History Quiz: Who was the first U.S. President??

Who was the U.S. of A's first President??

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Gotta love an aviation forum that gives really bored people a place to find other really lonely, bored people.
Sorry I bit....:rolleyes2:
 
It depends on semantics, to some extent. Randolph was the first President of the Continental Congress, Hancock was President at the time the Declaration was signed, Hanson when the Articles were approved, and so forth.

I chose Randolph because he was the first President of the first body that can be indisputably considered a direct ancestor to the nation eventually established under the Constitution, but other answers are possible, depending on semantics more so than history.

-Rich
 
RJM62 said:
It depends on semantics, to some extent. Randolph was the first President of the Continental Congress, Hancock was President at the time the Declaration was signed, Hanson when the Articles were approved, and so forth.

I chose Randolph because he was the first President of the first body that can be indisputably considered a direct ancestor to the nation eventually established under the Constitution, but other answers are possible, depending on semantics more so than history.

-Rich
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That's my whole point. The U.S. didn't NOT exist one day, then existed the next. The building of the US was a gradual process that occured in several key steps. Each person on the list was President for one of those steps. Decide which step you consider the US to be an indepndent entity from the UK and that will determine who is the "First President"

One correction though, Samuel Huntington was President when the Articles of Confederation were ratified. Presiding over the Congress durring this time was his last official act. After that, Thomas McKean was elected as the first President under the Articles of Confederation, however he only served a few months and was unable to get much accomplished. John Hanson is the first President to serve a full one year term and act as an effective President of the new governing body and therefore has a good claim as the first President.
 
Jim Logajan said:
After ratification of the current U.S. Constitution?
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There's the trick.

Before that, we had united States (little u, and even that's debatable). There was virtually no Federal government; it lacked basic abilities to tax and defend that every other single country has. It was much closer to the EU than, say, Germany. The EU is not a sovereign nation. The president of the Continental Congress? That's closer to the Speaker of the House or a PM. Not at all the same.

So, if you want to use the capital U, the answer is Washington. All the others might have been called President, but it was a different office.

Don't let form trump function if you want to understand this. Lots of people have been called President, who were not POTUS.
 
Capt.Crash'n'Burn said:
That's my whole point. The U.S. didn't NOT exist one day, then existed the next. The building of the US was a gradual process that occured in several key steps. Each person on the list was President for one of those steps. Decide which step you consider the US to be an indepndent entity from the UK and that will determine who is the "First President"

One correction though, Samuel Huntington was President when the Articles of Confederation were ratified. Presiding over the Congress durring this time was his last official act. After that, Thomas McKean was elected as the first President under the Articles of Confederation, however he only served a few months and was unable to get much accomplished. John Hanson is the first President to serve a full one year term and act as an effective President of the new governing body and therefore has a good claim as the first President.
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I stand corrected. I should have looked it up to check myself before posting.

-Rich
 
To quote a good man "I did not know that.". None of that was covered in American history. I'd still say old George and I am pretty sure the other guys don't much care today.
 
silver-eagle said:
To quote a good man "I did not know that.". None of that was covered in American history. I'd still say old George and I am pretty sure the other guys don't much care today.
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Every last bit of that except for the intentional obfuscation over different offices with the same name was covered in American history.
 
Thanks for the interesting question.

PS. I think you misspelled Elias Boundinot.
 
I know about most of this before but this did make me do a little more research. I bet most people have no clue about most of this.
 
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