For all of you guys ranting on about the electoral college and how the election should be decided on the popular vote, there's a reason we have the electoral college. This reason is so other states with lower populations (ex: Wyoming, the Dakotas, Montana) can have a say in the voting. Our government is a republic, so everyone has a say. If the elections were decided on the popular vote, the election would be decided only in the states with a large population such as California, New York, Texas, and Florida. So that would basically ruin the point of our government and start a tyranny.
Every ONE has a say? That doesn't make any sense when the ONEs from Wyoming have 3.6x the voting power as the ONEs from California. We've moved past the idea that the United States is a collection of states with competing interests. We're all one country. The only reason Republicans want to disenfranchise people so much or reduce their voting power is because they know that they can't possibly win if the will of the people was accurately represented. They NEED things like gerrymandering, illegal voter purging and voter registration restrictions, and the electoral college to hold on to power. If you're worried about tyranny look to those who represent a minority and are imposing their will on the majority, not the majority who have no power.
On the topic of the electoral college, James Madison wrote:
There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
The electoral college was created to placate the slaveholding south bestie, sorry xx
The Electoral College was a compromise to give slaves states a way to tip the scales more in their favor. The Electoral College should have been abolished with slavery.
The irony in your statement is it can negatively impact smaller populations within a large state. For example, there have been times when candidates lost small areas in California but won major metro areas like Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, etc., and won the state. The winning candidate gets all of the California electoral votes, which basically cancels out all of the votes for the losing candidate. Where is the representation for the smaller populations in small towns in California which were won by another candidate?
I could get behind the 6-week-long election season Australia has or whatever it is, I could have the time period wrong. Trump started his campaign to get reelected like the day after being sworn in, and most candidates for president in the USA start trying to generate buzz at least 3 or 4 years before the election and then start openly campaigning at least a year before. It's exhausting, even though you do have longer to vet and get to know everyone that is running.
There's a book called "Yo Millard Fillmore" that's an extended mnemonic for remembering all the presidents. I only remember parts of it, but I used it to help on this quiz. The only one I missed is...Millard Fillmore. *facepalm*
I'm from Finland and got 25 - I bet that no one of you Americans can name 25 Finnish presidents...don't worry, neither can I. Mainly because there has been only 12...
To do this the quizmaster would basically have to figure out every possible misspelling of every president's name and make them all count. Let's make it simple and require the right spelling.
Minus Polk the run of 8 presidents before Lincoln are also not well known amongst Americans. They were all forgettable. Most of them exercised little power (Congress was really in control of the country at the time). A few of them died a short while in to their terms in office. One was not even elected. And all are ranked among the worst presidents in US history, though Trump has got them beat in that category according to the latest polls.
(the 7 or 8 presidents after Lincoln are also often ranked among the worst in history, though not as bad as the lot that came before- not a good time in Presidential history)
I love that I get to learn about the presidents, I love George Washington because wouldn't it be cool if you were the person to be the starter of the presidency. It would be cool if I were the first president!!
I am in awe of the 45 men who listed as The President of The United States of America. We are the greatest country on this earth.
Yes, we have our ups and downs and we are not perfect and we only make up 5 percent of the World's population; yet We are the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. All 45 men deserve our respect for the office and all 45 served.
While it's true only 44 men have served as president, often people get confused because the current president is usually listed as the 45th. That's because Garfield, who served two non-consecutive terms, is listed as both POTUS # 22 and POTUS #24.
I wonder what accounts for the percentage difference between the two Roosevelts and the two Harrisons. The Bushes and Adams have the same percentage points, as one would expect.
44 Presidents is correct. Cleveland served two non consecutive terms.. 45 Administrations 44 Men. Excellent quiz. It got people to discuss the good and bad about America.
Most of the streets in my neighborhood are named after presidents and I still can't remember all of them! I will keep trying though because I want to earn the beautiful USA badge.
Got 100%. I knew that George H. W. Bush and George Bush were related, so I knew about two presidents that had the same name. Forgot that some of the presidents also had the same last name also.
if you watch grey's anatomy you have Wilson and Pierce. Pretty Little Liars : Harding (Ian). Indiana Jones : Harrison and Ford. Garfield : Garfield. Imagine those characters together and you'll remember them
Instead of Washington, could we have a picture of Franklin Pierce - because he is the only one I missed. 59% of my fellow quiztakers are in the same boat. :-)
He's one of the four presidents to have been assassinated while in office.
What's both interesting and tragic about his death is that he likely would have survived if he had better medical care.
Even though the doctors' care was standard medical practice for the time (germ theory was just beginning to be understood and was essentially unpracticed), they still caused him extensive damage beyond that of the assassin's initial bullet. Their techniques caused severe infection. The pain was excruciating. He did survive for another 11 weeks, but they were 11 horrible weeks.
Isn't it shameful that this quiz is needed for the History Badge!? USA is not the centre of the world! I would rather cite all the roman or chinese emperors...
Neither are Rome and China the centers of the world (despite the latter's claim). However, Rome and China were the world's most powerful empires in their prime, and the United States still is.
I don't object to having it required for the badge, but I do object to needing every single answer. Most of these presidents were not massively relevant to world history.
Half of these presidents were not even very important to U.S. history. We don't even talk about most of these presidents in school or college history courses.
There are way more Chinese and Roman emperors than there are American presidents though. Memorizing all of them is nearly impossible. There are only 45 Presidents, and this is a site where many people have already memorized 196 countries. While I think there's no need for someone from another country to know every American President, I also think it's a much more reasonable request than expecting someone to know all the Roman or Chinese emperors.
Future people like you will be disappointed! It is my opinion that low-quality political sniping (such as what you seen in the media) actively makes the world a worse place. To prevent this, we will be heavily sanitizing comments.
Why is this quiz included in the history badge? Non-American users who are interested in general history as a subject matter cannot be expected to be experts on American presidents. Plus, this quiz is already in the USA badge, so I would request you to remove this quiz from the history badge. Thanks!
If you'd like to check out my quiz about US currency, specifically who is featured on each denomination, that would be awesome! You can find it here If you like it, please rate and nominate so more people can experience it! Thank you :)
Everyone talks about the Electoral College (rightly so), but what about the fact that elections take place on a working day, and that voting is a complicated hassle compared to other countries? Average Joe thinks twice before going to vote. And if he does, he's drawn in by a hype around a charismatic, larger-than-life candidate. This was the case with Obama, and now with Trump.
Republicans seem to oppose anything that makes voting easier, though in this case I'm not sure if it really advantages them or not as more and more working class voters vote Republican. It would make a lot of sense to make it a national holiday.
Here's one way to remember, think of one important aspect of the president. For example, Taylor died because he ate too many cherries. Taft had to have a special bathtub built for him because he was just too fat. Presidents Fillmore, Buchanan, and Pierce refused the offer to celebrate Thanksgiving.
Hmmm, if you include Jimmy Carter, the USA has had 6 presidents with a first name of James.
Scotland had 6 King James, England only 2 (James the 1st being James VI of Scotland). Neither nation recognises the legitimacy of King LeBron James, although oddly the USA, on paper a monarchy-free republic, does.
This is completely random but I was trying to go through this quiz using both first and last names, and I noticed that donald j trump wasn't accepted, could you change that?
It seems like presidents' middle initials and middle names are accepted rather inconsistently. Richard M. Nixon is not accepted, but Dwight D. Eisenhower is. William Jefferson Clinton is accepted, but Barack Hussein Obama is not. It seems to me like the best fix is "don't make more work for yourself by entering unnecessary initials" but I can also see an argument that the quiz should be consistent on this.
I mean, if you want to do the two Harrisons, the two Johnsons, the two Adamses, and the two Bushes separately then fine, add first names and middle initials where necessary. But I agree, putting unnecessary middle initials is pointless. It is a bit weird how inconsistent the type-ins are with middle names, but it doesn't bother me really.
Not during his 2nd term. He left office after 2 terms, then decided he didn't like the job Taft was doing and sought a 3rd term. He failed to get the Republican nomination so he ran third party and ended up splitting the vote, thus leading to Wilson winning the election.
It's not looking like they will, but if they did; No, technically he wouldn't. Invoking the 25th doesn't actually remove the President from office. The Vice President becomes "Acting President" and all the President's powers are transferred over, but the sitting President remains the sitting President until their term ends or the 25th is revoked.
You're right, but the 25th actually has more detailed complications to it than that. CGP grey made a nice video about it here (https://youtu.be/boezS4C_MFc)
You don't recall correctly. If Trump had been impeached and removed from office, Pence would have been the President. If they'd just invoked the 25th, he would only have been acting President.
Sadly, Inauguration Day has arrived, so Tippecanoe's old record will stand.
this normal, this is because of Groover Cleveland who had two non-consecutive terms, due to that Cleveland is at the same time the 22nd and 24th presidents
Or read Bill Bryson's assertion that he was said to urinate out of the upper floor windows of the whitehouse. But the way I really remember him is from Futurama's hall of President heads, when he whines, "Chester A. Arthur fall down."
I always remember John Tyler from that episode, when they come back to the present and they are happy to see all the presidents, even john tyler, and he says: "That's the first time someone has talked to me in over 400 years"
Dang, I got 41, which I thought was ok. Not great, but ok. Then I saw that it was only better than like 59% of the people that took it. Now I feel like a big dummy.
Your comments here are as clever and balanced as the name you've chosen for yourself. Looking forward to seeing more of your genius and insight shared around the site.
Had all but damn Hayes for a solid 70 seconds. Literally had to start singing the president song to get that president! I even put in Grant first, I think their is no doubt Rutherford B Hayes is the most forgettable president, he wasn't good or bad enough.
He was a very influential president in the country of Paraguay, and is a hero there. He is practically the only reason they exist. Hayes agreed to negotiate a long-held border dispute between Argentina and Paraguay, and the decision gave Paraguay 60 percent of its land. This is the main reason he is viewed as a hero in Paraguay. Hayes was not a bad president by any means either for America
Well statistically speaking roughly 50% of the general population has an IQ below 100, which should be the mean. But the users of this site skew higher. I guess you could just look at the percentages and see how many there were.
how does a small man, former George's right hand man, reestablish the USMC within his 2nd year, make his wife say oh dear, lost his presidency without a shadow or hun, welcome everyone, to the JOHN ADAMS ADMINISTRATION!!!
That's because FDR is accepted for Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It's faster than typing Roosevelt. Maybe accept "Teddy" as a type in for Theodore Roosevelt--that is how the teddy bear got its name, after all.
It's crazy that a wrestling video helped me remember Taft through Obama and I learned the rest by president knowledge and taking this quiz with that wrestling video playing in my head.
Probably because Lyndon was popularly referred to as "LBJ" - which is a type-in for him. It's a similar situation for the Roosevelts - "FDR" is a type-in for Franklin.
Wikipedia says Tyler started as a Democrat but switched to Whig due to his opposition to Andrew Jackson during the Nullification Crisis. Either way, he was nominated as William Henry Harrison's running mate from the Whig Party.
Millard Fillmore and Chester A. Arthur are the only presidents I consistently forget every time I do a quiz. Even if I force myself to remember them I can never do it quickly to speedrun. Such forgettable people.
I wish they hadn't made the change to the badge system. I lost half of my badges at once, and I had worked so hard especially on this quiz to get the USA badge.
There was one difficulty however of a serious nature attending an immediate choice by the people. The right of suffrage was much more diffusive in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of the Negroes. The substitution of electors obviated this difficulty and seemed on the whole to be liable to fewest objections.
The electoral college was created to placate the slaveholding south bestie, sorry xx
Sorry guys but your antebellum presidents are totally unknown here - apart from Washington and Jefferson which I knew but the rest...
There's an entertaining miniseries on John Adams that was produced by HBO a few years back. Worth a download.
I am in awe of the 45 men who listed as The President of The United States of America. We are the greatest country on this earth.
Yes, we have our ups and downs and we are not perfect and we only make up 5 percent of the World's population; yet We are the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. All 45 men deserve our respect for the office and all 45 served.
Thanks to all of Our Presidents.
if you watch grey's anatomy you have Wilson and Pierce. Pretty Little Liars : Harding (Ian). Indiana Jones : Harrison and Ford. Garfield : Garfield. Imagine those characters together and you'll remember them
"There's Taylor, there's Tyler, there's Fillmore and there's Hayes. There's William Henry Harrison: 'I died in thirty days!'"
Also remembered Chester A. Arthur from Die Hard 3.
He was a good president, an even better family man, and an amazing human being. May he rest in peace.
Lord forgive me...
Can you please strandardise the acceptable spellings.
What's both interesting and tragic about his death is that he likely would have survived if he had better medical care.
Even though the doctors' care was standard medical practice for the time (germ theory was just beginning to be understood and was essentially unpracticed), they still caused him extensive damage beyond that of the assassin's initial bullet. Their techniques caused severe infection. The pain was excruciating. He did survive for another 11 weeks, but they were 11 horrible weeks.
Everybody has that one they just refuse to acknowledge as existing as President, don't they?
2020: Reese's commercial guy
REESES GUY 4 PRESIDENT!!
Scotland had 6 King James, England only 2 (James the 1st being James VI of Scotland). Neither nation recognises the legitimacy of King LeBron James, although oddly the USA, on paper a monarchy-free republic, does.
Sadly, Inauguration Day has arrived, so Tippecanoe's old record will stand.
Scoring
You scored 26/45 = 58%
This beats or equals 32% of test takers
The average score is 33
Your high score is 27
Scoring
You scored 31/45 = 69%
This beats or equals 42.3% of test takers
The average score is 33
Your high score is 31
I got 34/45. WIP.
I got 29,and I'm a teen from Taiwan!
I’ve done this quiz so many times the names now just come to me. I’m not even American, lol!
Like this, https://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/72360/us-presidents-in-chronological-order
But maybe this quiz is meant to be easier, since it's a badge quiz.
I enjoy taking it to practice, along with the chronological, and the picture quizzes.
When Johnson fills in, I get a ton of presidents for free (L J G H G A C H C M)