Here are some of the ways Mary Ball Washington, George Washington’s mother, has been described by historians: Crude. Greedy. Illiterate. Self-centered. Slovenly. A Loyalist. An especially ruthless slave-owner. An impediment to her son’s success. Alternatively, she has been ...read more
Celebrating Christmas in the White House has been a tradition since 1800. President John Adams and First Lady Abigail Adams were the first to throw a Christmas party in the president’s official residence, but it was not as we know it today. These were intimate gatherings with ...read more
A striking portrait hung on the wall of the campaign headquarters for George H.W. Bush’s 1988 presidential run. It wasn’t a slick painting of the vice-president, who hoped to become the next Republican in the White House. Rather, it was a mug shot, a grainy photo of a black man ...read more
Everywhere I go lately people stop to ask me: Are these the worst of times? No, history reassures us. Imagine Abraham Lincoln entering the White House with the country about to rupture into a civil war that would leave more than 600,000 dead. Theodore Roosevelt was thrust into ...read more
When John Quincy Adams fell for the woman who would become his wife, his mother worried about the effect it might have on his political dreams, while the future bride’s American ex-pat father worried that Yankees made poor husbands. Louisa Catherine Johnson, as she was then ...read more
They may be only 10 percent of the population, but it’s become apparent that left-handers have the edge in at least one prominent area—politics. No fewer than six out of 13 U.S. presidents since World War II have been lefties, helping to fuel speculation that left-handed people ...read more
When presidential candidate and former Vice President Richard Nixon arrived in Miami Beach for the 1968 Republican convention, he was given a hero’s welcome. Before he had even clinched the nomination, he was greeted at the airport by an estimated 700-person crowd, 2,000 balloons ...read more
Newly discovered film footage from 1935 offers a rare glimpse of President Franklin D. Roosevelt walking, in a show of extreme effort that he went to great lengths to hide from the public eye. Fred Hill of New York was attending the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House with ...read more
Trash-talking your political opponent is an American tradition that began long before the age of Twitter. So is talking trash about your vice president, the president who appointed you, or the president you pardoned. With that in mind, here’s a look at some of the most memorable ...read more
Should the seventh president be revered or reviled? The question of how to grapple with Andrew Jackson’s tarnished reputation has existed since Old Hickory’s contested lifetime. Known as strong-willed, argumentative and combative in his day, Jackson’s critics point to his harsh ...read more
When dressmaker Abraham Zapruder brought his camera to see President John F. Kennedy’s motorcade pass through Dealey Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963, he could never have suspected that he’d witness anassassination—or that his home movie would become one of the most watched ...read more
As the first secretary of the U.S. Treasury, Alexander Hamilton built the foundations of the national banking system and wielded more power in the earliest years of American democracy than any other man beside George Washington. Yet unlike Washington, and unlike his longtime ...read more
After his death, the Reverend Billy Graham became just the fourth private citizen in American history to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda, a recognition usually reserved for elected officials and military leaders. As spiritual counsel to a dozen presidents, Graham was ...read more
Sure, Rex Tillerson’s 13-and-a-half-month tenure as Secretary of State was kind of short. But he’s not the first top White House official to be kicked out early, especially in Donald Trump’s administration, which lost National Security Advisor Michael Flynn within the first ...read more
Donald Trump shocked the world on March 8, 2018 by announcing that he would visit North Korea to meet with its dictator Kim Jong-un, making him the first president to visit the “hermit kingdom.” It’s a move that many, including members of the State Department, couldn’t have ...read more
In August 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt issued an order from his summer residence in Oyster Bay, New York, that would soon be the talk of Washington—and the world beyond. Addressing himself to the government printer, Roosevelt decreed that all documents issued by the White ...read more
When China announced that it was abolishing presidential term limits, paving the way for Xi Jinping to stay in power indefinitely, U.S. media framed it as a dangerous decision. To many Americans, our two-term limit seems necessary and democratic. But for most of the United ...read more
Gifting someone a lock of your hair might seem a bit odd today. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, hair was a perfectly normal keepsake to give to friends, romantic partners, and the relatives in charge of your family’s hair wreath. Hair was also a souvenir you might want from ...read more
Presidential speeches reveal the United States’ challenges, hopes, dreams and temperature of the nation, as much as they do the wisdom and perspective of the leader speaking them. Even in an age of Twitter, the formal, spoken word from the White House carries great weight and can ...read more
The Past in Color features the work of colorist Marina Amaral, bringing to life black and white photos with color applied digitally. Farsighted but underrated, John Quincy Adams was a president of firsts. He was the first president not to have been a founding father. The first ...read more
It may be the age of the photo selfie, but with the recent unveiling of the presidential portrait of Barack Obama at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, Americans are again reminded that official renderings of our top leaders tend to come in the most ...read more
Michael Isikoff was the first reporter to uncover one of the biggest scoops of the 1990s: that the Independent Counsel was investigating President Bill Clinton over his affair with 22-year-old White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Through meticulous reporting with well-placed ...read more
Two weeks into his presidency, The New York Times ran an article detailing how President Donald J. Trump was wandering the halls of the White House in his bathrobe, looking for the light switches. The paper, “in its efforts to cover a presidency that it openly saw as aberrant, ...read more
Donald J. Trump’s presidential physical has many in the nation abuzz about whether all was revealed about our current President’s health. The White House doctor described him as being in great health, but outside experts have questioned that assessment given how high the ...read more
