Secret Service and the Presidents
Historian William Seale has described presidential protection as a learning process, with presidents and their families and the Secret Service...
The West Wing: 1975-1999
How Long? 1 minute
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum/NARA
1979: Islamic militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran, Iran, and took Americans hostage. The West Wing once again became a crisis center as President Jimmy Carter and his staff planned a response.
RONALD REAGAN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
1981: President Ronald Reagan announced the appointment of Sandra Day O’Connor to the Supreme Court in a Rose Garden ceremony. O’Connor became the first female to be sworn in as Supreme Court Justice on September 25.
1986: President Reagan and his staff watched a tape of the space shuttle Challenger launch from the West Wing offices on January 28 and with the nation mourned the horrific explosion.
Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum/NARA
GEORGE BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
1991: The U.S.-led multinational force launched Operation Desert Storm on January 16 to begin the Persian Gulf War against Iraq. President George Bush transformed the West Wing into a strategic center to plan a build up and invasion that ended Iraqi occupation of Kuwait and forced Iraq’s acceptance of U.N. ceasefire terms that formally ended the war.
1995: The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed. Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was closed to traffic.
WILLIAM J. CLINTON PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY AND MUSEUM
1998: The U.S. House of Representatives approved two of four proposed Articles of Impeachment against President Bill Clinton. The president held a Rose Garden rally with supporters and later was acquitted of the two articles by the Senate.
You Might Also Like
-
-
Presidents and the Hey Day of Horse Racing in the Federal City
President Richard M. Nixon was the first sitting president to attend the Kentucky Derby on May 3, 1969. In his party that...
-
The American Presidents and Shakespeare
On April 23, 1932, Shakespeare-lovers from around the country flocked to Washington, D.C., to attend the dedication of the handsome new...
-
Presidents and College Football
Nearly 150 years after its beginnings college football season is in full swing. The sport has attracted countless players and even...
-
Presidents and the Potomac
For the politicians, civil servants, and accompanying citizenry of the new federal government—freshly arrived in 1800 from comfortable, sophisticated Philadelphia—the...
-
Presidents' Day at the White House
Just how does the president celebrate Presidents’ Day? Throughout the more than 200-year history of the White House, presidents themselves ha...
-
Bio Warren G. Harding
Before his nomination, Warren G. Harding declared, "America's present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not...
-
Bio William Henry Harrison
Give him a barrel of hard cider and settle a pension of two thousand a year on him, and my...
-
Bio William Howard Taft
Distinguished jurist, effective administrator, but poor politician, William Howard Taft spent four uncomfortable years in the White House. Large, jovial,...
-
Bio Ulysses S. Grant
Late in the administration of Andrew Johnson, General Ulysses S. Grant quarreled with the president and aligned himself with the...
-
Bio Martha Jefferson
At age 22, Martha Wayles Skelton was already a widow, an heiress, and a mother whose firstborn son would die in...
-
Bio William J. Clinton
Bill Clinton could fairly claim that his presidency had been among the most successful in modern times. He presided over...