People
Historical Figures and Influential People in History
Explore rulers, generals, thinkers, scientists and reformers who shaped world history. Search for a specific person, or browse by era, region, country and A–Z.
Modern History Figures from United States
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13 results
Barack Obama
1961–?Americas
He ran for president two years into his first Senate term, won on a message of hope, and spent eight years discovering what hope costs in practice.
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Bill Clinton
1946–?Americas
He governed through a decade of prosperity, survived impeachment, and left office with the highest approval ratings of any departing president — and the most complicated legacy.
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Donald Trump
1946–?Americas
He ran for president as an outsider, won against expectations, lost the next election, ran again, and won — making him the first American president to serve two non-consecutive terms since the nineteenth century.
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George H. W. Bush
1924–2018Americas
He oversaw the end of the Cold War, assembled a global coalition to win a war in the Gulf, and then lost his re-election campaign to a man from a small town in Arkansas.
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George W. Bush
1946–?Americas
He came to office promising a humble foreign policy, then responded to the worst attack on American soil in history with two wars that are still unresolved decades later.
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Gerald Ford
1913–2006Americas
He was never elected president or vice president, reached both offices through appointment, and spent his single term trying to rebuild a government the public had stopped trusting.
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Henry Kissinger
1923–2023Americas
He shaped American foreign policy for a decade — winning the Nobel Peace Prize in the same year he was authorising secret bombing campaigns — and the argument about his legacy never ended.
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Jimmy Carter
1924–2024Americas
He left the White House widely considered a failed president and spent the next four decades building houses for the poor, monitoring elections, and eradicating diseases — quietly becoming one of the most admired men alive.
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Joe Biden
1942–?Americas
He ran for president three times across forty years, lost twice, and won the third time at the age of seventy-seven.
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John F Kennedy
1917–1963Americas
He served just over a thousand days as president, and sixty years later the arguments about what he would have done with the rest of his term show no sign of ending.
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Lyndon B Johnson
1908–1973Americas
He passed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, and Medicare — more transformative legislation than almost any president — then watched Vietnam consume everything.
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Richard Nixon
1913–1994Americas
He opened China, ended the draft, founded the EPA — and then recorded himself discussing how to cover up a break-in and handed his enemies the evidence they needed.
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Ronald Reagan
1911–2004Americas
He was a B-movie actor who became the most consequential American president of the late twentieth century — and the argument about how he managed it has never stopped.
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