This is a list of presidents of the United States by time in office. The listed number of days is calculated as the difference between dates, which counts the number of calendar days except the last day. The length of a full four-year presidential term of office usually amounts to 1,461 days (three common years of 365 days plus one leap year of 366 days). If the last day is included, all numbers would be one day more, except Grover Cleveland would have two more days, as he served two non-consecutive terms.[a]
William Henry Harrison spent the shortest time in office, while Franklin D. Roosevelt spent the longest. Roosevelt is the only American president to have served more than two terms. Following ratification of the Twenty-second Amendment in 1951, presidents—beginning with Dwight D. Eisenhower—have been ineligible for election to a third term or, after serving more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected president, to a second term. The amendment contained a grandfather clause that explicitly exempted the incumbent president, then Harry S. Truman, from the new term limitation.
Grover Cleveland is currently the only president to leave office and return for a second non-consecutive term. Consequently, while there have been 46 presidencies in the nation's history, only 45 people have been sworn into office as Cleveland is numbered as both the 22nd and 24th president. It is anticipated that Donald Trump will become the second to do so upon his inauguration on January 20, 2025.
1 2 3 Of years evenly divisible by 100, only those evenly divisible by 400 are leap years. The years 1800 and 1900 are divisible by 100, but not by 400. John Adams's term and William McKinley's first term did not include a 366-day leap year, so those terms were one day shorter than a normal full term. 2000, being divisible by 400, had 366 days, thus Bill Clinton's second term was not shorter than his first.
↑ The Twentieth Amendment (ratified in 1933) moved Inauguration Day from March 4 to January 20. The 1937 presidential inauguration was the first to take place on the new date. As a result, Franklin D. Roosevelt's first term in office (1933–1937) was only 1,418 days long, 1month and 12days shorter than a normal term.
↑ Did not seek re-election in 1876. He sought a non-consecutive third term in 1880, but was defeated for renomination at the Republican National Convention.
↑ Each of Grover Cleveland's two non-consecutive terms in office was 1,461 days long.
↑ Due to logistical delays, George Washington's first term began 1month and 26days after the scheduled start of operations of the new government under the Constitution. As a result, the term was only 1,404 days long.
↑ Did not seek re-election in 1908. In 1912, he ran for a non-consecutive second full term, this time on the Progressive Party ticket, but was defeated.
↑ Subsequently sought a non-consecutive second term, first in 1844, but was defeated for renomination at the Democratic National Convention, and then again in 1848 (this time on the Free Soil Party ticket), but was defeated.
Stephen Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, serving from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. He was the first Democrat to win the presidency after the Civil War. He was one of only two presidents to be elected to serve non-consecutive terms.
William McKinley was the 25th president of the United States, serving from 1897 until his assassination in 1901. A member of the Republican Party, he led a realignment that made Republicans largely dominant in the industrial states and nationwide for decades. He presided over victory in the Spanish–American War of 1898; gained control of Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines; restored prosperity after a deep depression; rejected the inflationary monetary policy of free silver, keeping the nation on the gold standard; and raised protective tariffs.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 5, 1872. Incumbent President Ulysses S. Grant, the Republican nominee, defeated Democratic-endorsed Liberal Republican nominee Horace Greeley.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 4, 1884. Democratic Governor Grover Cleveland of New York narrowly defeated Republican James G. Blaine of Maine. It was set apart by mudslinging and personal allegations that eclipsed substantive issues, such as civil administration change. Cleveland was the first Democrat elected president of the United States since James Buchanan in 1856, the first to hold office since Andrew Johnson left the White House in 1869, and the last to hold office until Woodrow Wilson, who began his first term in 1913. For this reason, 1884 is a significant election in U.S. political history, marking an interruption in the era when Republicans largely controlled the presidency between Reconstruction and the Great Depression.
Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 8, 1892. In the fourth rematch in American history, the Democratic nominee, former president Grover Cleveland, defeated the incumbent Republican President Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's victory made him the first president in American history to be elected to a non-consecutive second term, a feat not repeated until Donald Trump was elected in 2024. This was the first of two occasions when incumbents were defeated in consecutive elections—the second being Gerald Ford's loss in 1976 to Jimmy Carter followed by Carter's loss in 1980 to Ronald Reagan. The 1892 election saw the incumbent White House party defeated in three consecutive elections, which did not occur again until 2024.
The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution limits the number of times a person can be elected to the office of President of the United States to two terms, and sets additional eligibility conditions for presidents who succeed to the unexpired terms of their predecessors. Congress approved the Twenty-second Amendment on March 21, 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification. That process was completed on February 27, 1951, when the requisite 36 of the 48 states had ratified the amendment, and its provisions came into force on that date.
Charles Warren Fairbanks was an American politician who served as the 26th vice president of the United States under President Theodore Roosevelt from 1905 to 1909. A member of the Republican Party, Fairbanks was previously a senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905.
Marcus Alonzo Hanna was an American businessman and Republican politician who served as a United States Senator from Ohio as well as chairman of the Republican National Committee. A friend and political ally of President William McKinley, Hanna used his wealth and business skills to successfully manage McKinley's presidential campaigns in 1896 and in 1900.
Joseph Benson Foraker was an American politician of the Republican Party who served as the 37th governor of Ohio from 1886 to 1890 and as a United States senator from Ohio from 1897 until 1909.
The Curse of Tippecanoe is an urban legend about the deaths in office of presidents of the United States who were elected in years divisible by 20. According to the legend, Tenskwatawa, leader of Native American tribes defeated in 1811 at the Battle of Tippecanoe by a military expedition led by William Henry Harrison, had cursed the "Great White Fathers".
The presidency of William McKinley began on March 4, 1897, when William McKinley was inaugurated and ended September 14, 1901, upon his assassination. A longtime Republican, McKinley is best known for conducting the successful Spanish–American War (1898), freeing Cuba from Spain; taking ownership of the Republic of Hawaii; and purchasing the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico. It includes the 1897 Dingley Tariff which raised rates to protect manufacturers and factory workers from foreign competition, and the Gold Standard Act of 1900 that rejected free silver inflationary proposals. Rapid economic growth and a decline in labor conflict marked the presidency and he was easily reelected. He was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt following his death.
The president-elect of the United States is the candidate who has presumptively won the United States presidential election and is awaiting inauguration to become the president. There is no explicit indication in the U.S. Constitution as to when that person actually becomes president-elect, although the Twentieth Amendment uses the term "president-elect", thereby giving the term constitutional basis. It is assumed the Congressional certification of votes cast by the Electoral College of the United States – occurring after the third day of January following the swearing-in of the new Congress, per provisions of the Twelfth Amendment – unambiguously confirms the successful candidate as the official "president-elect" under the U.S. Constitution. As an unofficial term, president-elect has been used by the media since at least the latter half of the 19th century and was in use by politicians since at least the 1790s. Politicians and the media have applied the term to the projected winner, even on election night, and very few who turned out to lose have been referred to as such.
The inauguration of Grover Cleveland as the 22nd president of the United States took place on Wednesday, March 4, 1885, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 25th inauguration and marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Grover Cleveland as president and the only term of Thomas A. Hendricks as vice president. Hendricks died 266 days into this term, and the office remained vacant since there was no constitutional provision which allow an intra-term vice-presidential office filling; it would be regulated by the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967.
The inauguration of Grover Cleveland as the 24th president of the United States took place on Saturday, March 4, 1893, at the East Portico of the United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. This was the 27th inauguration and marked the commencement of the second and final four-year term of Grover Cleveland as president and the only term of Adlai Stevenson I as vice president. Cleveland had previously been the 22nd president, and was the first president to serve two non-consecutive terms. Chief Justice Melville Fuller administered the presidential oath of office. It snowed during the inauguration. This will be the only inauguration in which a former president was re-inaugurated after a non-consecutive term until the swearing-in of Donald Trump in 2025, following his win in the 2024 presidential election.
The first inauguration of Theodore Roosevelt as the 26th president of the United States, took place on Saturday, September 14, 1901, at the Ansley Wilcox House, at 641 Delaware Avenue in Buffalo, New York, following the death of President William McKinley earlier that day. The inauguration – the fifth non-scheduled, extraordinary inauguration to ever take place and the first in the 20th century – marked the commencement of the first term of Theodore Roosevelt as president. John R. Hazel, U.S. District Judge for the Western District of New York, administered the presidential oath of office. Aged 42 years and 322 days, Roosevelt was and currently is the youngest person to become president.
Grover Cleveland was president of the United States first from March 4, 1885, to March 4, 1889, and then from March 4, 1893, to March 4, 1897. The first Democrat elected after the Civil War, Cleveland is one of only two U.S. presidents to leave office after one term and later be elected for a second term, and the only one to date to have served two full non-consecutive terms. His presidencies were the nation's 22nd and 24th. Cleveland defeated James G. Blaine of Maine in 1884, lost to Benjamin Harrison of Indiana in 1888, and then defeated President Harrison in 1892. He was succeeded by Republican William McKinley, who won in 1896.
References
↑ Cleaves, Freeman (1939). Old Tippecanoe: William Henry Harrison and His Time. C. Scribner's Sons. p.152.
↑ Ingersoll, Jared. "Death of the President". University of Virginia's Miller Center of Public Affairs. Archived from the original on October 8, 2010. Retrieved November 2, 2010.
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