This bugs me. I keep hearing that Barack Obama will be the 44th president. But, this assertion is not correct. Only 42 men have already held the office of President, Obama will be the 43rd. Obama will soon be the 43rd president, not the 44th.
Grover Cleveland had two presidencies.
The problem is, everyone wants to count Grover Cleveland twice — because he had two non-consecutive terms. It makes sense to say that Cleveland had two presidencies, but Cleveland, himself, is one person, not two.
Cleveland, a Democrat, had the 22nd presidency, starting in 1885. Then, Benjamin Harrison, a Republican, was elected and Harrison had the 23rd presidency starting in 1889. Then Cleveland was elected again, and had the 24th presidency, starting in 1893.
So, it is correct to say that Obama’s will be the 44th presidency. But only 42 men prior to Obama have held the office of U.S. President. Obama will be the 43rd president, not the 44th.
Interesting post. I didn’t realize.
In Denmark we call the way you are pointing this out: flue knepperi. Which means you focusing on a completly unimportant subject
Lund, thanks for the new word. I agree this is not the most important topic, but, still, it is a topic of interest. Every US citizen should know a little more about our U.S. history.
I agree with you Mike. Obama is only the 43rd person to take an office. If a president is re-elected for a second consecutive term he retakes the oath of office a second time for the second term right? So what does it matter that Clevland served non-consecutive terms. Then again, if we looked at that way then each term should be counted. That would be 58 terms (if I conted correctly). Then again Harrison was president for one month and died of pneumonia 6 months ofeter he took the oath of office. To keep the anomilies going, What about the transition from Nixon to Ford. Ford was appointed by Nixon when Spiro Agnu resigned in 1973 and then when Nixon himslef stepped down Ford took over. To this day Ford is the only U.S. President to never be elected to a termof office as a president or vice-president. He only finished where Nixon left off (nothing against Ford and his presidency).
You are not the only person who finds presidental history inconsistant. Then again we are talking we are talking about our own U.S. ,…. never mind.
opps,… to correct some of my spelling and 1 mistake in trivia
,…58 terms (if I counted correctly) Harrison President 1841 died of pneumonia one month to the day after taking office and Garfield was President in 1881 for 6 months (2 of which he was in lingering agonizingly) after he was shot. So what exactly is a term?
It’s the “office” of the president that is the object, not the person in it, hence the 44th president, and the 43rd person to hold the office.
But here’s one for you: when did the 21st century begin? Considering that nobody ever lived in the year “zero”.
Yeah until this is completely reconciled, it would be presumptuous to post something outright claiming that 44th is flat out wrong. It’s certainly worth investigating but I don’t think there’s anything conclusive in either direction (based solely on these posts) which requires more fact finding and determining what organization is responsibe for maintaining a count and WHAT it is that they count.
Clearly some people are saying “the office being occupied” others are saying the human being count to have taken office regardless of terms (consecutive or otherwise) and then there are those like the latter but count each “term” served. And then term has to be defined as well…. Everything being said, I agree that by common interperitation, “Who was the 23rd president of the United States” in a trivia question.. that CLEARLY would be graded by counting each person that served, regardless of the service detais. ike a photo on the wall of our US presidents…… count em up… Then YES 43 stands.