Presidents of the United States

The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States, indirectly elected to a four-year term via the Electoral College. The officeholder leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The office was established in 1789. The first president, George Washington, won a unanimous vote of the Electoral College. Presidents are numbered according to uninterrupted periods served by the same person.

For example, George Washington served two consecutive terms and is counted as the first president (not the first and second). Grover Cleveland was both the 22nd president and the 24th president because his two terms were not consecutive. A vice president who temporarily becomes acting president under the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution is not counted, because the president remains in office during such a period.

Since the ratification of the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1951, no person may be elected president more than twice, and no one who has served more than two years of a term to which someone else was elected may be elected more than once. John Tyler was the first vice president to assume the presidency during a presidential term, and set the precedent that a vice president who does so becomes the fully functioning president with his presidency.

Here are all the U.S. presidents in chronological order.