president of the United States, serving under John Adams from 1797 to 1801. He was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights motivating American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation; he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level.
4. 4th U.S. President James Madison.
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| 4th U.S. President James Madison |
James Madison Jr. (1751-1836) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
5. 5th U.S. President James Monroe.
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| 5th U.S. President James Monroe |
James Monroe (1758-1831) was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the fifth President of the United States from 1817 to 1825. Monroe was the last president of the Virginia dynasty, and his presidency ushered in what is known as the Era of Good Feelings.
6. 6th U.S. President John Quincy Adams.
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| 6th U.S. President John Quincy Adams |
John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was an American statesman who served as the sixth President of the United States from 1825 to 1829 at the peak of a political career during which he served in various capacities as diplomat, United States Senator, United States Secretary of State, and U.S. Representative from Massachusetts.
Adams was the eldest son of second president John Adams (served 1797–1801) and his wife, Abigail Adams.
7. 7th U.S. President Andrew Jackson.
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| 7th U.S. President Andrew Jackson |
Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) was an American soldier and statesman who served as the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837.
Before being elected to the presidency, Jackson gained fame as a general in the United States Army and served in both houses of Congress. As president, Jackson sought to advance the rights of the "common man" against a "corrupt aristocracy" and to preserve the Union.
8. 8th U.S. President Martin Van Buren.
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| 8th U.S. President Martin Van Buren |
Martin Van Buren (1782-1862) was an American statesman who served as the eighth President of the United States from 1837 to 1841.
A founder of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the ninth Governor of New York, the tenth U.S. Secretary of State and the eighth Vice President of the United States. Van Buren won the 1836 presidential election because of the endorsement of popular outgoing President Andrew Jackson and the organizational strength of the Democratic Party. He lost his 1840 reelection bid to Whig Party nominee William Henry Harrison due in part to the poor economic conditions of the Panic of 1837.
Later in his life, Van Buren emerged as an important anti-slavery leader and led the Free Soil ticket in the 1848 presidential election.
9. 9th U.S. President William Henry Harrison.
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| 9th U.S. President William Henry Harrison |
William Henry Harrison Sr. (1773-1841) was an American military officer, politician, and the ninth President of the United States.
Harrison died of pneumonia thirty-one days into his term, thereby serving the shortest tenure in United States presidential history. Because he was the first president to die in office, his death sparked a constitutional crisis about succession.
10. 10th U.S. President John Tyler.
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| 10th U.S. President John Tyler |
John Tyler (1790-1862) was the tenth President of the United States from 1841 to 1845 after briefly being the tenth Vice President (1841); he was elected to the latter office on the 1840 Whig ticket with President William Henry Harrison.
Tyler ascended to the presidency after Harrison's death in April 1841, only a month after the start of the new administration. He was a supporter of states' rights, and as president he adopted nationalist policies only when they did not infringe on the powers of the states. His unexpected rise to the presidency, with the resulting threat to the presidential ambitions of Henry Clay and other politicians, left him estranged from both major political parties.
11. 11th U.S. President James K. Polk.
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| 11th U.S. President James K. Polk |
James Knox Polk (1795-1849) was the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). He previously was Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841).
A protégé of Andrew Jackson, he was a member of the Democratic Party and an advocate of Jacksonian democracy. During Polk's presidency, the United States expanded significantly with the annexation of the Republic of Texas, the Oregon Territory, and the Mexican Cession following the American victory in the Mexican–American War.
12. 12th U.S. President Zachary Taylor.
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| 12th U.S. President Zachary Taylor |
Zachary Taylor (1784-1850) was the 12th President of the United States, serving from March 1849 until his death in July 1850.
Taylor previously was a career officer in the United States Army, rose to the rank of major general and became a national hero as a result of his victories in the Mexican–American War. As a result, he won election to the White House despite his vague political beliefs. His top priority as president was preserving the Union, but he died sixteen months into his term, before making any progress on the status of slavery, which had been inflaming tensions in Congress.
13. 13th U.S. President Millard Fillmore.
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| 13th U.S. President Millard Fillmore |
Millard Fillmore (1800-1874) was the 13th President of the United States (1850–1853), the last to be a member of the Whig Party while in the White House.
A former U.S. Representative from New York, Fillmore was elected the nation's 12th Vice President in 1848, and was elevated to the presidency by the death of Zachary Taylor. He was instrumental in getting the Compromise of 1850 passed, a bargain that led to a brief truce in the battle over slavery. He failed to win the Whig nomination for president in 1852; he gained the endorsement of the nativist Know Nothing Party four years later, and finished third in that election.
14. 14th U.S. President Franklin Pierce.
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| 14th U.S. President Franklin Pierce |
Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) was the 14th President of the United States (1853–1857), a northern Democrat who saw the abolitionist movement as a fundamental threat to the unity of the nation. He alienated anti-slavery groups by championing and signing the Kansas–Nebraska Act and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act; yet he failed to stem conflict between North and South, setting the stage for Southern secession and the American Civil War.
15. 15th U.S. President James Buchanan.
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| 15th U.S. President James Buchanan |
James Buchanan Jr. (1791-1868) was an American politician who served as the 15th President of the United States (1857–61), serving immediately prior to the American Civil War.
A member of the Democratic Party, Buchanan was the 17th United States Secretary of State and had served in the Senate and House of Representatives before becoming president.
16. 16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln.
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| 16th U.S. President Abraham Lincoln |
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was an American statesman and lawyer who served as the 16th President of the United States from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865.
Lincoln led the United States through the American Civil War—its bloodiest war and perhaps its greatest moral, constitutional, and political crisis. In doing so, he preserved the Union, abolished slavery, strengthened the federal government, and modernized the economy.
17. 17th U.S. President Andrew Johnson.
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| 17th U.S. President Andrew Johnson |
Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) was the 17th President of the United States, serving from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president as he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
A Democrat who ran with Lincoln on the National Union ticket, Johnson came to office as the Civil War concluded. The new president favored quick restoration of the seceded states to the Union. His plans did not give protection to the former slaves, and he came into conflict with the Republican-dominated Congress, culminating in his impeachment by the House of Representatives. He was acquitted in the Senate by one vote.
18. 18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant.
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| 18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant |
Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) was an American soldier and statesman who served as Commanding General of the Army and the 18th President of the United States, the highest positions in the military and the government of the United States.
A prominent United States Army general during the American Civil War, Grant led the Union Army to victory over the Confederacy with the supervision of Abraham Lincoln. As President of the United States (1869–1877) Grant led the Republicans in their efforts to remove the vestiges of Confederate nationalism and slavery during Reconstruction.
19. 19th U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes.
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| 19th U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes |
Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822-1893) was the 19th President of the United States from 1877 to 1881, an American congressman, and governor of Ohio.
Hayes was a lawyer and staunch abolitionist who defended runaway slaves in court proceedings. He was seriously wounded fighting in the Union Army during the American Civil War. He assumed the presidency at the end of the Reconstruction Era through the Compromise of 1877.
In office he ended Army support for Republican state governments in the South, promoted civil service reform, and attempted to reconcile the divisions left over from the Civil War and Reconstruction.
20. 20th U.S. President James A. Garfield.
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| 20th U.S. President James A. Garfield |
James Abram Garfield (1831-1881) was the 20th President of the United States, serving from March 4, 1881, until his assassination later that year.
Garfield had served nine terms in the House of Representatives, and had been elected to the Senate before his candidacy for the White House, though he declined the Senate seat once he was elected president. He is the only sitting House member to be elected president.
21. 21st U.S. President Chester A. Arthur.
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| 21st U.S. President Chester A. Arthur |
Chester Alan Arthur (1829-1886) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 21st President of the United States from 1881 to 1885; he succeeded James A. Garfield upon the latter's assassination.
At the outset, Arthur struggled to overcome a slightly negative reputation, which stemmed from his early career in politics as part of New York's Republican political machine. He succeeded by embracing the cause of civil service reform. His advocacy for, and subsequent enforcement of, the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act was the centerpiece of his administration.
22. 22nd U.S. President Grover Cleveland.
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| 22nd U.S. President Grover Cleveland |
Stephen Grover Cleveland (1837-1908) was an American politician and lawyer who was the 22nd and 24th President of the United States, the only president in American history to serve two non-consecutive terms in office (1885–1889 and 1893–1897).
Cleveland won the popular vote for three presidential elections—in 1884, 1888, and 1892—and was one of two Democrats (with Woodrow Wilson) to be elected president during the era of Republican political domination dating from 1861 to 1933.
23. 23rd U.S. President Benjamin Harrison.
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| 23rd U.S. President Benjamin Harrison |
Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901) was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 23rd President of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, creating the only grandfather-grandson duo to have held the office. He was also the great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a founding father.
